Roadtrip to the Arctic

I've never really understood what "Quantity Surveying" was all about, but the concept came to mind as I looked at the stacks of boxes, wrapped furniture and bags of clothing in the middle of our living room on a morning in September.

Without being too precise, it looked like a heck of a lot of stuff!  More importantly, it looked like a lot more stuff than would fit in the Transit van that we had just hired to take all our stuff to Lapland. 

Ah, yes, we have taken the decision to give up our jobs, house, and life in West London and relocate to the North of Finland, but more on that later.

Fortunately, packing is one of my wife's special skills and,  even though it looked a bit touch and go at the halfway stage... 

We soon had a van full, even (just) finding space to fit in the trolley and headed off around the M25 to Harwich to catch the overnight ferry to Esbjerg in Denmark. 

As we arrived at the port, "Cargo" side rather than "Passenger, it became apparent that we were amongst some "Proper" cargo, with some lorries shipping items that were far bigger than our van, possibly even bigger than the house we will be moving to!

And it didn't look much more impressive when we finally loaded our Tonka toy Transit van on to the ferry!










Once in Denmark we took off in the direction of Sweden, passing over the mightily impressive Øresund Bridge and towards Stockholm and the North.

All was going well until the light started fading.  As it became gradually darker, the number of cars, vans, buses, in fact everything but bicycles, heading towards us, were flashing their lights.

Realising that this was not a traditional welcome to foreigners, we quickly realised that we had yet to adjust our headlights, or at least attach the fairly pathetic and ineffective looking strips we had purchased on the ferry.  

Bingo! Despite our skepticism, we didn't dazzle any further Scandinavians from that point on.  

Maybe just as well, since it's a long old drive from Denmark to Lapland!

Most of our route was through Sweden, and, while the scenery is lovely, the roads are relatively quiet and the Swedes have some of the largest and most picturesque lakes in Europe, we found out, at 6:30pm on Sunday, that some of the petrol stations have sharp kerbs too!

Just as we had filled up, and were about to head off for a last driving stint for the day, there was a popping noise and suddenly the van was listing significantly to Port.  

A quick look around the back confirmed that, not only was the tyre flat, but had a four inch tear in the sidewall.  Stuck in the middle of nowhere with a flat tyre and a van so heavily laden that the basic jack provided would have no chance of lifting it.  This was not part of the plan.  

But, it was a good time for a reminder of why we are heading for Lapland.  It does seem that the further North you get, the more people are keen to help each other out.  

After a chat with the filling station team, and some help from a local Swedish chap, we soon had the local tyre specialist heading our way in a converted ambulance.

Half an hour later, and some serious testing for his jacks, we were on the way again.

(Special thanks to Tobias and his girlfriend for listening to the foreigners ramblings and taking it all in their stride) 

Fortunately, even at this time of year, there are more hours of daylight, in the Arctic than in Blighty, so it was quite easy to see that we were getting close, even at 7:30 pm. 

Another hour or so, and we made it to Ylläs and started loading our worldly goods into our cabin.

Stage one complete.  Now we need to get ourselves and the van back to the London, work out a couple of weeks work notice, then get ourselves to Lapland before winter really arrives...