Snow flurries at night in the dense forest

(Photos of the diary entry can be found at the end of the text).

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After a week, we leave our camp at Saltfjorden a little wistfully. We leave the town of Bodø and the impressive tidal stream behind us and slowly work our way south. As we want to be home in just under a month and still have around 3,500 kilometers to drive by then, we should increase our travel speed a little. This means that from now on we are no longer allowed to stay in one place for more than one or two days. What’s more, the Norwegian winter is about to conquer the country. Despite the constant snow clearing services, most roads are covered with a thick layer of snow or ice. If we weren’t the fastest before, our cruising speed has reduced considerably. I steer our Terra Love carefully and with the necessary caution over the mountain roads, while the locals constantly overtake us. The sun had already set two hours ago when we left the road in search of a suitable place to spend the night and, as so often, tried our luck on a narrow side road. “Are you really sure you want to drive here?” asks Tanja, not for the first time on this trip. “Absolutely sure,” I reply, creeping along the snow-covered forest path. “I hope we don’t get stuck. Have you noticed that the path leads downhill?” I hear the voice of reason next to me, while my desire for adventure urges me to drive our vehicle deeper into the forest. “Look at the tracks in the snow in front of us. They come from a car. So that’s not a problem for us,” I reply. “What if it snows even more overnight? It’s possible that we’ll sink into the snow somewhere. Above all, we’ll have to climb the slope again tomorrow. There’s certainly no snow clearing service here and who knows where the car went? Maybe the driver lives in the forest? Maybe he goes hunting there and lives in a hut?” “There are a thousand possibilities. Don’t always worry about whether we’ll slip or get stuck somewhere. We’re guaranteed to get out of here,” I reassure Tanja. “The only question is when?” “At the latest when the snow melts again in spring,” I reply jokingly. “Joker,” I hear, to which we both snort with laughter. In the light of the headlights, a narrow wooden bridge suddenly appears, bordering on terra firma, which crosses the Luonosjåhkå river and ends our night’s journey for today. I’m about to turn around when the light from the headlights illuminates a wonderful open space. “You see, we’ve got a wonderful place here for the night,” I cheer. “I knew straight away that we’d find the perfect place to spend the night at the end of this wonderful ride through the forest,” says Tanja with a smile. I’m just about to turn the ignition key when the snowflakes start dancing wildly in the headlights. “It’s getting stronger,” says Tanja. “Yes, we’ll get out again tomorrow anyway,” I say, aware that our Terra has 24 gears and three differential locks, which already got us through the toughest terrain in the Russian Arctic Circle last year without ever getting into trouble…