The trip before the trip

So Tim and I have just spent the weekend in Lapland...this was the trip that I bought Tim for his 40th b'day as a surprise.  It was totally awesome and gave us an opportunity to test out our thermals which we've bought for the 'big adventure' as it will be cold when we are camping and visiting the glaciers etc in Patagonia...

Lapland was beautiful - the air felt so clean and the snow was so unbelievably white and undisturbed...what a lovely part of the world.  We were in northern Finland, 140 miles inside the Arctic circle and 1000 km north of Helsinki.  We were right on the border with Sweden...in fact the bridge to the village was the border crossing point.

We drove a reindeer sleigh and husky sleigh, went on snowmobiles (on the frozen river which was probably as wide as the Thames) and tried our hands at cross country skiing... all in a four night break...  As you can see the snow was quite deep!!

Our cheeky reindeer

Now that's what I call a lot of snow!

At the reindeer park

One foot in Sweden and one in Finland

Karesuando village

Karesuando village church

With the huskies