Friday 10th February
We started our holiday with a half day at work. At lunchtime I collected Em and after lunch we caught the bus out to Shannon airport. We flew across to London and arrived at 6:30pm, followed by a tube trip to James and Julie's house in Wimbledon Park. We had a lovely evening there, with a delicious dinner that Julz cooked and just spent the evening catching up and making plans for our four days ahead. James and Julie both had extra leave so decided to have Monday and Tuesday off as well with us, so we could do something extra or go somewhere new. We decided we would take their new campervan, Dusty, to Cambridge. They are heading away for four months in Dusty to Europe, and we are planning to meet up with them in Spain in July and spend 2 weeks with them touring around. They had only been away in Dusty for one night before this, so this was another test run for them and also a test run for the four of us in Dusty.
Saturday 11th
The four of us got away from the house by just after 9:30am. Our plan was to tube to Lords cricket ground to do a tour of the grounds at 11am. Unfortunately there was a problem on the tube line, so we had to catch the bus instead, and then the tube. Eventually we made it nearly to Lords, but it was 11:15am. It was a chilly morning, so we found a cafe and had a coffee in the warmth while we waited for 12 noon to come around for the next tour.
The tour started right on time. I was nervous, I was very keen myself to do it, being a cricketing nut, but neither Em, James, or Julie are big fans, but decided to come, which was nice of them. It was almost 2 hours long, we had a fantastic tour guide, and he really made the tour a great experience. We started in the museum where we saw the real 'Ashes'. They are deemed too delicate to travel now, so they stay there in the museum. From there we headed to 'The Long Room' and then up to the 'Home' dressing room, and then wandered around the ground itself. The field had a layer of snow on it which was slightly disappointing, but at the same time made it more of a unique experience. We went up into the famous media centre, which has a fantastic view of the ground, it must be a brilliant place to watch a match from. We finished off the tour in the indoor nets and checking out the No.2 ground.
By the time we were finished the tour we were all rather ravenous. We had planned to go to Dim Sum (Yum Cha) in China town. We were very hopeful we had not missed it, and when we got to Joy King Lau we were not disappointed. It was quiet enough that we went straight to a table and had a delicious feast of all of our favourite dishes.
After filling ourselves up we went to Fulham to go to a beer shop I had found online with foreign beers. We probably spent half and hour looking at them all and making our choices to sample. On the way back to James and Julie's flat we picked up a few groceries. Back at their house we had a raclette (grilled cheese, meats and vegies) for dinner, which was very tasty, and light enough for us after our late Dim Sum munch.
After dinner we went to the house warming of Kirk, one of the guys who was in Egypt with us.
Sunday 12th
Em and I were up at about 8:30am, and after breakfast we headed into the city. James and Julie had a few things they had to get done, so stayed around home for the day.
It was a cold, cloudy day. When we got into the city we walked up 'The Mall' where we went to the gates of Buckingham Palace. The Union jack was flying, indicating the Queen was not home, so we didn’t pop in for a cuppa. When she is home, the 'Royal Standard' is on the flag pole.
From here we ventured to Westminster Abbey. We thought we would as we had never been there before and since we were so close we would go and check it out. Unfortunately we could not get into it, as it was Sunday it was closed to 'tourists' – we could have gone to the service but didn’t want to be naughty and leave half way through. So we wandered around the outside, and then moved on from there. We had originally planned to meet Madeliene, Raj's sister-in-law, but dates were miscommunicated.
So we walked past Downing St and waved hello to the Prime Minister, and then went to the National Gallery, to get out of the cold, use a toilet, and of course check out some of the art rooms there. Em was particularly interested as they had works from a number of artists that she studied at high school. She could even remember interesting information about these, despite this being many years ago now. Outisde the gallery the fountains in Trafalgar Square had ice in them, proving what we already knew – it was VERY cold.
We went for lunch at a Vietnamese restaraunt which was warmed us up nicely. We still had some time to waste until the start of our musical, so went for a coffee just up the road from the Lyceum Theatre. The show started at 2:30pm, so soon before this we walked to the theatre. We had to take a round-about route due to some filming happening on one of the streets. We went to see The Lion King, which we were both very excited about. It did not disappoint, and we thoroughly enjoyed the show, especially the costumes. They were amazing. I did feel that there was one or two too many songs in there, but still it was brilliant.
After the show we met up James and Julie to go out to dinner with them to 'Maze' - a Gordon Ramsay restaraunt. We all chose the taster menu, where there was a list of 12 dishes (4 entree, 4 mains, and 4 desserts) and you could choose any four that you wanted. We all ended up choosing one entree, two mains and a dessert. Serving sizes on their own were small, but altogether it was a nice sized meal. My stand out dish was a fish and clams which was delicious. Em had an unsual dish, butternut soup which had a serving of smoked beef in the middle. The beef was intensely smokey and very tender. After topping ourselves up with this delicious dinner we caught the tube back to their house where we had an early night.
Monday 13th
We were up early and on the road with James and Julie in their camper, Dusty, by 9am heading to Cambridge. After successfully avoiding the 'low emission zone' in central london and going over Tower Bridge we made our way out of north east London, seeing a large number of Olympic 2012 venues along the way.
We made good time and were in Cambridge by 11am. Em and Julz booked us into a walking tour at 1pm. We had to park out of central Cambridge and walk in. After a very tasty lunch, we got on the walking tour. It was another cold day, so we were hoping we would get inside into places. Unfortunately as te tour started, so did the rain. However it was not too bad, and largely held off for us.
Our tour guide was good, taking us to a number of different attractions around Cambridge, including Kings College and also the Cavendish laboratory where Watson and Krick decoded DNA, Rutherford split the atom, and at one time or another had the works of 26 other nobel prize winning scientists completed in it.
After the walking tour we wandered back to the van, and headed out of Cambridge to a campsite in Ely.
We parked up in the snow at about 5pm. It was not really camping weather. However we had bought James and Julie's bar heater which did a great job of heating up the van. We had a good fun evening in the van having some tasty snacks, playing cards and sampling the beers we had bought on Saturday. Team JJ made tasty kofta for dinner, which we had with pita pockets, salad, and yoghurt. It was a very fancy van dinner.
After cleaning up we just relaxed until about 10pm when we set up the beds and went to sleep.
James and Julie seem to be doing very well. Their van skills are much better than ours, and everything seems to go quite smoothly which is great.
Tuesday 14th
It was a rough nights sleep. We had the heater on timer during the night, but at 1:00am Em and I both woke up stifling hot. It felt like we couldn’t breathe. So we turned off the heater and opened up the small windows, which really helped. Anyway we managed to sleep on and off through the rest of the night.
We were up at 8:30am, it was a cool, breezy morning. After packing up the beds, we had breakfast and then got everything together. We ended up not having showers as it was too cold.
We drove into Ely village and had a small look around. It was nothing special, but there was a massive catherdral it. We went to it, but it was £7 each to enter! So we quickly exited there. After a short time we felt we had seen enough, went back to the van, and drove back to London. We had a good trip back, getting there at 3pm. After getting unpacked, we had showers and some lunch and just chilled out for the afternoon. At about 6pm we said our goodbyes and caught the tube to Madeleine's house, Raj's sister-in-law.
Madeleine lives with her uncle in his lovely big home. She had made a fantastic dinner for us, mexican style. After that, and with little room to spare, we managed to squeeze in a chilli chocolate self-saucing pudding which we all had seconds of. It was lovely to see Madeleine and spend the evening with her.
Wednesday 15th
We had an early start, up at 5am, and leaving the house at just before 6am. Unfortunately about 1 minute after hopping on the tube, we stopped. 25 minutes later we managed to get into the next station, one stop up the line. There had been a signal failure! So we changed trains and took an alternative route to Victoria. We had made reasonable time, but still wanted to catch the express. Unfortunately we were waiting in line for tickets, and just like in the movies, the man in front of us had problems using his card to pay. More than 5 minutes later they managed to pay, and then we got our tickets, got through the barrier, only to watch the train pulling away. The frustration of it!
By the time we got to the airport, we felt a little more relaxed. We went straight through security, and it all went smoothly. They had revamped the airport and it was much nicer than last time we went through. It was also really fast. When we got through we picked up some food before heading to the plane.
Our plane left on time, at 0910, to fly to Oslo. Flying over the land near Oslo the sky cleared and it we were greeted with snowy peaked landscape as far as the eye could see. We saw frozen lakes, and frozen rivers. It was great to see. We had a couple of hours at the airport before catching the transfer flight onto Bergen. We arrived in Bergen at 3pm.
We caught the bus into town, then walked about 1km to the ferry. Bergen seemed like a very nice city, built on hills. The houses all seem to be made of wood, and all painted bright colours. It added some nice colour to the snowy landscape. It was 6°c, much warmer than we’d been expecting. It had been much colder there a couple of weeks before, so we were glad it had warmed up.
After checking in our our lovely boat, the Hurtigruten Polarlys, we sat around in the lounge. At 6pm we were allowed into our rooms, so we went and unpacked and relaxed until dinner. It was fantastic! It was a buffet meal, and I had a goal to try all of the foods that I wanted. Em and I both had a fantastic meal. In the dinner there was smoked salmon, baked salmon, smoked tuna, dog fish, reindeer, cured meats, pork, ham steaks, caviar, cured meats, salads, and breads. Then there was cheese and crackers as well as sweets for dessets, which included ice cream, custard, peanut chocolate caramel dessert, fruit salad, fresh fruit, and coffee mousse. It was a long dinner, we were there for almost 2 hours, but we had some very tasty food, the stand out being baked salmon.
After such a massive meal, we felt like we needed a small walk so we left the boat and went on the hunt for a supermarket to buy a few supplies to have in our room for snacks. We were not long walking and found a small supermarket, so went on in and bought some nuts, fruit, and juice and wandered back to the boat, feeling all the better for having the small walk to help our full tummies settle.
Back on the boat we settled into our room to read our books. At 9:30pm there was a talk for everyone aboard the boat, mainly safety things discussed so nothing exciting there. Once that was done we went back to our rooms. We left port in Bergen at 10pm to start our journey, and we were bed and asleep soon after this.
Thursday 16th
After a long day yesterday we enjoyed a sleep in until 9am which was great. We got up and went to breakfast as we sure did not want to miss that. We were greeted by a large range of foods, including yoghurts, cereal, toast, jams, omlette, boiled eggs, fish, pickles, salads, and cured meats. We stuck with the more traditional foods and had a large breakfast.
After breakfast we went back to our room and had showers and got ready for the day ahead.
We docked at Alesund at 12 midday, our first real stop where we could hop off the boat. We had 3 hours ashore. The weather was changable while we were there but we had a good wander around.
Alesund, like most of our stops, is a fishing village, of about 43,000 people.
There seemed to be quite a few art galleries in the town for some reason, and we enjoyed looking around them, but nothing really caught our eye, well nothing in our price range anyway. One nice shop was actually a souvenir shop, where we saw traditional dress which was nice.
Em had managed to already get close to finishing off her book she had bought to read on the trip, so when we saw a second hand shop we thought we would try our luck, and surely enough we managed to find some English books which was good.
We were back on the boat by about 2:30pm and we left at 3pm. Alesund was a lovely little town really, the parts we saw. Nice colourful buildings and a scenic fishing village.
We spent the afternoon playing cards near a window, watching the scenery. It was quite steep hills hugging the coast line, with a dusting of snow capping the hills. We were sure the scenery was going to get better, but thought we should watch it when we got the chance.
At 6:15pm we went to dinner, and met our dinner friends. We were seated at a particular table and dined at the same table for the whole time we were on the boat. We had 2 English couples, and they were both very nice. On couple was probably in their 70s, the other was probably around our parents age, or slightly younger (so pretty old :-).
The dinner was a little disappointing after the sensational buffet last night, but still enjoyable. After dinner the sea was starting to get rough, and Em started to get sea sick so we went back to our room where we stayed for the evening reading our books.
Friday 17th
We were up earlier today, 7:30am. We had docked into Trondheim at 6am and were there until midday, so tried to get the balance between sleep and leaving ourselves enough time to explore the town. After filling up at breakfast, (including taking a boiled egg back to our room for a snack later on), we left the boat just after 9am. It was snowy around the town, and about 2°c. We just enjoyed walking around the town, exploring the streets in the snow. In parts it was quite slushy, but there were piles of snow everywhere. We walked to the cathedral, and then after spending time looking there went to the mall where we had a look in a few shops. It had been snowing, and while we were inside the mall it got really really heavy. This eased off, and after getting a coffee, which was about $6NZ from a place like Star Mart. It did not take long to drink as it became cold pretty quickly when we got outside. Our on way back to the boat we passed a bar where there was a live brass band playing in the doorway and they were brilliant, so we stood and watched them for a while, in the light snow. We decided it was time to get back to the boat, and made it with 10 minutes to spare, we were 3rd to last to get back onboard the boat.
I went up on deck to watch us leave port, the snow had stopped so I had a nice view of the town. We were sailing in and around land really for the afternoon, reaching open ocean at about 5:30pm. We read our books in the afternoon, but noticed the scenary starting to get much whiter.
Unfortunately reaching open ocean meant dinner was rough and unenjoyable. Em did not actually make it as she was feeling too sea sick. I went, but only lasted for the entree before I too decided lying down would be better. The menu was not encouraging either, so we had quite a foodless evening. It was not looking good, our third day aboard the boat and getting quite sea sick, still 3 whole days to go. Still we were hopeful it would flatten out. So we spent the evening relaxing and reading our books. It definately was a different pace to our usual exploring holidays, but we were enjoying the down time.
Saturday 18th
We were awake at 7am, and went out on deck as we crossed Arctic circle at 7:17:32. We know this time exacly because there was a competition onboard to see who would guess closest. After watching the globe go by that marks the Arctic circle, we had showers and then went for breakfast. We had a nice view at breakfast, with high cloud, so got to admire the scenery. After reading for part of the morning, we went up on deck at 10:30am as there was an 'Arctic circle baptism' ceremony, but we were not impressed and went back to our room to read our books instead. They were pouring ice cold water down your back, not something that either of us were keen to do, even more so because we had a very limited range of clothes.
At 12:30pm we docked at Bodo, a small town of 40,000. There was lots of snow, more than we had ever seen in a town. It was amazing to see that life still seemed to go on as normal really. We did notice, and had noticed this earlier, that the car tyres and special little metal bits in them to help with the grip obviously in the ice and snow on the roads. We did not see much in the parts of town we wandered around, but came across a small park where the thick snow was untouched. We could not resist and went for a stomp around in it, I decided to make a snow ball. It was amazingly easy, it really was a 'snowball effect' once I started. The snow was perfect for it. We had a lot of fun with that. I attempted to make it into a snowman, but my second ball collapsed when I picked it up. The best thing was the snow did not melt, the air temperature was too cold, so we did not get wet at all.
After having this fun, we were a little peckish. We were looking for a small place to eat a snack, and checked out a few shops. Randomly we came across a sausage sizzle, outside, in the snow! So we decided this would be our snack, we lined up and we were wondering how much it would cost. When we got to the front of the queue, and as Em had suspected, they were free. It was the 10th birthday of a local media company, and they were doing this as well as giving away cake. So we stood in the snow, 1°c, and enjoyed our sausage, ketchup, fried onions and mustard in a bun. It was delicious.
After looking through a few more shops and admiring some Northern Lights postcards we headed back to the boat, which left at 3pm.
We spent the afternoon reading, and writing a couple of postcards. Unfortunately we had an open water crossing until 7pm. I went to dinner alone at 6:20pm and we had our entrees. When the mains started to be served I text Em in the room, and she came for that and dessert. By this time we had actually docked, so we enjoyed having some calm. After dinner we had a cup of tea with our table then went back to our room. Our next stop was Svolvaer at 9pm. It was only a short stop, but there was an ice sculpture place here, so we went there and enjoyed having a look around this. It was super cold inside there, and when we came out it almost felt warm outside, but not quite. We played cards at 11pm, then we went up on deck. The boat had stopped at the entrance of the Trollfjord and they turned on the massive boat spot lights and lite up the mountains around. It was really impressive. Unfortunately there was still no Northern Lights spotted, much too cloudy to see that.
Sunday 19th – Excursion day!
We woke and went to breakfast at 8am. Unfortunately it was very cloudy and had been snowing, so visibility was pretty poor. It was nice though as there was little to no wind, so the snow was just floating down.
At 11:15am we docked at Finnsnes, and like the last village we hopped off at, there was more snow here than we had ever seen in a town. We did not get a chance to look around, we were straight onto a bus for a 90 minute trip north east. It was crazy, it did not stop snowing the whole journey, the roads were white with snow, but it seemed pretty amazing that the driver seemed to be driving at normal speed, with little caution, it was just another day. Along the way we had lovely white countryside, and passed over a number of rivers that were frozen solid. We saw foot prints on them and even one place that was used by vehicles to drive across.This river was about the size of the Waikato river, so they must have had a cold winter!
When we arrived we were taken to a room and given snow suits and boots to get changed into. There were 20 of us in our group, so we were broken in the 2 groups. Our group went reindeer sledding first. It was almost magical, we were in a snow filled valley, surrounded by high mountains. Snow was floating down, but there was no wind. It was 0°c, but so comfortable, probably because of the good gear they gave us.
The reindeer sledding was fun. There were two of us on a sled, so Em and I had one to ourselves. It was not exciting, we were led along by the Sami guy who owned the reindeer, and it was a slow paced, calm ride, which was only about 10 minutes long. Still we were happy we did it first, and were excited about the husky sledding next.
The dog sledding started about a half hour after we had finished. We were in pairs again and got a husky sled per pair. Each sled had 5 huskies, two at the front, one in the middle and two at the back. After being shown how to control the sled we were away. All up we were away for almost 1 hour, with a half hour each driving the sled. It was great fun driving. There was a big metal bar at the back of the sled which you had to jump on when going down hill to make sure you did not catch up with the huskies, not that we would have done this. Uphill we had to help a little, pushing the sled up the hill a small amount. It was great fun, we both loved it. It was especially good that we were able to drive it ourselves. The huskies were beautiful dogs. They were too hot as it was 0 degrees – they kept eating snow while they were running, and rolling in the snow when we stopped to cool themselves down.
After finishing the sledding we were taken down the road a small distance to a large sami style hut like a teepee, where we had delicious reindeer stew, coffee, and a sweet (which was made of tortilla style bread, sweet cheese, sugar, and cinnamon). The reindeer was similar to lamb, rather than New Zealand venison.
After the feast, we went back and changed back into our own gear, and were back on a bus, 90 minutes to Tromso. We got back at just after 6pm and the boat left port at 6:30pm. We were disappointed to not have had a chance to explore Tromso, which is nicknamed the Paris of the north, but would not have wanted to miss the sledding as it was brilliant.
We went straight to dinner and thankfully the sea was flat, so we both had a tasty three course dinner. After dinner we had tea and coffee with the older couple from our table, then went to our room and read. Unfortunately it was another cloudy day, so again no chance to see the lights. We went to sleep at about 11pm, starting to wonder if we were never going to catch the Aurora Borealis.
Monday 20th
Our last full day on board Hurtigruten Polarlys. We were up at 8:30am and had showers and breakfast. We relaxed in our room after breakfast, reading, but noticed the cloud starting to clear a small amount.
At 11:45am we docked at Honningsvag, and we were there until 3:15pm. It was just a small town of about 3000 people, but somehow got the title of being a city, and is arguably the northern-most city in the world. It was a beautiful little village on a hillside, with colourful houses breaking up the white slopes.
We walked around for about 2 hours, it was cold, but really nice. We stopped in at a cafe and had a hot chocolate, to get something warm, have a break from the walking and cold, and to also use the bathroom. There were not really any shops to browse, so we just wandered the streets, passing schools and churches. We re-boarded the boat at about 2:30pm. By this time the sky had cleared and there was hardly any cloud around. It was the clearest we had seen the sky in Norway and were very hopeful it would stay like that.
Once back onboard we went up on deck to take some photos. One of the Norwegian chefs from the boat was up there, so we had a good chat with him. He was very interesting to chat to.
At about 3pm the sun set, but there was a long twilight, with it not really getting dark until about 4:30pm. We read and played card in the afternoon, then went out on deck at about 5pm to have a look around. It was getting quite dark, and the sky looked clear, so we were hopeful we might actually get to see the Northern Lights. At 5:20pm an announcement came across to say they had been spotted! There was great excitement, we pulled on warm gear and went outside. We watched them until about 6pm when they faded away. It was brilliant. We were so happy to have seen them. They were not spectucular compared to photos we had seen, but were thrilled to have seen them and they were magical. The best displays are usually between 10pm and 2am so we were defintately not expecting to see them so early in the evening.
With all the excitement of that, we headed to dinner which was another lavish buffet dinner. It was fantastic, an ‘arctic seafood buffet’, which included prawns, fresh water crayfish, russian crab, Norwegian giant crab, salmon, trout, reindeer stew and salads, as well as ice cream and other desserts. The giant crabs were massive! Em was not feeling the best and only had a small dinner, so I did my best to eat her share. Three plate-fuls later I was definately done. It was delicious. I did manage to squeeze in some dessert though.
After dinner I got changed into warm gear and went outside to check if there were lights again, and it was pretty quiet on one side. I went to the other side of the boat and noticed the lights coming back and getting brighter quite quickly, so I rushed back in an grabbed Em. By the time we got outside they were in full force and dancing in slow waves in the sky. It was stunning. They only last for a few minutes before they seemed to vanish again, it was crazy.
This went on for the evening really, going in and out. It was pretty chilly outside, being so far North, especially with the strong wind, so we would only spend about 20 minutes outside and then have to head back in. By about 10:30pm we had seen three or four good shows. I went out for one last check. They were there, but quite pale and just in strips across the sky. We decided that we had seen a good show, and it was close to midnight, so we decided to finish our northern light spotting there. We were very lucky to manage to get to see them on our final night, especially given the cloudy skies that had dominated our trip. What a great evening; seafood and northern lights.
Tuesday 21st
Time to head home... We had an early enough morning, getting up and trying to squeeze our things back into the suitcases. We did pretty well. After showers we went to breakfast. We had to be out of our rooms by 8am as they had to get them cleaned for the next passenger pick up. We docked to Kirkiness at 9:30am. Kirkiness is right at the top of Norway and less than 10km to the Russian border. It was cold and windy, actually only -7°c, but three weeks previously it had been -30°c, so we were lucky! We disembarked from the boat and got onto a bus to the airport. There was a huge amount of snow, amazing to see how much really.
At the airport we were supposed to fly out at about midday, but were delayed by about 1 hour. Walking to the plane, we walked across ice to the plane. It was amazing that they could operate in such conditions, and these were probably good conditions on the winters day for them.
We flew to Tromso and then onto Oslo, before continuing onto Dublin. It was a long day with stop overs and changes and we did not get home to Limerick until after midnight. On our drive down from Dublin we were greeted with temperatures of 12 to 13°c. A big difference!
We were happy to be home, and happy to call our trip a success, we had great snow experiences, loved husky and reindeer sledding and were so happy to have managed to have one night with the lights! They were magical!
