Friday 22nd Feb. Saariselka, Finland.
Arrived at our hotel late afternoon, in time to visit the local Museum. Saw a 10 minute film on various displays by the evasive Northern Lights.... At least now we can say we've seen them!
The large frozen river behind the hotel has some amazingly treacherous spots appearing in it - enormous chunks of ice have been disloged and stick up at alarming angles, revealing large sections of the river ice have collapsed in on themselves, in turn revealing the fast-running stream beneath. Not good to be taking a short cut on the way home methinks!!
Speaking of short cuts, almost every one of us has at some point, decided to try taking a short cut, off the well worn path in the snow, and the result has invariably been finding ourselves thigh deep in powder snow, and having great difficulty extracting ourselves!!! Much hilarity, and floundering about before we regain our feet. SO funny....
Nice friendly little hotel, cosy little bar, which was fairly rocking by dinner time. Fish for a change(!) for dinner, and the conversation was all about how "tonight's the night".....
The evening sky was VERY cloudy, with not a star in sight, so Arch and Annie went to bed... Several others of the group left the hotel at various stages to seek the best viewing area..... Anyway, we were woken up at about midnight by some of the good folk returning home. So, Arch sat looking out our window for quite some time, convinced that HE would be the one to conjure up the lights. After a while, sure that he could see the glow in the distance, he roused me from bed, and I reluctantly got the whole lot of outdoor gear on, and followed him downstairs and outside, along with one other fellow traveller... Some little while after we left the hotel, we became aware that our room was locked, and we couldn't regain access. Happily the girl from reception was still there, and she gave Arthur a replacement key. After about 20 minutes staring into the abyss, we concluded there were not going to be any Northern Lights, and tried to return to the hotel.. Front door locked..... Damn, what now??? Three of us standing about wondering what we could possibly do to attract attention, without screaming for help, when said Receptionist drove around the corner on her way home.... Arch ran into the path of the car, and prevailed upon her to show us how to gain entry into the hotel, which she did.... Happy ending, but we were a bit shocked at being locked outside in the middle of the night, when the temperature was about -12 degrees!!!
Saturday Feb. 23rd
Early departure, heading off to Norway, and to catch our ship..
Very small sign on the side of the road announcing that we'd crossed into Norway, but amazingly, the scenery changed immediately - it was bizarre.
Going from quite thick low-lying woodlands in Finland/Lapland into totally different terrain in Norway. Almost no trees, and very undulating landscape. No explanation yet, but will enquire. Strange indeed.
Snowed a lot of the time on the drive North, and the sky is not indicative of the 'special sighting', yet again.
Boarded our ship, the MS Trollfjord, in Kirkenes, (very close to the border with Russia) at about lunch time. Huge buffet lunch on offer, followed by - not much...... Not a lot of strolling on deck in this weather, so sat about, had a snooze, and passed the hours until our late sitting of dinner - 8.30pm. Not much activity at the bars on this ship, wine is about $25 per GLASS, so we're not going to pay that! Most of our group has brought on board plenty of alcohol, but you cannot bring it into the lounges at all. However, we bought a large Pepsi and Ice, and quietly poured some Bundy I had decanted into a little bottle, into it.... That was very easy and very nice. But, not quite the same as gathering around a bar and having a drink. There will be no drunkenness on this voyage!!!
Right now it's about 11pm, and I'm trying to stay awake..... We're heading off into the wilds of Norway at about 1.30am tomorrow, riding snow-mobiles again; it seemed like a really good idea at the time of booking, but not too sure now!!! Sky still very cloudy and chances of seeing the Aurora are pretty much nil. However, off we'll go.
Will tell more later.....
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