We are very happy we selected Abisko. It was an awesome stop. The Northern Lights have been on mine and Chris’s bucket list for a long time, so we decided this was the place we could give it a go. Let’s start out with the bad news, during our three nights in Abisko we did not see the Northern Lights. Though, we did enjoy our stay very much.
The train dropped us off at the smallest train stop. It was a little building in the middle of nowhere. We had a short little walk to hostel we booked. This was our first real hostel, sleeping rooms with a shared bathroom and kitchen. We stayed in a hostel in Spain, but it was a family room, which was more like an apartment. This hostel was fairly new or at least redone, it was nice, and there was only a small number of guests. As a true hostel experience we met our fellow hostel guests, which made it nice to have an adult conversation. On our first day, we met the Johnson family from the UK, and guess what? They had read our blog, we were shocked! It was such a surprise and crazy experience.
On night one, we took a walk around seven to see if we could see some lights. We took a snowmobile path to a walking trail until we found an opening to look up into the sky. It was a beautiful, clear sky, but the moon was bright. Great night, but no lights. Chris was up and down all night trying to view the lights from our room.
Kaleigh’s actual birthday was on our second day. She wanted to hike up one of the mountains, so she could play in the snow. There was some snow on the ground, but not much to play with for the girls, and she could see more up the mountain. It was a workout getting up to the top of the mountain. It took us two hours with the few breaks Chris let us have. We went off the trail a tiny bit towards the top, it got a little steep, but we made it by helping each other out with a little push, hand grab, or throw (Chris picked Kaleigh up to try and get her higher up without slipping). We enjoyed the view, had some water, dried fruit and beef jerky, then headed back down the mountain. It only took 40 minutes to get to the bottom! On the way down, I would get a head of the girls and slide down on my bottom, smoothing path so they could slide down on their bottom. We all had a few slips and falls during the trip, some of us even came out with a bruise or two.
In the kitchen, during lunch, we chatted with a guy from Singapore, who had some extra cake. He thought it was only proper to give the extra cake to Kaleigh for her birthday. We have come across so many nice and generous people on our journey. We didn’t get a chance to go out on this night to see the lights. It was a cloudy night, making it not a good viewing night, and we were all exhausted from our fun day.
The next day we decided to head to take the train to Narvik, Norway. Sweden claims it to be the most beautiful train ride and Chris had read about the clear water in the bay, so we decided it was something we should do! We used the Swedish train app and book tickets that night. The next morning, we were on the train! On the train Kaleigh and Chris were having a conversation about the amount of daylight Abisko received each day because at the time we were visiting the days were very short, it was complete dark by 2:30 pm. Kaleigh asked, “Why does Sweden get less sun?” Chris proceeded to explain the rotation of the earth, position of the sun and moon, and the seasons. During his explanation, he mentioned New Zealand getting longer days right now. Then Kaleigh proceeded to ask, “I wonder how many hours they get, we have 24?” Needless to say, after a quick reminder about the hours of a day, she realized what she had asked. We spent a couple of hours walking around and having lunch in Narvik, before catching the return train.
We stayed one more night in Akisko before heading south to Kiruna.
