Getting there
Feb 24th, 2008 by Chris
Our journey began on a Sunday morning in Warwick, loading our rucksacks into the back of the car and setting off for Birmingham airport. A Sunday morning drive to Birmingham airport really shouldn’t be anything too stressful, but we’d booked off-site car parking, not realising just quite how off the site it was, nor that that there was a huge camping and caravanning show going on at the NEC. In the end though, all the queuing on the M42 just meant we didn’t have to queue at check-in.
Three hours or so later we landed at Kittilä, a small airport in the western part of Finnish Lapland which at this time of year mainly carries skiers on their way to Levi. After collecting our bags we walked out of the arrival lounge to find our taxi driver waiting. A very slim built lad with a base ball cap, I wasn’t convinced he looked old enough to be driving. But drive he did. We pulled out of the airport and on to the main road and he hit the accelerator. To anyone brought up in England it seems it shouldn’t be physically possible to accelerate like that on a road so covered in snow and ice! I think both Sophie and I were clutching the door handles in terror as he sped away. It wasn’t long until we relaxed a bit, realising that he was quite used to driving in these conditions, completely in control and equipped with tyres that were very much up to the job. We were to find out just how good his tyres were a week later on our return journey…
Perhaps the most startling thing about this young man though was his voice. When his mobile rang he picked it up and grunted into it a series of sounds so deep it was difficult to believe that they could come from such a slight figure. It seemed somehow sinister, putting me in mind of Graeme Greene’s Pinky from Brighton Rock arranging some awful deed. But in truth he was probably a delightful young man arranging to pick up groceries for his grandmother.
A little under an hour later we arrived at Hariniva, a holiday centre just south of the small town of Muonio. This was where we were to spend the night before meeting our guide and dogs on Monday morning.