The Final Trek: Home

We've had an amazing honeymoon and thank you to everyone who contributed to our trip of a lifetime. Hopefully this blog shows just a snippet of what an amazing time we had over the Christmas holidays.

We began our journey home at 8.50 (GMT) and began with a hot coach ride through the snowy mountains to Kirkenes airport, where for the first time Lou didn't get her bag searched (hooray!). We made it through the tiny airport and boarded our first 2 hour flight to Oslo. A bit of a kerfuffle with people shoving their way onto the plane but eventually we got on our way.

An hour's stop at Oslo allowed us to grab some lunch (I got a free bug in my sandwich - yum!) and then back on another plane to London Heathrow. A smooth 2 and a bit hours of more flying allowed Toby to read most of the Lonely Planet guide's history of Norway and Lou to finish her book and a bit more of Sherlock Holmes.

We touched down at Terminal 3 and whizzed through to get our bags and get through passport control (took a long time). Mum was busy texting Lou that she had got a good spot and was waiting for us by Costa Coffee when we came out.

We eventually got through border control and went through those doors, looking all around for Costa Coffee. Now if you know LHR terminal 3, you'll have quickly gathered that there isn't a Costa in arrivals.

Mum was at Terminal 5!

Cue giggles and Mum dashing round to T3 to get us and drive us into London to see Fascinating Aida with Dad, Hannah and Matt as our Christmas present from Hannah and Matt. We watched a great show and had a great meal and got back to The Wormery at around midnight, where we rudely disturbed a sleeping Harmer and proceeded to keep him awake with our photos and tales until 2am! Sorry Jon!

Thanks to everyone for your kind comments about our blog. We had fun writing it and will have fun reading it back to ourselves one day. Norway rocks!

Much love and happiness for 2014. Toby & Lou xxx

Mush! Husky sledging in Kirkenes

Our final stop on our Norwegian tour was a snowy one. We arrived at 9.30am on Friday after a few stormy nights on the Hurtigruten and decided not to grab (and pay) for a bus to take us the 1km into Kirkenes. In hindsight, the path was a little treacherous with ice and snow and dragging two heavy suitcases along an icy road was quite the adventure!

Checking into our hotel (Thon - tuna in French!), we dumped our bags and then set out to discover what Kirkenes had on offer.

Not very much! Being so close to the Russian border, lots of things were in Russian as well as Norwegian and there was lots of snow - hooray! We rested our snowy feet in a little café and had some delicious cinnamon buns, smooth coffee and played some cards.

At 5pm we were picked up from our hotel and driven to the outskirts of town for our husky sledging experience. The night was cloudy and a little snow had fallen giving a strange orange light to everything.

We arrived and met our Mushers - Sanna and Marius (both from Sweden!). We got decked out in snow suit garb and balaclavas and then went to meet the doggins! There were around 100 huskies and when one began howling, they all joined in. It was an eerie chorus to set the scene! After some quick instruction, we helped get the dogs all tethered up to the sledges. We had to wait a while as two of the dogs got a bit frisky whilst waiting...

Once they were done, we were ready to roll and we loaded ourselves into our sledge and off we went into the night!

As there hadn't been too much snow, it was a bumpy but exhilarating ride through the forest and over to a frozen fjord where Toby took over. Toby did a great job of mushing, despite a few early wiggles of saying the wrong command. Lou was just enjoying the ride and after a few hours of being out in the snow, we headed back to the warmth of the wooden huts. As we neared the end, there was a bit of slushy puddle at the edge of the fjord which the dogs took us straight through and filled the bottom of the sledge with ice-cold water, which then seeped into Lou's pants!

We hurtled back into the husky yard and Lou dashed off to try and dry her bum whilst Toby and Sanna fed the huskies and put them back into their kennels. Toby's favourite dog was Irja (he was smitten!) and Lou liked Sonja. Before we headed inside, we took a tour round the place and met their three reindeer (Gabba, Rudolph and Bullio). Gabba means 'the white one' in Sami, so apparently all white reindeer get called the same! 

Then we got a peek inside their Snow Hotel. It was a cool -6 degrees inside and was very still - quite an eerie place. Each room had some amazing ice carvings on the walls but we were glad that we had decided just to stay in a warm hotel!

Our dinner of fish broth and reindeer toasties was cooked on an open fire in the round wooden building that Lou fell in love with. Amazing wooden tables, delicious food, warm fire - all the ingredients to make a happy us. Sadly though, we couldn't stay there and at 10pm we were whisked back to our hotel for our last Norwegian sleep.

Nordkapp

Our overnight trip on the MS Vesterålen had started well, with a lovely display of the Aurora draped over the sky. Sweet dreams! The ship headed off further North, with fewer and fewer lights to be seen. Pretty much pitch black for most of the sailing time, as we headed around the North Cape (Nordkapp).

Click for map of area: http://goo.gl/maps/EzeDr

There were some opportunities to briefly hop off the ship during the night, but most at times when nothing was happening on shore, or far too early. 

Late-night stop

This morning, we docked at the port at Honningsvåg. Many of the passengers decided to make an excursion to the true end of the Nordkapp and look down the big cliff there, but a round trip on a bus and a hefty pricetag (høfty pricetåg) put us off. We took the opportunity to slip-slide around the town and check out the January sales in the local fishing tackle shop and Rimi supermarket. 

Our ship has been great, and a nice compromise between the huge MS Finnmarken and the little-ship-that-could MS Lofoten. It has handled the journey with ease, and made the parts of the journey that ventured out into the sea manageable (Force 8-9 gale winds). The cabin has been quiet and our porthole (open this time) looked out onto the bow wave, showing the vessel smashing through the frothing sea. We are now used to the to-ing and fro-ing, which is quite therapeutic if you don't fight it.

MS Vesterålen at Honningsvåg

Plenty of time to relax and watch the fjord scenery in the half-light today, catch up on some reading, cards and so on. 

The Book Wørm

Now about 73% through the entire 'Adventures of Sherlock Holmes'

Several more stops this evening and overnight to Kirkenes, including the boat reaching it's most Northern point in the trip tonight around 9:30pm. At some point, we are informed that a fisherman will come on board and show everyone how to do something or other. Sounds interesting.....

Ta Ra Tromsø! Off to Kirkenes

Tromsø has been an awesome experience. 

As we left today, it was snowing and we passed the time playing cards (Toby still beat Lou many times). We boarded the MS Vesterålen to Kirkenes and set sail at 18.30. 

After a brief nap, Toby was straight out on deck and before long, a little tap on the window called Lou outside. Was it...?

Yes! It was a faint aurora!

With cameras at the ready, the dancing streams of solar energy became brighter and brighter as we got further away from the surrounding lights of settlements along the fjords. 

For the next couple of hours, we snapped away despite the bitter cold wind whipping at our excited faces. We had been slightly disappointed at the ones we'd seen over Tromsø, but with the recent display, we could see what the fuss is all about.

A truly magical experience. Thank you Norway!

Signing off for the evening. We're on the ship now until Friday morning and it's getting choppy!

Here's a selection of our northern lights pictures so far:

Mountain Horns

Floyd and Maud get in on the action.

Swirly Sky

Trails

Wormy Lights

Happy New Year from Tromsø

Godt Nyttår!

Happy new year everyone! Hope your 2014 went off with a blast - ours certainly did.

Much like the rest of the trip, everything has been pretty shut up across Norway, but just a few things were open.

We began our New Year's Eve by visiting the Polaria - an exhibition centre about the Polar regions and how Norway is involved in research in both North and South. Some very interesting videos about the Arctic region (taken from a helicopter!) and also a video about the Northern Lights. Someone was trying to take photos of the actual film... odd!

We were then treated to a display by two bearded seals and two harbour (common) seals. They were very cute and well trained doing jumps, playing with toys and spinning about!

Outside the air was crisp and the skies clear, so we spent a while taking photos of the harbour and the surrounding mountains. It was freeeeeezing!

We then skidded round the local streets - a foot's worth of ice along most pavements and roads - until we reached the world's most northerly Burger King! Not the most local of delicacies!

Getting set up with some coffee and beer in a favourite local haunt of ours (Kino), we played a few rounds of cards and then played THE MOST EPIC GAME OF SCRABBLE, using a range of Norwegian letters! Lou whipped Toby with a score of 276. He had however, beaten her many times at cards.

After whiling away the afternoon, we ventured back along the icy streets of Tromsø to our hotel where we 'dressed' for dinner. We were treated to a beautiful four-course dinner with smoked duck, Arctic Char (like salmon), reindeer steaks and then chocolate soufflé for dessert - yum yum yum. 

We then skidded across the kilometre long bridge to the Arctic Cathedral for a concert. The Arctic Cathedral has the most amazing acoustic and the singer filled the hall alongside the cello, organ and piano. Our concert finished around 10.15pm and we quickly trudged through the snow (Lou very excited now), to the cable car which we hoped would take us up the mountain for some spectacular views of Tromsø.

Most of the city also wanted to get up the mountain and there was a long queue. Suddenly though, Toby looked up and mentioned a funny cloud in the sky, which actually turned out to be THE NORTHERN LIGHTS! Cue excited photographs of a black sky... 

Once we reached the top of the mountain, we had spectacular views across the city and beyond, which was truly breath-taking. The deep, deep snow kept Lou happy in the biting cold, whilst firecrackers exploded all around. As it approached midnight, the city below was like a war zone - so many fireworks exploding as far as the eye could see!

On the stroke of midnight, they began setting off the proper fireworks from the side of the mountain. A lady next to us had obviously never seen fireworks and at every pop she said "Oy!" which as you can imagine gets quite tiresome after a 10 minute display.

We got back to our hotel at 1.20am and crawled into bed; our heads swimming with aurora, snow, music and fireworks!

We're back on the Hurtigruten MS Vesterålen this evening for the final leg of our Norwegian adventure. We will arrive in Kirkenes on Friday morning for ice hotels, huskies, snow and hopefully more aurora!