Spring Sunshine

Celebrating a warm and sunny weekend and a garden full of Spring flowers - with the clematis looking particularly lovely.

Still got primroses and tulips too, and the cowslips are now out:






It's also been a productive weekend in the garden - cleaning down the greenhouses, weeding the fruit cage, trimming some of the wilder sections of hedge - but taking time to enjoy the sunshine too.

Boozy Blackcurrants

Finally got around to decanting the blackcurrant vodka which we 'laid down' before Christmas - which in addition to the vodka itself, left us with rather a lot of very boozy fruit.

An afternoon's baking later and we have a stock of blackcurrant deserts (crumbles and cakes) for the freezer - should keep us going for a while!

Up the Fruit Cage Path

For a while now I'd been pondering the path in the fruit cage which, made up of large stones and broken concrete tile, was not very stable underfoot.


So having spotted some stone chippings on offer in the local supermarket  ...

... and with thanks to Martin for hauling all the bags to the end of the garden ...

... we now have a very nice pebbly path, which is much safer for weeding and harvesting from.

It all looks much nicer as well.



(I suppose I'd better confess that this photo was taken a good bit after April 2017 - yes, I'm retrospectively blogging again!).

Voyage Verdict

Our last day on board ship - and back to Bergen.

First job of the day was to finish packing and quit our cabin.  It had been home for the last 11 days, and had served us well.

As a basic cabin it wasn't the roomiest, but there was plenty of storage, a small en-suite shower room, and even a tv (with access to a range of satellite channels).  Felt quite sad to leave . . .


Sad to be saying goodbye to the ship too - while not of the size or scale of a big cruise ship, it felt a good deal homier, and the public areas were still elegant enough.

We did have to make our own entertainment for the most part, but the tour director kept us amused with his stories, and calls for waving competitions with other passing Hurtigruten ships!



There was fine dining in the evening, and we even got a free glass of wine one night. (Didn't drink much otherwise - alcohol at Norwegian prices is not cheap!).

The buffets during the day were more than plentiful - lots of fish, yes, but plenty of other choices - pancakes for breakfast, and puddings galore . . .

There was always plenty to see on the ship / from the ship . . .

. . . whether we were flying the flag to say the ship was carrying the post, watching the forklift trucks unload this and that, or battling our way round the promenade deck in the wind and the snow.

And of course, there were the views . . .

All packed up then - our last day on deck, watching as we negotiated our way through a myriad of tiny islands on our way into Bergen - plenty more to see:

Before we knew it we were back in Bergen, disembarking, picking up our luggage and on our way to the airport for the flight home.

So would we do it again?


I think so, much more our style than the big cruise ship, and the scenery was something else.  We got to see Norway in the snow, and the Northern Lights (which was the whole idea), and travel the length of the Norwegian coast (there and back again!):

Journey South

Having left Kirkenes, we were now on the Southward leg of the Voyage - retracing our route / revisiting ports, but on a different schedule . . .

Here we were in Hammerfest mid-morning (on the way North we stopped briefly at around 5am).  It wasn't the nicest of days weather-wise - lots of snow - which continued throughout the day and into the evening, as we sailed south:











Later that night, we arrived back in Tromsø, where I headed out to the Arctic Cathedral for a Midnight Concert - beautiful music / acoustics, although the inside of the cathedral isn't as impressive as its exterior.

Nice views of Tromso by night though:

The next day we were back into snowy sunshine at Harstad - visiting the medieval Trondenes Church and its neighbouring Historical Centre, as part of a tour of the Vesterålen region.

Great view of the Finnmarken itself too, as it sailed on to the next port (where we were due to rejoin the ship later in the day):

That evening we were back in Svolvaer (which we saw briefly by night when Northbound) - it was considerably livelier on this occasion, with a cod-fishing contest drawing in the crowds.

The harbour area was packed with boats, and the town with people (with more arriving by coach and taxi by the minute).

The bars and restaurants were doing excellent business - add some marquees, and loud music, and it looked like it was going be a very good night!

Enjoyed the sights and sounds (including this lit map feature on the side of one of the hotels) - before returning to the ship.


The next day saw us cross back out of the Arctic Circle, and we began to see the snow disappearing at ground level (by our return visit to Trondheim it had gone completely).

On the final leg of the journey we didn't really stop anywhere for very long, and the weather was decidedly grey - no more sightings of the aurora, but still some sights to see (such as this bridge at Kristiansund).


Next stop Bergen, and the flight home!

Northern (De)Lights!

Still heading North, and our next stop took us back to Honningsvåg near the North Cape . . .


As we'd visited before the plan had been to head out on an excursion, only high winds and drifting snow meant we couldn't get out of town.


So that left us with a sunny couple of hours to revisit the delights of Honningsvåg . . . but this time in the snow (of which there was a lot, mostly piled up on the sides of the roads in giant heaps).


And again it was the snow that made the day, as we crunched our way along . . .

. . . dodging the snow shoveller as it worked its way through those heaps of snow, shunting them away for dumping in the sea . . .





. . . while old ladies scooted past us on their wooden sleds with their shopping!


By mid-afternoon we were heading back out to sea, watching the scenery go by.  This included passing by Finnkirka, a rock formation which resembles a church from a distance, and which was apparently used as a landmark by the local fisherfolk, indicating that they weren’t too far from a safe harbour:

The next day saw us reach the final destination on the Northbound section of our voyage - arriving in Kirkenes, close to the Russian border.



Here we'd booked ourselves onto an excursion to the Snow Hotel, which was located a short drive out of town - past First Lake, Second Lake and Third Lake (as named by miners who evidently lacked anything resembling a poetic turn of phrase!).




The hotel itself is mostly constructed from packed snow (which has better insulating properties than ice), although it has an ice bar through the main entrance, followed by a series of rooms (decorated with snow carvings) leading into a permanent facilities block:

Another highly enjoyable trip (everything looked fantastic in the sunshine), although I'm not sure I'd want to stay in the hotel (no windows, so it felt quite claustrophobic).  The hotel is part of a larger complex though - the cabins with large north facing windows (for viewing the Lights) looked much more comfortable.  It was also another husky sledding centre so we got to see more dogs (plus they also had reindeer!).

On the drive back to the ship, we stopped (rather precariously) at a viewpoint above the town - stunning vistas looking across to the ship and the sea:

So far, these posts have said a lot about the days, but what about the nights?  And more specifically the Lights (Northern), which were of course a big inspiration for the whole trip.  Over the last couple of nights we had seen them, but on the night after leaving Kirkenes, we had a brief window where they were truly lovely . . .

(Kudos to Martin for persevering with trying to capture what we could see on camera - not easy on board a moving ship!)

Gone To The Dogs

Still going North, we arrived in Tromsø, where having spent the day back on the cruise of 2013, we'd booked ourselves onto a husky dog sledding excursion.  We arrived after lunch, and once docked it was a short coach ride out to the Villmarkssenter for our afternoon activities.


There were talks, tea and cake by a log fire, and of course we got to meet the dogs (and puppies).





These were Alaskan huskies (not a pure breed like the Siberian husky, but a blend of various breeds, chosen for their strengths as working sled dogs).





Housed in rows of small double kennels (to which they were loosely chained to prevent them fighting for 'top dog' position!), with the puppies in a segregated area with their mums.


 They were obviously also hugely excited at the prospect of getting out for a run, lots of howling and barking as other sleds set off into the snow, or returned from their trips:

And then it was our turn.

We were settled onto the wooden sled, Martin at the back, and joined a queue of other sleds ready for departure - which proved to be a bit chaotic, as the over-excited dogs all got tangled up in each other.

Eventually though we were off . . .


We were out for about half an hour in the end, bumping over the snow, around a lake, surrounded by mountains, and passing grazing reindeer.

Our 'musher' Hanna, told us some more about the dogs and the job as we went along - for example, they always put the girls in the lead positions, as they are more intelligent and take instruction better.  The 'boys' evidently get easily distracted - as we witnessed when one of them directly in front of us, stopped pulling, to keep looking round at the lead 'ladies' pulling the sled behind us!

All in all, a great experience . . .