Maurice had set her alarm and it was a good job too. The train sleep was magnificent and I could have easily slept forever, but our stop was approaching and we needed to get our shizzle together. Thankfully the question of what to wear didn’t come up; one of the few advantages of having just a wear and a spare change of clothes. All sorted, we headed off to explore the train and find a coffee.
Once again the REALLY heavy sliding doors between each carriage had to be negotiated. It was a challenging sequence of pull, slide, slide, push at the joining of each carriage and Maurice just couldn’t seem to fathom it, although to be fair this was still pre-coffee. Thankfully the dining car wasn’t too many carriages away and the coffee was hot and strong once we got there. The very nice man in the dining car confirmed that the train was on time and out stop was just under an hour away. Everything was going very smoothly, perhaps too smoothly.
We gathered our bags and made our way to the end of the carriage, preparing ourselves for another dust up with the REALLY heavy sliding doors. Just at that moment a helpful young man pressed an until now unseen button and the REALLY heavy sliding door effortlessly slid out of the way all on its own … who knew!!
There wasn’t much to Boden and exiting the train station we immediately stumbled upon the bus stop where our connecting bus was due to depart from. We had a short wait in the sunshine and then hopped on board for our two hour journey to Jokkmokk. Arriving in time for lunch, we had a few hours to kill before our final bus to Kvikkjokk, so we went in search of food and found ourselves a reindeer pizza!
It was already noticeably colder in Jokkmokk than it had been in Boden and we had to break the layers out, only just resisting the urge to move directly on to our big coats. The last bus on our epic journey was an impressive hybrid refrigerated bus lorry affair. Even more impressive was the fact that the driver seemed to fulfil multiple roles … bus driver, postman and delivery driver. For these isolated rural communities the bus really was a godsend and Bussgods was an apt name for the service.
Just before 6pm we pulled into the tiny village of Kvikkjokk and concluded our two day journey to reach the starting point of our hike. Our home for the night was the Fjällstation, situated in a stunning spot overlooking the rapids of the mighty Gamájånkå River. We luxuriated with a hot shower, slap up meal (reindeer again of course) and the last night in a real bed for sometime. Tomorrow the adventure started for real!
ZENLIGHTENED VOYAGER 