The plan was to ride/walk all night to stay warm, as I had failed to light a proper fire to keep myself warm. I knew there was a similar cabin to the first one 5km up the road, so I figured I would stop but was not expecting a better situation. It’s pitch black in the night and getting cold and the two yellow eyes on the side of the road that suddenly disappear into the night isn’t helping.

On the side of the road I see a light. As I get closer, it turns off. Spooky. Or maybe I’ve spooked it. I pull off into the dirt patch and start to see two people standing behind a tripod.

I break the nervous silence with a casual, “hey, how’s it going?” When they hear about my situation, they explain that they have some wood and we’re thinking about sleeping in the cabin. Nice!

All of a sudden the northern lights come out, which was a nice distraction to me freezing my ass off. We’re having a little bit of trouble, so Martin, my new Czech friend suggest that we go 5km north along the road to see it better from next to a lake. There was even a possible cabin there!

While there was no cabin, the view of the aurora was amazing. As I was riding to the lake, it fully opened up on top of me, leading to Martin capturing an amazing shot of my Brompton.

Back at the other cabin, as I ate my swedish meatballs and they are their polish soup, we exchanged some snacks and swapped stories.

As I’m falling asleep, Martin generously offers his blanket to me as he had to work on his laptop all night. I woke to him continuing to tend to the fire.

There may be some bad people in this world, but the vast majority are amazing people who I would trust with my life.

Stats

Route

View on Strava

Photos