Three Country Cairn

All of today was spent in Finland where we successfully completed a trek to the ‘Three Country Cairn’ which is the most northerly 3 country cairn in the world.

We drove for 1 hour and 45 minutes from Lynseidet, our base in Norway to just over the Finnish border where we parked in a large car park next to the E8 road for the day.

We had our passports with us although we just continued driving across the border and didn’t need to stop.

With day and night being rolled into one we had left our holiday house late and arrived at just after midday Finnish time (Finland are one hour ahead of Norway). 

We found a great place for coffee and cake (payable in Euros now we were in Finland) before the start of the walk, a few minutes drive from the car park.

Our 22 km round trek began with a stream crossing. This one had a wooden bridge over it. We immediately noticed large numbers of mosquitos buzzing around so stopped to apply plenty of smidge.

The route was easy to follow as it was clearly marked with orange tipped waymarkers.

After a rocky uphill path through shady trees the walk opened up and we began to see panoramic views across northern Scandinavia.

We continued past a couple of small lakes as we climbed higher.

And became almost level with random patches of snow.

We stopped for a coffee from our flasks and a snack next to a German dug out hut which was built for the German army in summer 1944. It had been renovated in 2017 and has a fireplace inside but fires or overnight camping in it are not permitted.

We continued over stony terrain and made our way down a rocky slope before the path levelled out.

I was pleased to find a row of flattish rocks had been aligned to make rock crossings easier… this was especially helpful for people like me who are a bit clumsy and have the agility of a baby elephant!

Next up was a waterfall!

There was no bridge this time so we had to cross the waterfall at a flat part. And guess who misjudged a rock and dunked their entire foot in the stream!

Not far after the waterfall was the best stretch of the walk… flat and smooth with no rocks to negotiate!

We made good progress along this section!

As we got closer to the ‘three country cairn’ we came to more woodland. Sections of this, over boggy patches had well maintained wooden planks to walk across.

To the right a tall metal fence marked the border with Norway.

After 11 km the 6 of us arrived together at the three country cairn, the only place in Norway where you can walk freely between Norway, Finland and Sweden. Around the cairn in about 30 seconds!

We were all hungry by now at this half way point and stopped for our packed lunch after about 10 minutes on our way back.

As this wasn’t a circular walk we followed the same path in reverse.

The return journey seemed quicker although we stopped at the waterfall for a final snack.

By around 8 pm there were millions of mosquitos especially around the woods towards the end. Most of us got bitten despite several applications of smidge.

We arrived back at the cars at around 9:20 pm and decided to have dinner before driving back into Norway.

We tried the coffee shop but their restaurant area had closed. A friendly lady recommended the Lapland Kilpis hotel about 5 km further into Finland.

We were delighted to see a herd of wild reindeer near to the hotel.

We all enjoyed a fabulous high quality meal in the Lapland Kilpis hotel. Chris had a vegan burger, I had a delicious vegan dish (with a glass of red) and the other 4 had… errr reindeer 🦌

Our drive home was quiet with very few other cars on the road. We arrived back in Lynseidet at around 1 am (Norweigan time in daylight).

And we saw a moose in field just before we got back!

Summary

A fairly tough 22 km hike with a fairly lengthy drive either side but another wonderful and memorable day 😃