Havoysund – Utsjoki – Rovaniemi – Home

So there hasn’t been a post for the last day and a bit due to the fact we were simply travelling to Rovaniemi. It was a long journey stopping off in Utsjoki in a very secluded cabin and then finding our house for the night in the city that is the gateway to the Arctic.

I will update a later post with details on the film but here are two photos from the last few days – from driving in near blizzard conditions to the car not being bale to get up a very icy road.

Leaving the Arctic Peak

Our stay in Havoysund has come to an end and its pretty warm here +5C (The coldest on record here is only -8C), it is warmed significantly by the sea. However the wind plays a big factor in keeping this town and Nord Kapp warm.

Our Flat is next to the harbour and directly outside our window is the Rescue boats:

Now this is predominantly a fishing town and nothing else – the odd tourist – the one expensive takeaway is town (220NK for Chicken Nuggets and Chips(£20)).

The only shop opened this morning and hasn’t been open our entire stay so our provisions are pretty scarce and a stop in Finland is a must when we pass the line into it. Things are very expensive here and this is something I cannot emphasize enough.

We went on a 8 mile round hike yesterday to the Arctic peak, I made it up and waited for the other chaps (10 minutes) and we made a cup of Bovril and tea at the end of the world. The wind is extreme in this part of the Arctic – hence the windfarms; the wind makes it very cold.

It took us around 8 mins to travel around the town and it was unimpressive to be perfectly honest, its not somewhere you’d come back to, but something you should definitely do as the experience is unparalleled looking out at the arctic Ocean. Our stay (2 days) is the prefect amount of time to come here for however you should stop up before you get here.

Onwards to Utsjoki.

The Long drive to Havoysund

I’m writing this late as we were driving all day to get to the region of Nord Cape. We are currently in the capital city of Nord Cape – Havoysund. This was around a 6 hour drive with stops to get here through very cold conditions – the coldest we have ever seen (-38.9C), interestingly we passed the point where Fahrenheit is lower than Celsius as -38.9C is -38.0F. At this point when you are outside, one deep breath hurts and makes you want to cough, if you breathe in through your nose the hairs freeze (To give you some kind of idea). Its nearly impossible to be outside without a good coat and base layer, gloves, scarf and a hat (you always travel with a base layer and outer layer on your legs in these conditions). It still amazes me that people live in these condition – admittedly they don’t go out much.

We saw fjords, tundra and open expanse throughout – as we got towards the top of Europe the Arctic ocean started to show its hand and the wind picked up.

Once we got to our base in our trek to the plateau of the world we realised that nothing is open here past 4pm (We arrived at 6pm) and even thought the town is larger than I first thought it would be its very quiet.

We walked around for a while a found the only take away place open where we purchased some generic fast food, as Norway is so expensive this cost the group around £100 collectively; in comparison this would cost around £20 in London.

After this we head back to our good flat in the heart of the town and played around with camera settings and compared ISO’s on various cameras whilst talking about our mission tomorrow.

The mission equates to seeing the Arctic Plateau and sledding – a good plan, don’t you think?

This shows the window icing up in the inside – not the outside. It also shows out thermometer.

This shows the sun in setting over the Arctic Ocean in the Nord Cape region on the journey up.

Last Day in Enontekio

As we approach our last day – I’m writing this post as the others head to the sauna and the warm after a cold day running around making fires in the snow and ice.

Our day started late as myself and Thor (who now have a cabin to ourselves) stayed up until 430am chatting and feeding the fire. The other chaps are back in the original cabin with their own rooms while the owners are fitting a new booster tank – which is what burst, all this means is the downstairs is off limits but everything else in the cabin works.

Once up and messing around with some shots and vids inside the cabin we headed out to the newly found supermarket and hardware store. Within this store, armed with my Scandinavian phrase book (Courtesy of Kerrie), we worked out that Vapaan means free range in terms of eggs and decided to go for these over the non-vapaan which we assumed meant caged. In the store we also purchased other essential items such as kinkkusulatejuusto (cheese and ham spread) and Saunapalvi (Smoked ham). Each store we have entered has a lot of Moomin memorabilia – yes that is the children’s cartoon – which I have always found odd. After the store we enetered the hardware store where we purchased a sled and headed out to the local Grilli (Fast food restaurant), most of you reading will not know but here these places are very popular and it was busy when we went in – I didn’t eat anything but the chaps got some burgers and chips for around the price you would expect to pay in a London restaurant.

After this we head back to the cabin and went out to form a top down fire (Minus Thor and Russell) ready for the evening and then generally messed about with snow and sitting in very deep snow.

Thor joined us later as we explored the other side of the frozen lake we are situated on and then again shot some vids of the guys standing under a tree with someone shaking it.

After this we went back out to the fire we had prepared and lit it – to great effect. Cue brandy, music and running around. Russell has joined us by this point but did admit he was cold (He didn’t bring his cold weather jacket from last time).

To be honest today has been basic but fun and everyone has done what they want. I like going out into the cold (Anton and Steve generally join me most times) and Thor and Russell enjoy the warm and join sporadically.

Tomorrow we drive to NordCape…and the underground sea tunnel.

 

Northern Lights – Frozen lake – Enontekio

Instead of updating I thought I’d do a new post:

The evening here starts around 3pm this time of year, myself and Steve were busily reviewing footage whilst the others headed to the local shop in search of souvenirs. They came back with tales such as ‘We found another shop! We turned left instead of right and found a hardware store and a kebab shop!’. Even though this may not seem significant to the lowly Londoner surrounded by shops all their life, to travellers in the heart of the arctic, this is significant. So much so that they informed us and we discussed it. We then headed to our purchased meal, 7 euros each, provided by the cabin owners which they offer each guest every night. Tonight they had Reindeer casserole (A speciality in the Lapland area of Scandinavia) and what was dubbed ‘Chicken with Rice’. Not liking the Reindeer myself – it is unique, I chose the chicken hoping that the lack of Chicken farms for 100’s of miles wouldn’t deter from the taste. Of course I was wrong and it was only made edible by the fact it was made into some sort of Chicken curry, I ate it none the less. We finished our plates and has some coffee and headed back out, the guys had asked for the Sauna to be ready for 8 O’clock and it was nearing that time when we left.

SO whilst the chaps headed into the Sauna, I ventured out into -30C to see if there was any lights to speak off, a mere glimmer hit me and it seemed that it was worth heading out but not as good as we saw last time.

However an hour later waiting and getting colder Steve decided to join me and I grabbed the now frozen beer out of my pocket to have some. This was when the lights lit up and danced across the sky; green, purple and yellow easily seen with the naked eye and spectacular to behold. It was literally moving like a waving flag across the arctic landscape. We managed to capture some great images but its never as good on a computer screen.

After this the other chaps joined us, but the show had reached its conclusion and even though we waited to see the encore, there wasn’t going to be one. It faded and faded until the hopes were dashed with the rapid onset of cloud drifting across the sky like smoke from a chimney on a cold London evening.

Cold, Hungry and aching I headed back and the others followed slowly as they came to the conclusion that there would be no more tonight. My camera has ice on it and the light box mounted on top had frozen, the laces on my shoes cracked and strained as I tried to take them off and my hands burnt as they hit warm air inside the cabin.

Our last full day awaits us tomorrow and we aim to explore one last time in this untouched area with no tourists to speak of and very few locals. The scenery is spectacular here and unique in the world, some shots below of our day:

 

 

 

 

Trouble in (a cold) Paradise

Throughout the day we arrived we could hear water in the cabin but assumed that it was the pipework as its very quiet here and you can hear most things. The chaps wanted to look into the cellar of the cabin we stayed, which was different from the one we wanted as the water pipe burst in that one and was being worked on. WE opened the door to the cellar to this:

 

 

 

So as you can see the whole basement was filled with water – this means that 2 cabins are now in usable – More or less.

We have moved into a smaller cabin (Me and Thor) and the other guys are on the upper floors of the cabin without the main room.

 

I will update this post but Russell is complaining he wants food…

Rovaniemi to Enontekio

As we make the long journey to Northern Finland I’ve already accidently smashed a bottle of olive oil in the shop which was priced at around 18 euros. Thor and Steve got lost – the driver and co pilot going to said shop.

We haven’t made the mistake of not getting food in the bigger town this time so won’t have to drive 150 miles to find one.

It’s a warm -10C at the moment but quite a strong mix of wind and snow.

 

Anton makes the first mistake

So we are heading through security and Anton forgets that he has a bottle of Remy Martin in his backpack. So the helpful Gatwick attendant suggest he may be able to check it in rather than lose it. However because the flight is dead regulations allow that they charge him, when it is full they can’t. So that nice little bottle of brandy ended up costing him £84.

Better be good.

Whistlestop Tour over

Our quick visit to Rome and its sites is over and we are currently on the way to the airporto. 

Early taxi to get there for our 10:50 flight.

The food has been amazing and the drink also.

We have seen 1000’s of people in queues but always found a way around them be it a tour or luck but I don’t suspect that in summer we would be that lucky!

Some of the sites we have seen:

Vatican Tour sticker

That is all.