Blogs from Lapland, Finland, Europe

After an awe-inspiring ferry crossing an ice-bound Baltic Sea, I arrived at the Finnish port city of Turku. I was rather sleep-deprived after a very early start in the morning, so I invigorated myself with a bracing run around the snowy city and then got an early night. The next morning I decided on an impulse to Finnish Lapland to see the Northern Lights. I'd read that around the equinoxes is the best time to see them, and that solar activity was at the height of its eleven year cycle in 2013. A rather expensive detour, but I decided that I couldn't really be in Finland at that time and not try and see them. I looked at various ways of getting up to Lapland (1000 km North of Turku!) and ended up booking a flight ... read more

It’s Christmas Eve 2012, and I am on a tour bus in Northern Scandinavia going from Kiruna, Sweden, to Inari, Finland. It is about -25 degrees outside which is a little warmer than it was yesterday, although ice is starting to form on the inside the bus, by the window I am sitting next to. Yes, it is cold, but we keep ourselves warm by having some fun conversation with our fellow tour-goers. Most of them are Australian couples, although there are a few Kiwis thrown in the mix too. They’re all good people and good chats, fun people to be spending long coach journeys with. We eventually arrive at what our tour operator describes as a "resort". I suppose technically it is a resort, as it is a winter leisure complex of sorts where you ... read more

In between driving like hell for thousands of kilometers, my faithful unlicensed co-driver and I stopped to wander about Urho Kekkonen National Park in Sodankylä, North of Finland. We arrived there around midday, and set off with pristine equipment and sufficient accessories - two pairs of dry shoes, two backpacks that were not about to fall apart anytime soon, first aid kit that could easily sort out a decent-size village that had faced a series of weird accidents all taking place simultaneously, enough astonishingly mild ready-made pasta to suppress our appetites for days, flashlights, towels, sleeping bags, repair kits, pinhole cameras, you name it. We had confidence in our earthly belongings but little fa... read more

We survived. 32 reindeers and a thousand-ish miles later I return to tell the tale. On 6th of August my flat mate and I essentially moved into my Nissan Sunny '92 for two weeks. She analysed maps, I drove like hell. Our intended first stop was Seitseminen National Park at Ruovesi, but since we spent hours stuffing our faces with coffee and cake at Tampere we arrived quite late. The information desk was already closed and it was getting dark. The map hero, also known as my flat mate, informed us that there is a deserted road nearby. We decided to camp on that off-road spot, since Finnish Every Man's Right allows people to stick up ... read more

Right, let me get all the negative things out of the way first. Our trip to the Arctic Circle, Hetta in northern Finland was a package holiday with Transun. It was the first for all of us (Adam, Myles, Scott and I) and the last. The flight was on ‘Strategic Air’, the service was hap-hazard and the inside a little old. Just before arriving and during some terrible weather the kids were allowed to sing/scream Christmas carols over the speaker system. Because we were a small party of adults we did manage to secure the exit seats, however they split us over two rows so Scott ended up sitting behind us. Then the most stupid thing happened. There were other people waiting in the hotel we were due to check in to so they had us ... read more

We arrived in Lapland around 5pm, of course it was so dark, it was like midnight. We finally arrived at our hotel after a mixup and being taken to the wrong hotel, where of course they new nothing of us arriving! It was a quite pleasant -5c. There was quite a bit of snow, but more icy - rather like the Australian snow fields. We walked around the town of Rovaniemi -Since Rovaniemi is the capital of the Province of Lapland, many government institutions have their offices there. About 10,000 of the inhabitants are students. Rovaniemi is home to the university of lapland and the Rovaniemi University of Applied Sciences. Over 70% of Finnish people are tertiary educated, which is the highest percentage in the world. Rovaniemi's most prominent landmarks include the Jätkänkynttilä bridge with its ... read more

Every day is an exciting day because at our age everything is new but yesterday something quite scary happened. We’re used to being warm and safe in our pen here at the sled dog centre but suddenly it was very, very bright in here. A quick investigation revealed that somebody had opened the door allowing us access to our pen and what we believe is known as “The Great Outdoors”. Naturally, we were a tad nervous about this but after drawing straws (honestly!) Fjall was charged with the role of “Chief Explorer”. She hesitantly made her way to the door had a brief sniff around and then decided that this was really something that Frosty should do instead. Bravely, Frosty took up the challenge, popped his nose out the door, sniffed, fell over and then decided ... read more

Two weeks old and we had to take our worm medicine. You'd expect something a bit more tasty for a two week birthday celebration wouldn't you? A cake or biscuits perhaps but oh no! We get worm medicine. It's a dog's life! We know it's important and all but there's not a lot of gleeful flavour anticipation in worm medicine is there? Anyway, we grinned and we were brave and as the yukky white mush was massaged into our reluctant jaws, the experience wasn't as bad as we'd expected. Later, we'll tell you all about getting weighed.....very, very undignified!... read more