Kiruna – Part 2

The dog sledding was done on New Year’s Eve day so I got back from that and had a couple of hours to chillax before dinner.

I booked my tour through Discover the World UK and they organize charter flight direct from London to Kiruna and there are various ‘tours’ they run in that area.  The tours are very independent, meaning you are doing your own thing they just arrange for your transportation and accommodation unlike in Kemi where we were bussed around and had a guide.  Everyone also had the option of what activities they wanted to do which were additional to the tour.  There were only a few of us doing the same itinerary as me however we were all doing different activities.   There was a group of six people (three couples) that I had chatted to at the Ice Hotel a couple of times and again at Camp Ripan and they, very nicely asked me if I wanted to join them for the dinner at the restaurant at Camp Ripan on New Year’s Eve.  I’ve dubbed them the 5 J’s and a B – Janet, John, Joyce, Jack, Jeff (although I think he might actually be a Geoff) and Barb, all very lovely people.  I was really chuffed that they asked because it’s a little (okay a lot) sad to be having dinner in a restaurant on your own on New Year’s Eve.

After dinner we went to the lounge area and played a few word games and at midnight we watched the fireworks that were going off in every direction all over town.  The hotel also organized balloon lanterns (which you’ll see in the photos) and there were a couple that didn’t get much lift and came down again (not a very auspicious start to the year).  I also contributed to the destruction of the environment and sent one up.  I held it for ages to make sure it had enough lift and it took off like a rocket, so I was happy.  Then it was off to bed as I had an early start in the morning.

New Year’s Day activity was a Moose Safari by Minibus or in this case a people mover.  Gertrude was our guide/driver and it’s her business and she was taking us to Nikkauokta which is her home village about 65kms from Kiruna.  The idea is we just drive along and to see some mooses – moosi – mouses, lets just leave at moose.  As luck would have it, I was riding shotgun again in the front seat and I actually spotted the first ones, three in fact.  They are really big animals, much taller than I expected.  We didn’t see great masses of them just a few here and there, as well as a few reindeer but it was good to see them in the wild.  I saw one group and thought they were lying down and realized they were actually standing up but the snow was up to their stomachs.  We dropped two of group off near the base of the mountain range as they were going snow mobiling with Gertrude’s husband.  It would have been great to see the mountain but it was really foggy.  She then took us back to her place for coffee and biscuits and there were six of us sitting around her table – Gertrude, who’s English is ok (but 3000% on my Swedish), me and four Japanese all with varying degrees of English.  But we managed to communicate.

I actually know two words in Swedish – hello which is hey or quite often you get the double – hey hey and thank you is tank.  For an Aussie hey hey is great.  The wonderful thing about being here is that everyone automatically speaks to me in Swedish or Finnish and they are surprised when I can’t understand them.  Maybe I put the correct inflection on my hey hey’s.  It’s really nice not to stand out like the proverbial dogs bits, let’s see if I can blend in in Hong Kong!!!

We did manage to pick some pretty average weather however the day I arrived it was quite nice.  In Helsinki and Stockholm, daylight is from 9.30am to about 3pm.  Up here it’s 10am to 2pm and you can pretty much set your watch by it.  That is of course if it’s not snowing, cloudy or foggy.  But it was much lighter than I expected and smack bang on 2pm it’s dark.  So it’s really bizarre that a 4pm it is pitch black and feels like 8pm.  Takes a bit of getting used to.  Someone asked me whether it bothered me not seeing the sun being from Australia.  I thought it was a strange question when I was only there for a few days.  The Polar Night only lasts about a month and somewhere around the 8^th of Jan the sun will start coming back over the horizon.

On 1^st Jan we were transferred to Abisko Mountain Station 1.5 hours from Kiruna, which is supposed to be a great place to see the Northern Lights.  I was confident we’d have a clear night somehow, but as it was foggy in Kiruna, I wasn’t sure how that was going to work.  I slept most the way and what do you know, it was a beautiful clear night in Abisko.  We had dinner at the restaurant and after dinner we walked about 20 mins up to the Aurora Sky Station chairlift.  They again supplied us with suits because the ride up takes about 30 mins and it’s ski lift style so open to the elements.  The Aurora Sky Station has a restaurant and café and a small seating area if you need to get inside from the cold.  We were 900 metres up the mountain and it was a really pretty view over the town with crystal clear skies and of the fabulous ¾ moon.  A really bright moon is not very conducive to seeing Northern Lights.  I was with the J’s and a B and we were all getting cold and by the time we rode the chairlift back down and walked back to the hotel it was midnight.  Alas no Northern Lights…..I’ll just have to come back  J

It was beautiful morning and we got to see the mountain that we’d been up the night before.  There was a massive lake near the came and a thick fog kept coming and going over the lake but the mountains around us are beautiful and would be absolutely gorgeous in summer.  When the bus picked us up at lunchtime for the airport transfer, the sky was turning various shades of pink.  I’m still trying work out if it was sunset or not.  We got to airport at 1.30pm and the Brits charter flight was leaving at 2.30pm.  They had called them for boarding and there were still about 20 people waiting to check in.  I decided to sit it out as I didn’t want my bag to accidentally end up on their plane but they wouldn’t let me check in until 1.5 hours before my flight.  Thankfully there is a café at Kiruna airport because there isn’t anything else and I sat there for 3.5 hours until my flight to Stockholm.

As it was my birthday and given that it wasn’t exactly an exciting day, I’d booked myself into the most expensive hotel at the airport as I had an 8am flight the next morning.  Unfortunately, the hotel didn’t live up to expectation but I got to empty out my case and repack it.  I have no idea what I’m going to wear in Hong Kong because I’ve only got one short sleeved shirt.  Then again I’ve been wearing the same clothes for pretty much the last three weeks, so one shirt for three days is nothing.  I’m a walking advertisement for Icebreaker merino clothes.

I flew from Stockholm to Helsinki this morning and had a 5.5 hour layover in Helsinki.  Honestly, Helsinki airport is awesome, more airports should take note.  They have free wifi throughout the entire airport, all around the airport particularly in cafes there are free recharging points for mobiles, laptops etc.  Where do you think I was plugged in for most of the day.  And at a couple of the cafes they have public use microwaves for people to heat things up eg baby bottles.

Then I finally get to Paris and while it’s an impressive looking departure lounge, there is no free wifi, you have to pay to use their computers.  There are many expensive brand name shops – Chanel, Prada, Cartier, Dior etc etc, it’s ridiculous yet the food court is a joke.  The worst food I’ve seen and unfortunately eaten at any airport.  Nepal’s food court was better and they didn’t have one  J  The food selection and quality was better at rinky dink Kiruna airport, I kid you not.