A chilly Finnish Lapland day at the end of January this year (2007). Around -25C if I remember rightly that day. Snowmobiling across frozen lakes and through forests to a welcome drink of Hot Chocolate and a cake at a reindeer farm.

This year was my second trip to Lapland, the first being in January 2003 at which time we experienced a drop to -38C in the small town of Levi one night. Dressed up in several layers of clothing and the thermal suits we rented, it took less than 5 minutes for the cold to start to seep though. A 10 minute walk to check the temperature on the electronic display sign in the town of Levi was long enough! Back to a lovely warm log cabin and a sauna!!

This is a place lucky enough to experience regular spectacular sunsets.

Another very busy main road in Lapland!!

Of course there is one thing that Lapland is very famous for, the home of Father Christmas! On my first visit to Lapland in 2003 I went to his village near Rovaniemi , visit his brilliant website here. It counts down to Christmas all year!! At the time of writing this (24th June) 183 sleeps to go!!! Well worth a visit. But when I went this year I went to Santa's secret hide-away! So, of course I can't tell you where it is! It's deep in the woods, and we got the chance to try some snow shoes on, not the traditional 'tennis racket types' these were plastic!

We met Santa's reindeer too! Before a personal meeting with the man himself in his little hut.

Santa's elfs inclusive of red noses!

It was a cold night to be sure, we were on the lookout for the northern lights but didn't manage to see any this time. There was hot juice and biscuits in the big cabin to keep us warm and a short walk in the woods would take you to a BBQ!

Santa announcing the winners of the childrens drawing competition:

After leaving Santa we had a VERY noisy trip back to the hotels on the coach (luckily it wasn't far!!!) Our rep decided we should play a little game. Even though it was very nearly the end of January, many people in Lapland keep their christmas lights up for longer, so all the people on the right hand side of the coach had to watch out the window and if they saw any christmas lights in peoples houses shout out 'right,right, right' and likewise for the left hand side of the coach to shout 'left,left, left', and if anyone spotted a car coming towards us (there really aren't very many!!) then we had to shout 'heeey hooooo' !! I was on the left side of the coach and the right side were cheating a lot! But this didn't go unoticed by the rep and as we entered the resort he announced the left side the winners!

Some people even still has some christmas trees up, no silly superstitions here then!!

These trees were outside some chalets next door to our site. There was also a big one in the niddle of the roundabout down the road. I'm not sure how long christmas lasts in Lapland!!