NPL Day 25 & GB Day 1

Day 25: Tuesday 11 July 2023

Mallajávri-South of Rr292A via Treriksröset (Three Country Cairn), Goldahytta, Gappohytta

We had a slow morning today, and it was a little bit windy so we weren't cooked inside the tent, and there was no mosquitoes around.

We video called our very kind landlord Gösta back at home which was incredibly nice!

Then we packed everything and started walking towards the Three Country Cairn (Treriksröset) while listening to a pod.

Horseflies and mosquitoes were worse than ever, especially the horseflies. This made Kim in quite a bad mood, especially together with the heat.

When we reached the cairn we took some pictures and took it easy. We saw that the Gröna Bandare that was going to start the same day as us, started one hour ago. So we thought we would catch up fairly soon if we just kept going.

So we kept going, but suddenly Kim stopped dead in her tracks. We had missed the geocache! There was one geocache on the Norwegian side we were supposed to take this year. She couldn't take it two years ago because the border was closed, but now they walked right passed it. Because she had her thoughts somewhere else (annoying horseflies, sweaty, wanted to reach toilet etc) she completely forgot about it for some time, and this was like the icing on the cake and she broke down completely and started crying.

But we had to carry on.

And finally we reached Goldahytta. There we had a toilet and rest break before continuing.

After many long km with the mountain Bárres in the background, we finally reached a very cozy river (Gáhppojohka) where Lukas took a swim, and Kim broke down again because she didn't quite know what to do - swim or not swim? Lukas was so fast and the ground was so disgusting, or it was too deep.

She felt disgusting and useless.

But we finally continued towards the hut. Lukas then felt a drop on his shoulder, and as we turned around we saw that the air was white with rain. So we ran to the hut and hoped we would make it before it would be literally pouring over us. And we made it, we managed to avoid the worst rain. In the hut we cooked food and ate, and then the worst part of the local storm hit. Heavy diagonal rain, wind, thunder in the distance etc.

But finally it passed and we were happy we managed to completely avoid it.

After resting and writing in the Hyttebok it was time to continue. The air was fresh after the rain and the view was amazing as we walked towards Isdalen. But the mosquitoes seemed to think the same, and they were soon swarming around us again.

We passed the border into Sweden and soon found a tent spot beside a lake where Kim could quickly clean herself, running back to the tent and hiding from the mosquitoes.