Day 5: Östersund (Sweden) -> Arvidsjaur (Sweden)

We head down to the heated garage at the hotel. The last two garages seem to keep the air temperature inside to +17c – reducing wear on the engine when cold starting.

We wipe down the obvious grit and clean the windows.

Before heading out into the snow covered streets of Östersund to continue our journey north towards the arctic.

Despite the snowfall overnight, it is impressive how plowed the roads are in the morning, with crews working industriously since the early hours to keep them clear.

As the day progresses the outside temperatures continue to drop. Inside our cabin we're a comfortable 22c which the car easily maintains using the waste heat from the petrol combustion process to warm the cabin.

We'll be on the E45 all day so navigation is a breeze.

Despite the monochrome view outside our cabin, it is interesting to see the lush green landscape of summer from our PCM (Porsche Communication Manager) satellite navigation view.

Our continental European-spec winter tyres are performing well and offering excellent grip.  This is our first time using Michelin winter tyres, specifically the Pilot Alpin 5 NA2.  Previously, we had Pirelli PZero Winter NF0 on our Taycan.

As we continue northwards the snow increases in its intensity and the road becomes a little less plowed and a little more challenging to navigate.

It is important to keep our glass clean throughout the trip – to maintain safe visibility – especially as conditions can change very quickly in this region.

We carry suitable glass cleaner, towels and squeegees in our frunk for this.

We pull into the side of the road at the many marked "P" stopping zones.

Sometimes our car can look white but the beige nature of the Crayon paint is obvious against the arctic backdrop.

We send up our drone, which behaves perfectly in the frigid -20c air temperatures, though it does have a negative impact on battery life.

To take a look at the road ahead and the endless forests of Sweden.

We criss-cross over train tracks many times throughout the day – though never see an actual train.

We've a few more hours of driving.

Sometimes stuck behind the many logging trucks that use this road. They tend to kick up the snow behind them, though using our adaptive cruise controls (ACC) on its "longest" setting helps enormously.

Darkness falls at around 16:00 in this region and we use the infra-red camera of the Night Vision Assist to keep an eye for animals on the road ahead. It will automatically trigger but it can be reassuring to keep an eye out all the same.

Especially at 100 km/h in the snow and the dark.

We arrive into Arvidsjaur – our overnight stop for tonight, quickly finding our hotel and parking up. This is the first night where our car is parked outside where temperatures will be -23c overnight.

We are glad we had it recently serviced and the oil changed – we will be relying on the winter properties of the Mobil 1 0W-40 when starting up in the morning.

We wrap up for a short walk around this remote town.

Even though it is "only" -15c right now and it is going to get a lot colder tomorrow – we are not used to these cold temperatures and can really feel the impact on our bodies. Everything that isn't covered starts to freeze, including the contents of our nose!

Hunting the northern lights over the next few days is going to be challenging!

Stats

No refuelling required today.

Today we did 450 km over 6:47 hours, with an average speed of 67 km/h, consuming 8.4 litres/100 km.