The Groovy Life of the Grossarths: Lappi week

We finally arrived to our mökki right before midnight. Saku had stayed strong until the last 10 minutes and he had finally fallen asleep. I walked to the porch and found the key in its hiding place and we started to haul the groceries, bags and the sleeping children inside. As we climbed to bed way past midnight, Troy looked at me and gave me a big kiss and said “welcome to the first Grossarth vacation”. I could not been happier to fall asleep next to this man.

Another mother once said that she never calls their family vacations “vacations” rather she describes them as “adventures” because traveling with kids is not relaxing and you often associate vacations with relaxation. So I like to think of our time in Lappi as our first adventure.

Our first day was used to recuperate from the past two, long, days in the car. Troy and Saku took the rowing boat to the lake. Eerika and I walked around the forest. We heated the sauna. Saku picked blueberries. We did not internet connection and felt very isolated, in a good way, from the world.

After a day of just hanging out, we were ready for some action. We packed some snacks and headed out for a hike. As we approached the hotel where the trail head is located, we were welcomed by a herd of reindeers. I thought that they were the hotel’s attraction; however, it was soon evident that they were just reindeer from the wilderness that happened to like hanging out by the hotel.

We had no high expectations for our hike since we had Saku and Eerika with us. Our goal was to have fun and teach the kids to enjoy hiking and the nature. Saku got tired, or very tired as he would say, few times but he hiked the whole way. I think we covered about 1.5 miles. Our pace was slow and we did frequent stops but the fact that everyone was smiling by the end of the hike felt like a victory.

That evening we spent a while, thanks to faulty directions, looking for fishing huts from the 1700s. Fishermen would come all over the Finland and fish in the lake and live in the huts while the fishing season was on. The original huts date back to 1500s. Saku and Eerika enjoyed seeing the grass growing on the roofs of the huts. The sun was shining beautifully and it was a perfect way to spend our Sunday evening. Also there were huge blueberries everywhere.

The reindeer calf was quite endearing.

This handsome guy was one of the first reindeers we saw.

We weren't quite ready for the 54K hike, but we were proud of our little family hiking in the wilderness.

"Poroaita" is the place where the reindeer herders gather their flock in the fall.

There were about 20 of these huts. Some of them are still being used. The picture doesn't do justice to how beautiful the evening was.

Just hanging out. Saku loved the binoculars and used them a lot.

Monday was the climax of our adventure as we headed across the border to Norway. We had not made any definitive plans since we weren’t sure if we would want to drive another three hours. Or I should say that I was concerned about making the kids sit in the car for too much during our week in Lappi. After we had been driving for an hour and a half, it started raining. Saku kept asking where Norway was and I think Troy and I were a bit nervous about what we had gotten ourselves into. The attraction in Lappi and Norway is the nature and if it is raining, our options of activities would be limited.

Fortunately it cleared out by the time we went over the border and it was only about 30 miles from the Finland-Norway border when we hit the first town of Skibotn. Beautiful, little houses surrounded us as well as the first fjord that we had ever seen. There was still snow/glacier on the mountains and the ocean water was clear and blue. We stopped at a rocky beach and let the kids run and explore. I love the fact that the kids require so little entertainment when they can be in the nature and have freedom to play. We found many treasures and Troy wished that he could take a truckload of the flat stones to our backyard. It must have been some sort of a tourist attraction as we saw tourist busses stop there and let people out.

Troy made the smart move of going to a tourist information center and get some direction of where we should go. We wanted to stay relative near the border as we wanted to limit the amount of time in the car. We were instructed to go and check out a suspension bridge that was build over the tallest gorge in Norway. As we drove through the few little towns, we absolutely loved the scenery. Lush greenery and tall mountains with snow surrounded us as well as beautiful little idyllic houses. Troy was in heaven.

We came to our destination. Eerika was asleep but Saku was happy to be let out of his car seat. He instantly found a stream to play by. Troy build a fire and we roasted our hot dogs and sausages over it. We saw many local elderly people come and pick berries in the viscinity and felt bad that we didn’t speak any Norwegian as one of the men spoke to us in such a friendly tone.

After we got some food in our bellies, we headed to the trail head that would take us to the bridge. There was a sign that informed us that we should be very careful and hike at own risk. It definitely made me be more alert and cautious with the kids. Eerika was in the hiking backpack and Saku was hiking on his. It was 1.25 mile one way. The terrain was uneven and narrow, but relatively flat. We made it to the bridge and Eerika informed that I needed to be careful.

There was a roaring waterfall that was 100 meters long. And the bridge was cool but I was freaked out by it. I am not a paranoid person nor I am scared of heights, but I couldn’t help but the have few flashes of images of the bridge collapsing and watching my family do a 130 meter free fall.

I wanted to camp on the Finland side. I just felt more safe in a country where we knew the language and the laws. We didn’t make it to Finland side until 10:30 and most camp grounds seemed to be closed, didn’t offer tent camping or were just plain dirty. So Troy took care of us and we camped in a little meadow. We set up our tent and got everyone into their sleeping bags by 11:30. We were only about 100 yards away from the freeway so we could hear the semis going by. Thanks to our trusty white noise app, Saku was asleep quickly after my story about Vikings and few songs and a prayer. Eerika took few minutes longer but we were soon all sleeping as the river was roaring on our left side and the cars drove on our right side.

After our Norway adventure, we kept a low profile at the cabin. We bought some reindeer meat and ate a delicious meal out of it. We found a store that was close to our cabin and had a sandpit and a little play house so we took the kids there to play. The owners were locals and so sweet. They gave us free hot chocolate and juice for the kids.