The first part of today's ride was down through Finland, on a fairly isolated road so didn't see hardly any traffic, before following the Finnish side of the border with Sweden for a long way, then finally crossing into Sweden; once again not a single person present at the border.
The speed limit was 100 km/h on the mainly straight toads but you had to watch out for reindeer. At one point a mother and youngster were just standing in the road, so I obviously slowed right down (and flashed the guy coming the other way who was some way off to warn him); they then seemed completely undecided about leaving the road and they just randomly run around, you need to get level with them before being able to accelerate away.
Later on I came across another large adult male just standing in the road, at least this one decided to head off into the forest.
The view today looks like this, for mile after mile.
In one of the small towns I passed a lumber mill where there was huge piles of logs and chippings, and you could smell the freshly cut pine even several hundred metres away.
Riding along and my sat nav suddenly switched into dark mode again, oh, yep we're just crossing the Arctic Circle again. Had to stop and force it into day mode so I could read it. A later reboot when further south resolved the issue,
Nearing lunch time I thought I'll stop at the next garage for food. This is what greeted me.
Occasionally you come across completely unmanned garages, they still have 24 hour credit card pumps, so at least the bike got a refill.
My route has now joined one of the main Swedish highways (still mainly one lane, with occasional two lanes up hills) and it now feels like I've returned to civilisation, with larger towns (with garages) and an abundant choice of hotels.
The Swedish main road speed limit is 110 km/h (~70 mph) and this feels so fast after riding around Norway at mainly 80 km/h.
It is still about 1000 miles to the bottom of Sweden so this is going to take me another four days, as 250 miles a day typically takes around six hours with stops, Obviously the road type makes a difference to the daily mileage, and this is only improving from now on.