arctic adventures
the next port of call on my adventure was the arctic circle, specifically, tromso in northern norway. it was here on a dark and -15 degree night i met my sister and her husband richard... or more specifically, somehow took a couple of buses from the airport, wandered around the deserted streets, finally managed to call my brother-in-law from the unreliable mobile system (as IF australian mobile coverage is sketchy in the artic circle! pah) and sent him running up the wrong street to meet me, before seeing him from afar and alerting him to my presence by shouting "OI!!!! LOSER!!" or some such :-)
this town was crazy - it's a beautiful little place but there was no time it got warmer than -11 and as it was winter, the sun never rose high in the sky. when the weather forcast comes on, maybe to make themselves feel a bit better, they omit the negative sign. that's all well and good for them but my sister was really thrown since she was expecting 12, aka london weather, not -12, aka it hurts to breathe weather. everywhere was beautiful, especially with the light continually as if it was sunset:
(RA)
(RA)
me watching the sunset at the dock
(RA)
sometimes it seemed that as beautiful as the place was, it wasn't really cut out for people to live there. it takes a good 5-10 mins to get dressed to go outside and the snow is so deep and soft... lovely, but think of the practicalities such as...
driving
walking
playing
on our last day there, we went dogsledding! we got to drive them ourselves and went through the lyngen alps, stopping at lunchtime to have reindeer stew and hot chocolate. it was one of those experiences that makes you lost for words it was so beautiful and exhilarating.
ali and myself with a couple of 'my' dogs
(RA)
next we went to say g'day to some reindeer (and apologise for our lunch) and also to see if we could see the northern lights. we weren't very optimistic since it was classed as 'low activity' that night but it was enough to do us! the only way i could describe it was as if coloured sand was blowing through the sky, continually changing. with the windchill that night it was -30, but ali stayed out there for ages looking at it.
(RA)
as for me, i was happy to get back in front of the fire in the sami tent and see if i could reaquaint myself with my feet.
on the way back our incredibly entertaining, chatty tour guide told us that we could tell him when we wanted to take pictures and he'd stop. in my defence, it was really pretty but it WAS technically on a norwegian freeway. it wasn't a great idea to stop but he did, and out of nowhere the cops arrived, lights and all. ali and rich hunkered down in the back seat, the chatty tour guide put up the bonnet and told me to talk to them and i stood there helplessly with my camera in hand saying one of the two most globally recognised words, "OK" (the other one is cocacola, didn't think it would be as appropriate) as they shouted at me in norwegian, pointed in a direction, and got rapidly more agitated and red in the face. eventually they gave up and left. this picture SO isn't worth it.
(RA)= richard (my brother-in-law)'s pics. he's amazing, check out his site:
http://www.pbase.com/arjay
this town was crazy - it's a beautiful little place but there was no time it got warmer than -11 and as it was winter, the sun never rose high in the sky. when the weather forcast comes on, maybe to make themselves feel a bit better, they omit the negative sign. that's all well and good for them but my sister was really thrown since she was expecting 12, aka london weather, not -12, aka it hurts to breathe weather. everywhere was beautiful, especially with the light continually as if it was sunset:
(RA)
(RA)
me watching the sunset at the dock
(RA)
sometimes it seemed that as beautiful as the place was, it wasn't really cut out for people to live there. it takes a good 5-10 mins to get dressed to go outside and the snow is so deep and soft... lovely, but think of the practicalities such as...
driving
walking
playing
on our last day there, we went dogsledding! we got to drive them ourselves and went through the lyngen alps, stopping at lunchtime to have reindeer stew and hot chocolate. it was one of those experiences that makes you lost for words it was so beautiful and exhilarating.
ali and myself with a couple of 'my' dogs
(RA)
next we went to say g'day to some reindeer (and apologise for our lunch) and also to see if we could see the northern lights. we weren't very optimistic since it was classed as 'low activity' that night but it was enough to do us! the only way i could describe it was as if coloured sand was blowing through the sky, continually changing. with the windchill that night it was -30, but ali stayed out there for ages looking at it.
(RA)
as for me, i was happy to get back in front of the fire in the sami tent and see if i could reaquaint myself with my feet.
on the way back our incredibly entertaining, chatty tour guide told us that we could tell him when we wanted to take pictures and he'd stop. in my defence, it was really pretty but it WAS technically on a norwegian freeway. it wasn't a great idea to stop but he did, and out of nowhere the cops arrived, lights and all. ali and rich hunkered down in the back seat, the chatty tour guide put up the bonnet and told me to talk to them and i stood there helplessly with my camera in hand saying one of the two most globally recognised words, "OK" (the other one is cocacola, didn't think it would be as appropriate) as they shouted at me in norwegian, pointed in a direction, and got rapidly more agitated and red in the face. eventually they gave up and left. this picture SO isn't worth it.
(RA)= richard (my brother-in-law)'s pics. he's amazing, check out his site:
http://www.pbase.com/arjay
posted by claire debats @ 10:49 PM
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