Day 2 - Rusennes to Karasjok (approx. 139km)

Woke up at around 7am to another hot and sunny day. Chris was up unusually early and had been talking to one of the other campers - he was a dutch man who had come here for several years and said he'd never seen weather like this here before - good karma. I Was very hungry so after getting the majority of the packing out the way I ran down the road hoping to find e supermarket that the woman in the Campsite reception said there was. Couldn't find it so had to resort to an expensive baguette from the cafe. As the campsite was next to a lake I was toying with the idea of going for a swim. Kinza gave me a few encouraging words so decided to go for it. The swim was amazing (the water surprisingly not uncomfortably cold, the water crystal clear, clean and calm). After probably about half an hour in the water I came back and saw that others had packed up and gone to the cafe to get some breakfast. By the time I'd dried off and put the rest of my stuff on the bike they had gone and we arranged to meet in Lakselv (our lunchtime destination). The morning got very warm and the cycling was again amazing with quality roads and scenery. I even saw a girl ski training (skiing along the road with wheels on the bottom of the skis at one point). Eventually I met up with the others at Lakselv and we sat down to the first of what would become many supermarket eating sessions. We knew the budget was tight so went for pretty basic stuff (my star buy was a 750g box of cornflakes that cost 9 krone (approx £1) that lasted about 4 days. After the eating we cycled through a very tough (hilly and very hot) afternoon. Tom managed to fall off and graze his elbow (thankfully nothing too severe). This resulted in a few tweaks being needed to realign the wheel and handlebar which I helped with. The ride was taking us inland so we now didn't have the coastal breeze or views to help us along so it was very testing. after consuming several litres of water each throughout the afternoon we finally made it to our campsite in Karasjok at around 8.30pm. Mosquitos were rife so the first thing to do was throw everything out of the bags in order to find our mosquito repellent sprays. We (everyone except Chris) set up their tents as quickly as possible to escape the Mosquitos and seek refuge in the lounge/tv area. I was as usual slowest to sort out the tent and by the time I'd finished Chris had fallen asleep on the sofa in the lounge area, Tom and Mark were watching TV and the girls were busy on their iPhones/iPad taking full advantage of the campsite's Wi-fi. Dinner for me consisted of some salami baguette leftover from earlier, banana and corn flakes. I went to bed pretty soon after the corn flakes. Highlights: Swimming in the lake. also Kinza coming over to the lad's table at lunch and asking if any of us knew if there was a toilet in the supermarket to which Tom replied 'yeah I just had a big one' - a clear sign that any normal standards of etiquette had already gone out the window and it was only day 2 lol.