The flight to Kemi was just under 1.5 hours in a 70 seater prop plane but the views were amazing. Massive amounts of snow everywhere. It too a while to work out that under all that snow are lakes and rivers and there are hundreds of them. We arrived to -22°C and were taken to the Lapponia Safari office to be kitted out in thermal suits and boots that are incredibly attractive and make everyone look like the Michelin Man.
We were picked up at 8am the following morning in the pitch black and boarded our bus to the Ranua Wildlife Park, which is a zoo. We were very fortunate that we had a beautiful day with clear skies. We were all surprised at how light it was as we were expecting it to be twilight-ish due to the Polar Night. That would only be more evident further north. The scenery was absolutely beautiful, real Christmas card material….surprisingly enough. The photos just don’t do it justice. Daylight up here is 10am to 3pm.
The zoo was goo and the animals in their natural environment are so much bigger. The otter’s I’ve seen in Australia are quite small where as these were really big and the owls were very large also. It was nice to see polar bears in their natural environment rather than a Seaworld, which somehow seems wrong. By the time we got the moose and reindeers we were all freezing (it was -23°C).
We had lunch at the zoo, I didn’t have an issue with that until I wrote it and now I’m left wondering which animal we were eating!!! Then it was back on the bus to the husky farm. We were all quite cold as it was and were all standing outside waiting for one of the families to get their act together so we could have our lesson. Then they kept us waiting again while they got drivers and passengers sorted. All this time we are getting colder and colder and the dogs are going nuts. The dogs just wanted to get going so they are all barking and howling and occasionally fights broke out between dogs on different teams and even dogs on the same team. They do get quite vicious. I went with Kirsty and let her drive, both of us thinking there would be a stop for everyone to change over but that didn’t happen. If I hadn’t been doing dog sledding again in Sweden, I would have been bummed not to have the chance. But my feet were soooo cold I didn’t really care and just about sprinted to the teepee with the fire.
Once I’d defrosted I did manage to brave the outdoor toilet – I’d normally call it a long drop but I think it was more of a short drop. But that trip involved taking off several layers of clothes and exposing too much delicate flesh to the cold. All my cheeks were frozen by the time I got back to the fire. I didn’t have a torch and it was pretty dark by this stage but I could see the where the hole was so, it was all good. The American girl wanted to go but didn’t want to go in the dark (a bit precious) so I suggested she borrow the guides head torch. As she was leaving I told her it might be better not to take the torch, that way she wouldn’t be able to see what it really looked like. She came back pretty quickly, without going….wuzz.
We had our Christmas Dinner that night at a different hotel, with all the groups mixed together. The kids had a great time making decorations and gingerbread but it did have the Christmas feel that any of the adults were expecting. The meal was a buffet of Finnish Christmas specialties….hmmm. For a cold country you’d think they’d like hot food but no, they seem to like cold dishes. Lots of small fish including caviar, reindeer and inch thick slabs of pickled ham and cold apple pie for dessert. Not the best Christmas dinner I’ve ever had but there you go.
Christmas Day was a slightly later start and we headed out through Rovaniemi (1.5 hours away) to the Reindeer farm. The sleighs weren’t what I expected, I think I had a more American movie image in my head but they were lovely. And you don’t actually get to drive the sleigh, there are about 6 reindeer tied together in along line with a herder walking alongside the first deer. It was so lovely going through the forest, very peaceful. My reindeer was named Veeti. Then we sat around in the teepee by the fire getting a bit of lesson reindeer herding.
Then it was on to the Santa Park. The park is lovely however even though we had a time booked, we still had to join a fairly long queue but then again, Santa is a popular guy. Meeting Santa was sooooo cool. You’re only there long enough to have a couple of photos taken but it was awesome. He shook my hand and then held onto it for a while and his hands were soooo soft. I just wanted to cuddle him. It was so great. Impossible to walk out of there without a huge smile plastered on your face. There’s stacks of souvenir shops and a few restaurants as well as sleigh rides, husky rides and a even inner-tubing which looked like fun. We were all very impressed that the prices were very reasonable and not incredibly inflated like we expected.
We were all disappointed with the Christmas decorations. I had seen beautiful ones in Paris and again in Helsinki but hadn’t bought any because I was waiting for the Santa Village. I bought a few small things but I, along with the others were expecting something really impressive.
I had dinner at the hotel with 2 of Aussie families from my bus and then went over the other hotel where everyone else was staying to catch up with the rest. We had a couple of drinks but everyone was pretty tired.
My last day in Kemi, I went on private snow mobile tour of the lakes and islands. I went with Sami, our guide for the past two days, who is great fun. Driving a ski-doo is very weird, because it bounces all over the place. The hard part is trying not to steer it too much, just let it follow the grooves in the snow. On the way to the reindeer farm when I was trying to look around I had to move my whole head because of the helmet so I was constantly slowing down but on the way back it was much more fun getting up 40kms an hour. Arriving at the farm was beautiful, we had to drive through the forest and while there weren’t’ any herders there, it was so beautiful and so quiet. We drank warm juice by the ski-doos and listened to the silence, then hoofed it back.
I went for a meander round the town after defrosting my butt and toes. Kemi is only small with about 21,000 people and being Boxing Day was very quiet. I hadn’t realised that the rest of the world has Boxing Day, I thought it was only an Australian thing. I’m staying at the Hilton at the airport tonight as I have an 8am flight in the morning to Stockholm.