Whenever we stay in Venejärvi, regardless of how good our intentions are to get up early in the morning, we never do. Perhaps it's down to the peace and quiet of the forest or maybe it’s down to having the last meal of the day close to midnight. Once again though, we turned the alarm off and went straight back to sleep for another hour or so.

Eventually we managed to get ourselves out of bed, dressed and walked down to the main house for breakfast. The walk outside in the freezing cold morning air certainly wakes you up. By the time you’ve walked the 2 minutes down the path, you’re wide awake.

As usual, there was a fresh pot of coffee on the table with a whole array of cakes and biscuits to nibble on while breakfast is being made. It wasn’t long before steaming plates of porridge were on the table, ready for dollops of stewed fruit to be dropped on top.

The main chore of the day, and the primary reason for the trip back to Venejärvi, was to pack everything we needed to take with us back to New Zealand. David’s packing was relatively simple, what he had brought with him was going back with him. Maria though still had a lot of clothes, books, ornaments etc that had never made it to New Zealand over the course of the last 4 years.

While Maria mulled over what could be taken home on this trip, David decided to go and have some fun on the snowmobile. Wrapped up in half a dozen layers of clothes, he took the snowmobile into the fields next to the cottage and hooned around for an hour until the pristine, metre deep snow resembled a badly ploughed field. David was grinning from ear to ear when he came back even though he ruined his best ski gloves, he forgot to turn the hand warmer off and it melted his gloves.

Maria had a welcomed break from packing when we were called for dinner, a hearty plate of meat and mash. I think Maria’s grandma forgets that she’s not feeding hardworking farmhands anymore. We don’t actually need all the food for energy; we just eat it because it’s delicious.

It was back to packing after dinner. We needed to be a bit strategic too. We had weight restrictions for the flights and we wanted to only really open one bag over the next week or so, until we found somewhere permanent to live. Not the easiest task but not insurmountable. After a few hours and a bit of juggling around, we made it. The one suitcase we would be opening and closing over the next week or so was pretty full though and needed Maria to sit on it while David closed the latches.

Back down in the main house, all the family had turned up to see us before we left. The sauna had been prepared and in traditional Finnish style, everyone took turns in the sauna. With so many people at the house, it was late evening before it was our turn and the sauna was really hot. We would normally have the sauna at around 60c but it was closer to 80c today (without throwing the water).

Maria gave up quite quickly but David, with a bit of experience from the Akäslompolo Sauna Club, persevered a bit longer. He is also brave enough, or perhaps stupid enough, to roll in the snow as part of the cooling down process. He got more than he bargained for though, as he sneaked out the sauna, naked, into the yard and threw himself face first into the snow, he didn’t realise that he wasn’t alone. Elli was out in the yard too and being a one year old dog with tons of energy, she thought it was playtime. Elli loves mucking around in the snow and came bound across the yard and pounced on David. He got the shock of life and instinctively spun round and jumped to his feet like a cat and retreated inside the sauna in double quick time… and then laughed to himself.

Saunas make you a bit peckish too but we’d eaten so much today that we settled for some cheese and biscuits, washed down with some tasty wine.

It was a nice way to end the day and our time in Lapland. Tomorrow is the start of our long journey home.