Ice fishing and the one that got away

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 round/across the lake. The main Ivalo river was also frozen and was a major thoroughfare across it.

I caught a massive whale, but as it wouldn’t squeeze through my hole in the ice sadly I had to let it go ;-). Someone did catch a fair sized fish though. We had great fun, drilling holes, sitting and chatting and relaxing. A great experience – incredible to think what we were standing on and where we were.

Watch Steven drilling for water Drilling man

On the way back, a sharp stop in the minivan to avoid hitting 3 reindeer that crossed the road in front of us – wouldn’t see that at home!

Steven has always wanted to light the log fire in the room, so he did – with great expertise, and didn’t set the fire alarms off!

Watch him be a genius here Pyromaniac

Tonight was predicted aurora activity almost off the scale – so high you might apparently see them in the UK! It’s now 03:00 on Wednesday and we weren’t disappointed. We have really been so lucky to see such an amazing display … not once, but twice.

A big thank you also to my long suffering husband who stayed up with me. The photos, of which there are many will take some time to sift through so please be patient – I’ve put a few up quickly, but now I need to sleep