Arctic Lapland – March 2015

Today was a totally relaxed day for our last day. Walking, watching the snow fall, reading and listening and lighting fires! The snow through our window. There was 3cm in about 3 hours: It’s Narnia outside I lit this one. A proud moment – no paper and no fire alarms!: My pyromania In the afternoon […]

So we have left Muotkan Maja after a fabulous five days. After a transfer of just under 3 hours we are now at the Snow Village and Ice Hotel in Lainio. So we’ve moved from Finland’s NE Arctic region, 24 miles from the Russian border in a SW direction, still well into the Arctic circle […]

A relatively early start as we were picked up at 10:00 for our hour and a bit drive to Lake Inari. It’s Finland’s third biggest lake and its massive – it reminds us of Lake Windermere. It’s completely frozen. Whilst we were there we saw people snowmobiling and people in sledged being pulled by huskies […]

Another great day from Muotkan Maja. Snowmobile safari and a Reindeer farm. These machines are massive and powerful, so this had the potential to be very similar to “that jet ski experience”. However I am older and wiser, and I trust my husband implicitly – I declined to drive, not even a taster I an […]

An amazing morning – we left at 9am to go to a nearby Husky ranch. We were taught all about them and then we were taught how to drive our sledge and off we went. You put one foot on brake to slow down and both feet on it to slow done more. Note the […]

And they were amazing. Over 90 minutes of dancing Aurora that filled the sky above us – and by filled the sky I mean it. You didn’t know where to look. We were so lucky to see them on our first night. The forecast wasn’t so good – what do they know?! Apparently they’ve not […]

We set the alarm for 03:15 and made it on time to the airport. What a lovely airport – so much nicer than Las Vegas, which was a dump. Another great flight – defying flying on Friday 13th, and sitting on row 13! 2 firsts: our plane was sprayed with de-icer before we took off, […]

After a perfect flight we arrived safely in Helsinki. Weather fantastic – not as cold as expected either. No thermals yet! We caught a bus into the city centre and had a wander around. It’s got some lovely buildings and it’s so clean – absolutely no rubbish on the streets. Puts the UK to shame! […]

. . . but I’ve bought a bobble hat! We are off, just the two of us, to 250km into the Arctic circle, hopefully to see The Northern lights. I know we are more likely to not see them but that won’t stop us trying and having a good time. And yes I do know […]