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  • December3rd

    Norway Sandra Herd

    The has car died.

    Last night we should have been watching the Northern Lights through the dome of a glass igloo at the wonderfully picturesque Hotel Kakslauttanen. Right now we should be on a date with a reindeer, sliding through the snow on an open sleigh…on my way to Santa’s resort with a good meal and log fire awaiting my return. Instead, we are stranded in a hotel in the dark days at Lakselv, Norway.

    Where, you ask? Exactly.

    I’ve been wanting to get to these glass igloos for months. We re-scheduled because of our emergency rush home to Oz and had the dates locked in for this weekend. We were driving to Finland from Honningsvag down the E6 when we lost power to the wheels. Engine still running – car going nowhere. Thankfully we were only about 40kms north of Lakselv. We called the emergency breakdown service (who have been fantastic) 5 hours, two episodes of Stargate (on the laptop) and one tuna and sweet corn sandwich later, we were picked up by the tow-truck and our injured team member was towed to a cold and lonely carpark to await a diagnosis. It will be a long wait… the repair shop is closed over the weekend.

    And so we are stuck…not in the middle of nowhere but close to it. Yes, we’re lucky the car didn’t conk out on the mountain pass a few days ago (pictured above) where the outside temperature was -16o and yes, we’re happy to be safe and well but we’re so, so sad to be missing out, once again, on the great plans we had at Hotel Kakslauttanen.

    Dear Santa,

    Please arrange for our car to be OK…or send us a new Jeep!

    Cheers

    Sandy x

  • November27th

    EUROPE-3005-Edit

    We haven’t had much sleep over the past two nights….we’ve been hunting. Chasing the light. And we found it.

    On Friday night we drove for 2 hours out of Tromso chasing a glimmer of the illusive aurora borealis.  We did get a glimmer but only a small one, at midnight we gave up and drove through the sleet and rain for another 2 hours back to Tromso. Last night was wonderfully clear. We drove 20km out of town and were treated to a striking sky show from about 11pm to 1am. Granted, it’s the not the greatest aurora photo of all time but it’s hopefully the first of many while we’re in the arctic circle.  It’s also the shot that means I can put a BIG TICK next to #2 on my bucket list – “See & shoot the aurora borealis”

    Tick!



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