After we finished in Smedsby School on Friday we decided that we would take a road trip to Lapland which is in the north of Finland. We looked for accommodation and found a lodge in Oulu which was around two and a half hours away from Roveniemi in Lapland. The lodge was lovely although in the attic room where the beds were I was unable to stand because the ceiling was so low. We arrived in Oulu at around 10pm (We had left Leppavaara at around 2:30 that afternoon) after a brief discussion it was time to get a good nights sleep.

I woke up the next morning and was very excited about our trip. We were about to venture into the arctic circle! We left at around 9am and got to Roveniemi at 12. There were a variety of different activities that you could do there including reindeer rides, husky adventures and tracks to explore in search of the northern lights. As we were only going to be there for a short while we wondered around the areas. It was lovely but it was soon time to leave for our journey back to Oulu, we wanted to make the journey in daylight as the roads were very icy and it had began to snow.

We arrived back at Oulu and we decided to walk into the centre for some food. Common things on the menu were bear, reindeer and elk but as it was so late most places were closed so we had to make do with a take-away Chinese. Then it was a short trip back to the lodge and bed in preparation for our mammoth journey back.

I woke up the following morning and had a shower and sauna. Sauna’s are very common in Finland, lots of people have them in their own homes and if they live in apartments they have  a communal one. There is even a sauna in Burger King. It was then time for our journey back. We travelled for around 8 hours stopping just once for fuel. We were able to take some views of the countryside as it was light for the majority of our journey. Finland is a very flat country in comparison to Wales and we saw very little wildlife apart from the occasional group of horses. Upon further research I found that many animals such as bears go into hibernation before November. When we arrived back in Lepparaava it was a quick chat with the rest of the group then bed in preparation for the week to come. We had travelled a total of 1800km or 1,125 miles in the space of 48 hours. To put that into perspective it was like travelling from St Florence to Amsterdam (Netherlands) and back to St Florence (by car) in the space of 48 hours.