In the land of the midnight sun

G'day again,
We're over the Arctic Circle and rounding the top of Scandinavia! I'm going to try and send this blog posting from a ship so although I have some photos ready, I may not be able to put them in as apparently the connection is very slow. But I'll do my best.

Thanks for your comment Heather, and no...only statues of polar bears so far. But we've seen heaps of reindeer so do they count? :-)

Anyway, to catch you up......

Saturday 21/6 - Visiting a reindeer farm and Santa's Workshop
Woke early and threw back the block-out curtains to find it was broad daylight....still......again...always. But more than that, it was pouring with rain. Not your light drizzle or occasional downpour, but the kind of steady, pounding rain that you just know will go on for hours and hours and hours and which makes one long for cosy log fires and hot chocolate. But today was the day we were visiting a real reindeer farm...by boat!

No problem. Two essential things to pack for any holiday are both a sense of adventure and a sense of humour, so we all walked down to the uninviting, grey river, donned absolutely silly looking ponchos, struggled into life-jackets then tentatively stepped into the waiting long boat. What a hoot! Before long we were absolutely saturated despite the ponchos...in fact water collected in a pool in our laps, and everytime you turned your head to look at something you were rewarded with a rivulet of cold water dripping down your neck. But we laughed and laughed! It all seemed so funny! The husky Finnish guy at the helm didn't seem at all perturbed however I guess he was quite used to it.

After what seemed like hours out on the grey water (but was probably about 20 minutes) the boat pulled up to a small landing and we were being shouted at by a Finnish guy dressed in national costume, talking ten to the dozen in his strange language. Soon after arrival he grabbed me and lifted me up, and he sort of mimed that he was taking me as his princess. He had a knife and waved it around at this point. (Pssst....actually, he was really cute so I was more than happy to play along [cheeky grin]) But then he indicated that we should follow him along some narrow boards which traversed the wet tundra.....we were such a wet, bedraggled looking mob! [laugh] Finally we arrived at a traditional home which looks a bit like an Indian tee-pee but oh, wonderful.....it had a blazing log fire in the middle of it! Won't go into detail about what went on inside the tee-pee but it involved reindeer milk, virility and preparation for the after-life. Trust me...you don't need to know the details but it was a lot of fun. [roars with laughter]


I got to pat a reindeer which was a highlight, and found out all sorts of interesting stuff about these lovely animals. Do you know there are no wild reindeer, even though they wander around freely? They are actually like cows and although there are thousands and thousands of them, every one is owned by somebody.....and they all have their own ear marking on their animals so they know whose is whose. Similar to the big cattle stations in Australia, they regularly do a round-up to tend to their herd.

Oh, what a relief to peel off wet jackets and climb into the warm, waiting bus to set off for our next destination - the Santa Claus workshop which is right on the line of the Arctic Circle. (Note: Actually, the Arctic Circle moves a little each year but lets not get too technical about this stuff [grin]) This is the 'official' Santa post-office too, and is the place where all those letters your children wrote to Santa get sent. It makes you wonder how some of them make it as the addresses aren't too clear, but make it they do! It is actually a real post-office so there was the opportunity to write a post-card and have it postmarked and sent from this very place, but I'm more into blogs than postcards, and I don't think Santa can deal with this yet. [laugh] Had a brief chat to a lady in one of the shops who asked where we came from - turned out she was not only Australian but used to live on Glen Osmond Road in Adelaide! Small world. It was all a great experience that I wouldn't have missed for the world, but unfortunately Santa's Workshop is more about souvenir shops than toy factories. A pity...but that's life. [sigh]

The rest of the afternoon we just drove, continually northward. The trees are getting thinner and smaller and there are increasing amounts of soggy tundra with less and less evidence of population. One still sees the occasional red house amongst the trees but as the day wore on, these got less and less. The Americans in the bus were marvelling on the fact that it might take an hour to 'go to the store'...[laugh]....didn't want to tell them that in areas of Australia it can take days to 'go to the store'! The scenery definitely had a sameness about it though, so we passed the time by playing 'spot the reindeer', and saw quite a few either grazing on the tundra, walking along or even lazing around in groups right next to the road!

Spent the night in Ivalo which is one of the most northern towns in Finland

Sunday 22/6 - All aboard for a Hurtigruten Adventure!
This morning we crossed over from Finland to Norway which was very much a non-event considering Norway isn't in the EU and therefore requires passport control. Klaars (Tour Guide) said it was very relaxed these days though and I would say this was evident by the fact that when we whizzed through the border, there was a guy lying on the bench out the front in the sun....and he just raised his head enough to see it was a bus, and waved to us!!! I'd say that was pretty relaxed, wouldn't you? [laugh]

Arrived at Kirkenes mid-morning, all excited and ready to embark our ship (the Vesteralen) for the Hurtigruten Cruise. This was a highlight for us and one of the main reasons we had booked this tour as the Hurtigruten trip is very highly recommended and is supposed to be an entirely different experience than 'your average cruise'. Basically, it began back in 1891 as a postal and delivery service to all the tiny, isolated villages along the north and west of the wild and amazingly beautiful coastline of Norway. It still is....except now they take passengers as well. The Vesteralen is a lovely little ship that only takes about 200 passengers (compared to over 2,000 on the last ship we were on) and has an 'olde worlde' feel and a sense of intimacy that isn't possible on the huge liners. There's no pool...no beauty salons...no line of restaurants...no helicopter pad. But one can sit in the 'Panorama Room' on the top deck and gaze out of the huge glass windows or glass ceiling, and stare in wonder as snow-covered mountains and barren, craggy cliffs tower high overhead. Breathtaking!

The first part of the voyage was a little rough and it was difficult to walk around without falling into the furniture. I took a Kwells just to be on the safe side but I haven't had a problem with sea-sickness so this is good as I was concerned it might spoil the trip for me. But since we started heading between the islands its quite calm and nobody seems to be suffering at all.

Because these Hurtigruten ships stop at so many little villages, there is the opportunity to go ashore to walk around and check out the cute little Norwegian shops, churches and other local sights. A short walk from the boat at Vardo brought us to an original old fort which is partly a museum but is still manned. Not sure what those guns were pointing too but I loved the old buildings with grass roofs. Imagine getting the lawn-mower up on the roof when the grass is getting too long! [laugh] Only kidding!!! ROFL

The 'land of the midnight sun' is a fantastic novelty, but you have no idea what you miss when you don't have it anymore. And we miss NIGHT! Everyone on our tour is saying they are waking a lot in the night to check the clock because it is always daytime here and our body-clocks are really thrown out. Its OK for the Norwegians as they are used to it buty for us visitors, its a bit difficult to cope with. So last night, my ingenious Norbert made it night for us. [chuckle] He never travels without basic essentials (like duct tape) so he taped a couple of black fabric shopping bags over the glass window in our cabin, then drew the curtains over it. And hey presto! We had instant night! Even had to turn the lights on to pull the beds out.

Monday 23/6 - Enjoying the Norwegian Fijords
Of course our 'fake night' meant we slept in till 8am, but gee, we were refreshed after a better night's sleep. [grin] After a leisurely breakfast (food is good) we took our second cup of coffee back up to the Panorama Room and watched the eerie scenery as fog swirled in and around the snow peaks and rolled down into the valleys. Just beautiful...but cold! We keep thinking...if this is mid-summer, what must it be like in mid-winter for the people who live here! And some of the tiny villages are nothing more than 2 or 3 houses with no access except by boat. When it is 50degrees below zero, and dark for 6 months of the year, it would take a different kind of person to cope with that level of isolation.

Just before lunch the ship docked at Hammerfest which is reputed to be the world's most northernmost town, and it reminded me of those TV ads you see for canned fish. You know the ones...husky looking Norwegian fisherman, screeching sound of sea-gulls, colourful houses like matchboxes, all in rows, with a backdrop of dark mountains patched with snow. Cute as a postcard! We went for a walk to get some exercise, and used the 'zag-zag path' to get to the top of the hills behind the town and admire the amazing view down into the fijord. Checked out the local Lutheran church which has a beautiful stained glass window, then back to the ship in time for lunch.

In the afternoon I had a 'Nanna Nap'. Actually, Norbert did too and this wasn't about being lazy.....it was a strategy to be able to stay up late tonight as we are going on one of the ship's excursions to a midnight concert in a church, at a small town where we are docking. Amazingly, when we woke up the fog had all cleared and it has turned out to be the most beautiful day with blue skies and sunshine. The plan tonight is to go to the concert at midnight then photograph and enjoy the midnight sun which will still be up when we get back to the boat at about 2am. How romantic! [silly grin] I'll let you know about it when I can get back to the internet again....hopefully soon.

Bye for now!