Alta

After a late start due to a late evening we were woken up by one of the site managers to say that we have missed breakfast but if we come over quickly we can have some. I spoke to the manager (An angry Norwegian Woman) who introduced herself in broken English by stating “I am the Boss, you are late.” To which i retorted by exclaiming “Right” and she then walked off. The man continued to be very pleasant and we proceeded to eat our continental breakfast.

After this we head out into the snow storm that had arrived during our brief interlude to take some shots, the amount of snow made this difficult and we eventually aimed to get to the Ice Hotel.

After booking our session at the Ice Hotel for tonight we head into town, where Thor got his first ever Parking ticket. The price for parking was free but you had to take a ticket in the shop entrance and put it in your window – ridiculous as there wasn’t a queue or a small amount of space for cars. I didn’t understand the need for this process but there are a lot of odd things in Norway, such as this:

We then proceeded to get back to the cabin. Whilst conversing in numerous Scandinavian languages and testing my pronunciation from my phrase book:

Aurora Borealis

Just a quick one before we head to bed, on a very quick 15minute excursion out of our camp we were in the pitch black and captured this:

Forecast is even better tomorrow night!

Gargia Fjellstule – Northern Norway (End of nowhere)

We have just got up to our Campsite and after getting the key have found it to be much warmer and better in every aspect than our last; however, this is a long way from anything.

We haven’t eaten since breakfast so when we got here we were pretty hungry, so much so that when we asked the receptionist stated that he heard someone had ordered Pizza here once before. Spurred on by this challenge i asked Steve to call a Pizzeria and see if they did.

Now, they had a slow night so they said they would deliver. We have just had a phone call from the driver saying he was round the corner but did not know where it was exactly and that he had passed two bridges. The only two bridges that we knew of were 32KM back, after explaining this the driver he then exclaimed in Norwegian and said he would call us later. The total mileage here is around 50KM and 50KM back therefore 100Km or around 70 miles. The pizzas are expensive but it is indeed worth it.

The policy on their website states if its more than an hour its free, I’ve prepared my Norwegian phrasebook and am ready to argue this point…

Now I’m going through shots we need or have yet to do and planning our day out tomorrow, most likely to include sledging and googles and loads of warm gear.

Travelling through Fjords

Not much chance to update today but we have captured some cracking shots of fjords and drone shots of open expanses, unfortunately not a good connection in the wilderness so only text at the moment and no images!

We are 3 hours from Alta and its just about to get pitch black and a lot more twisty turns to go!

First Night in Tromso

Currently getting ready to sleep after a hectic first day, it’s 12.6 C in the cabin and -9 outside the cabin. After having a unexpectedly good shower it was time to get ready for bed.

To sleep I have put on a thermal Nike heat shirt on, Nike thermal trousers, one pair of thin socks and one pair of thick ones, one woolly 3.5 tog hat and a neck scarf. It is cold to say the least. As I despise wearing socks to sleep it shows how chilly it is.

Until tomorrow’s breakfast.

Oslo Airport

When we arrived it was a clear crisp day hovering around 25-28 degrees (-2/-3 celsius) and the outside looked like this:
Within 10 minutes it had turned to this:
and then this happened:

And then we ate some Pizza from Pizza Hut, this meal consisted of 2 slices of Pizza and one 50cl beer and cost 183NKO which equates to 18.58GBP so to answer a lot of questions around price, yes it is very expensive.
We have been waiting for our connecting flight to Tromsø which is at 6pm GMT and in the mean time looking at highly expensive items such as a packet of crisps for 68NKO or 6.50GBP for 100g and considering the reasons behind 50l of beer costing 87NKO or 8.83GBP.
We are about to meet Anton and get ready to pack our stuff from the table we have found in the gantry overlooking the main thoroughfare in the airport and head to our gate within the hour.

Next post Tromsø!!!!!

 

 

Gatwick 5am

Well we made it through security, but unfortunately some of my kit didn’t (See Picture). The X-Ray machine broke the drone – we still aren’t sure it can fly but are hopeful due to the nature of the brake. One positive note is the level of customer service provided by Gatwick, a very apologetic gentleman named Tony took all my details, filled out a claims form and said due to the cost he can’t reimburse now but will after the trip; this was whilst admitting full liability and continually apologising (again). Cant fault the level of service just annoyed it happened, but these things seem to rear their ugly head at the worst times.

So we are sitting in Wetherspoons; Thor and Steve opting for english breakfasts and myself opting for Eggs Benedict with salmon instead of Ham – discussing why our flight has already been delayed 50 minutes…oh and why the tea isn’t good enough for Thor.

Here’s to the next 2 hours complaining about Tea.

Greenwich, Northern Norway and Finland

Once again the adventure machine gets back into action with our second trip seeing us head into Norway and Finland near and around Nordkapp

We have a slightly revised team and will not have Russell on board this time due to personal reasons.

Our trip starts off modestly, at an airport, where we are flying to Tromso in Northern Norway and then picking our car up there to begin our Journey.

Next post to be in a few hours while i get some kip.

P.s. we are leaving at 3am GMT.

 

Stockholm to Copenhagen

Upon entering the train station in Stockholm it struck me as odd as there were no ticket barriers, then it dawned on me that most of Europe is like this.

We are now on the final train trip, our penultimate journey, back to Denmark where we will spend one final night and explore the town. Only 5 hours until we get there…

 

 

A further episode from our trip will be uploaded in due course…