Nothern Finland
Heeeey!!!
I am ca. 400km into the Arctic Circle at the moment!! The road condition here is just unbelievable... they don't even bother gritting the road (not roads, only one road: E4) anymore. Well people have to have at least winter tyres here, but many people have stud tyres.
Have only seen two Gs in Finland so far, both in Rovaniemi. I am in a R129 SL.. extremely inappropriate but it hasn't failed me yet :D
Warm greetings from Inari
Pok
need pictures......
Spider1V
ahhh very disappointing... those photos are poor.
great trip you are having even if the car is wrong...
thanks for the pics and sharing the experience. btw, are you gonna visit loki while your there ?
rgds hus
Hmmmm, don't know who loki is, unfortunately :(
Drove to Russia this afternoon for cheap petrol and cigarettes :D :D The temperature dropped to -22.5 today :o The car is still going good,
Have some close encounters with the reindeer. They are not scared of people nor cars, instead they love chilling in the middle of the road (80kph limit but people usually drive at 110kph!!) Well by close encounters I didn't mean I nearly hit them, I got out of the car and walked to the border check point and two of those massive great animals followed me. Surely they were hoping that I would give them some food but unfortunately I didn't have any on me.
Another interesting is that many guards at the Russian side speak reasonable English, unlike the Ukrainians; so one should no encounter too much trouble if they are using Border Crossing Point Lotta.
Just seen some absolutely spectacular Aurora, photos WILL defo follow!!!!!!!
hi there. your w129 is one of the best cars you could have chosen for the trip a true masterpiece......!
loki is a member from pointed three. he knows a thing or two about G's. he is in iceland i believe.
btw, great pics !
rgds hus
loki is a member from pointed three. he knows a thing or two about G's. he is in iceland i believe.
btw, great pics !
rgds hus
Finland/Iceland - all the same really. Both north London:-)
you know what i mean......... they are all up north of the planet somewhere...
UG is in Finland.
About 2500 km from Loki, lol.
Aurora and me!!
RIghty, a few more things to add...
The 129 started without any signs of struggling in -17 or -15, but it took a few more seconds longer to start in -25.
Don't rely on the winters tyres too much when the temperature is somewhere between -5 - 0. Surely you experts know that the temperature during the day might be slightly ablove 0 so the snow on the road would melt, then become ice when it gets cold again. I have had 3 close moments when I tried to accelerate from 50mph tp 60mph, even I was doing it in a caution manner already.
Actually pay attention the reindeer warning signs when you are in Finland, it is a very very high chance that you will meet a few chilling in the middle of the road and take absolutely no notice of you when you drive pass.
Most automatic petrol stations do not take foreign credit/debit cards, no matter if one has a Visa or a Master. But the machine take cash, too.
There are only E10 or E5 in Finland, no pure petrol available.
The motorway between Lahti (part of the E75) and Helsinki is not that excellent: it is windy, the angle on the surface is somehow abnormal so that one should pay a lot of attention. One might as well take a smaller road. The speed limit on that motorway is 100kph, whereas the smaller roads have 80 or 100 but people usually drive at 110 anyway.
I have driving more than 1000 miles in Finland and only saw 1 police van on road, except for the border guards.
Russian border guards are very very slow at what they do and one needs to tell them everything about one's vehicle. A detail search of the vehicle is definate at Border Crossing Lotta because the guards have massively out numbered the visitors and they get bored.
That's about it!!! Thanks for reading :D
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The thing in the first photo suppose to be a roundabout at the border of Sweden and Finland, it was quite funny because the two countries was literately divided by a small roundabout.
The second photo was the good bit of the road that connects the border town to Rovaniemi, which is ca. 100km further north.
The third one is a nice little café on the way to Inari
The last one is the bridge at a border 'town' connecting Finland and Norway, called Utsjoki. Don't be fooled, it is marked as a town on the map but it has 2 petrol stations and a Norwegian Custon guard house, nothing more.
??? I don't know why the first photo is chopped and the second is upside down, they look completely normal on my computer but they were messed once uploaded... sorry about that!!