Hunting Aurora Borealis

Elly’s theory was that this wasn’t going to be classified as a holiday! We were to fly to Mullumbimby in northern NSW to visit the grandchildren, one of whom, Tommy, had her 4th birthday to celebrate.

Following on from that we would fly to Hong Kong, because our son, Michael, who is a violinist, living in Berlin, was to play with a quartet  which was on tour to Hong Kong; that is what you do when you are “Groupie” parents.

Since we would be half way to Europe, it would only be the logical thing to do to follow Michael back to Berlin and spend a few days hanging out with him. Since the cheapest airfare was with Finnair, we should also spend some time in Finland, since we would be passing through Helsinki anyway! So that was the plan for this “non holiday”.

11 October 2018

The birthday went well, and it was good to spend a few days with Claire and Tam and the grandchildren.

Before we knew it we were in Hong Kong, loaded up with baggage with clothes for warm temperatures in Hong Kong, cool temperatures in Berlin, and freezing temperatures for Finland.

Hong Kong temperatures were actually very comfortable. We stayed with old friends, Diana and Cawsi, whom we had known from our 9 years living in Hong Kong, and caught up with other friends Kim and Kai from the same era.

The concerts were great, and it was good to catch up with Michael, and his musical colleagues for a few drinks after the show. The viola player, Joel Hunter, we had met before, and lives not far from Michael in Berlin..

Next, to Berlin, via Helsinki, arriving just before Michael and Joel, who came via London. We disembarked from the aircraft and found the signage a bit vague, but finally followed a few others to collect our baggage, and suddenly we were out through automatic doors to the public area – without our bags! We obviously missed the turnoff somewhere, and, of course, they wouldn’t let us back in to find our bags.

We were finally directed to a stand alone concrete building attached to a different terminal, where they collected “stray luggage”. Apparently this was not an unusual situation, so maybe they should have another look at the signage. I noticed a passenger who had been across the aisle from us on the aircraft was also cooling his heels in the baggage claim room.

After about 45 minutes our baggage arrived, as did Michael and Joel, from their flight.

Michael has a great apartment, but was quite busy over the next few days, so Elly and I managed to utilise the Berlin public transport system, which is fairly involved for the uninitiated. We bought weekly tickets which covered us for the S Bahn, U Bahn and tram systems. In the evenings we got together to walk to a local restaurant, or if necessary utilising their amazing car borrowing system. These cars can be parked anywhere, so you check with the App, find a car which may only be a minute’s walk away. You then drive to where you want to be and just leave the car for someone else to use.

During the days we visited parts of the city we had previously seen and some we hadn’t. The East Side Gallery, which is a section of The Wall which is used for various art works by street artists, the Jewish Holocaust Museum, and the Topography of Terror, which is relatively new and houses a pictorial display of photographs of the Nazi era. Amazing to imagine what went on in those currently peaceful streets.

Memorial to the murdered Jews of Europe

We walked with Michael one day down to the old Tempelhof airport which was built by the Nazis and which is currently a vast open space where people exercise and walk their dogs. Walking along the runway I could envision the C47s roaring in and out during the Berlin airlift, keeping West Berlin surviving as an island surrounded by East Germany. We walked for about 2 hours and finally arrived at Joel’s apartment, where his wife, Merit, and 2 year old twin girls welcomed us for the evening.

There was a musical event one evening, which had a clandestine feel about it. Michael and Joel formed a trio with an Israeli girl on the cello, and performed along with a jazz group. This was held in a private studio of a violin maker, on the third floor, with no signage to indicate what was happening, just a guy sitting at a table collecting money and giving tickets. I couldn’t help imagining this was a secret, banned performance, and the Stasi would burst in and drag everyone off to prison for subversive activities. Obviously I had had too much wine!

We had a lovely time during our stay in Berlin, and it was sad to leave Michael, although it would let him get his house back after having to rearrange it to accommodate us.

29 October 2018

We flew to Helsinki for a quick stopover and dinner with Dan’s friend Lewis and partner Jonna before flying north to Ivalo, in Lapland, as part of Elly’s eternal quest for the Aurora Borealis ( or Australis) whichever is geographically applicable.

Louis Benalcazar and Jonna

After arriving in Ivalo we found snow on the ground; the temperature was -7 degrees but the sun was out. We were driven to a resort, Kakslauttanen, where our accommodation was in a glass igloo, number 37 of about 50. There was a reception/restaurant building constructed of massive logs all notched into each other, well insulated from the below zero outside. Our igloo was very warm, too warm, in fact, as it reached 30 degrees, and we had to ask the receptionist to cool us down a bit. 

The resort is spread out over a large area, with lots of different types of accommodation, all beautifully done, many outlined with Christmas type fairy lights

The igloo actually had 4 beds, a toilet and shower. The idea was that you could lie down on the bed (electrically adjusted) and look up at the sky to see stars and/or Aurora.

After dinner Elly had arranged for a driver, Jouni, to hunt around for 4 hours trying to find the Aurora, but the cloud cover was nearly total, so we had no luck. Back to our igloo at half past midnight, having arranged to use Jouni again 2 nights later in case things improved.

For our 3 night stay we had been booked into some activities, such as a horse drawn carriage ride, Husky dog sled ride and a reindeer sleigh ride. Some of these were cancelled due to lack of snow, so we were down to the dog sled and horse carriage.

We walked around and finally found the reindeer enclosure and the horse paddock. The reindeer totally ignored us as they fossicked around looking for some grass to eat under the snow, and the horses barely acknowledged us, but allowed a small neck stroke.

We could hear the dogs barking virtually non stop, so we thought we should go and find them and say hello prior to our ride the next day. The resort mud map wasn’t any help so we just headed in the direction of the chaotic noise. This proved to be no easy task as we were walking on snow covered scrub that could turn into potentially dangerous hidden holes or water courses. We met a young couple, Danielle and Jeremy who were also trying to get to the dogs. After clambering through the scrub and fresh snow, we finally arrived at the dog enclosure where about 50 dogs were racing around, barking, but not aggressively, as their handler was strolling around feeding them.

Most of them ignored us, but I did find one who sat down opposite me, looking through the fence and making terribly sad noises, totally frustrated that I wasn’t doing what he wanted, which, I presume was to feed him. They were all such lovely animals, and appeared to be well looked after.

It was nearly dark by this time (4:00 pm), and we envisioned a blundering journey back to the igloo, but the dog handler simply pointed to a row of lights which was actually the road back to the reception building – a totally different direction from the one we would have taken, and we were back home within 15 minutes.

After dinner we were scheduled to do the horse and carriage ride, which began with Sergei, a friendly but heavily accented Ukrainian meeting with us and walking with us to the horse stables where our horse, Onie ( the pony??) was waiting for us, all ready to go. This excursion was to take 90 minutes, but, after about 15 or 20 minutes we stopped in a designated spot and Sergei opened some containers and poured us a hot drink of – I think he called it juice – and offered some biscuits. We had just finished dinner! Elly took a few photos – no Aurora again – and then we headed off again, only to find ourselves back at the stables. The whole episode had taken about 45 minutes! Maybe it is only a 90 minute excursion if the Aurora is on display.

1 Nov 2018

 We had met a lovely young couple from Brazil, Denise and Raphael, who were due to leave, so we arranged to get together for breakfast. We had a good chat about our different lives and countries. He is a physiotherapist and acupuncturist and she is an auditor. We spent an hour or two with them, since our Husky sled trip had been cancelled due to lack of snow.

Our substitute activity was still with the Huskys, but a bit later, with wheeled carts instead of sleds. First of all we had to put on gumboots, fur hats and large cumbersome overalls, which took some time since we were already decked out in full Antarctic gear which mostly had to be removed otherwise we wouldn’t have been able to move.

Then to our dogs which were all ready for us, 8 of them all harnessed up and ready to go. Of course we had to go along and interview them all and tell them how clever they were. Three groups of us each had a 2 person cart, all with barking dogs ready to go. 

Off we went at a good pace, with the dogs, quiet now, concentrating on the task at hand, our Polish driver calling commands to the lead dogs if they strayed too much – apparently the lead dogs get more traction on fresh snow, so they veered off the road occasionally when the snow on the road wasn’t up to scratch.

Things went smoothly until the lead dog veered sharply left and stopped to do a poo; suddenly all the front dogs became tangled in their harnesses, and the driver berated himself for being distracted by talking to us instead of closely watching the lead dog. All was sorted very quickly and we were on our way again.

Elly was in the seat behind and above me, trying to take some photos with our small camera when she suddenly realised that her phone was gone! All the dogs were stopped while we checked the situation. The dog driver said that they would send someone out to follow our route to look for the phone, so the remaining part of the ride was dampened a little as we crossed our fingers hoping it would be found. They did send someone out to find it without any luck, but when we arrived back, one of the guys offered to take Elly on a quad bike to retrace her path and to try to call her phone using my phone.

They rode for a short distance and the stopped, and tried to call. Amazingly they heard it ring once then stop. It turned out that they had stopped just short of the phone and were about to run over it!  Elly gleefully came back grinning at the  disaster avoided. Then she tried to operate it, and the screen was black! It had been lying in dry snow, so hadn’t got wet, and the fact that it rang once gave us hope that it might be a battery issue – a low battery followed by a cold soak.

Meanwhile back at the Husky headquarters, we were taken into a large teepee where there was a fire burning. We were given frying pans and told to heat them over the fire, whilst our minder poured in some oil then some pancake mix. We then cooked our pancakes. This all seemed a bit silly and irrelevant, but we did as we were told.

On the way out we were introduced to the puppies, only 2 of them in a large cage together. They were just gorgeous, and they thought we were too, licking our hands excitedly as we patted them. I could have taken them both home.

Back in our igloo we were delighted to plug Elly’s phone into the charger and see – the Apple symbol. All was well.

The cloud had cleared away, and we had an Aurora excursion with Jouni in the evening. He drove us, 8 altogether out to a lake which had some good viewing spots should the Aurora decide to make an appearance.

The wait began, and, sure enough a dim glow materialised to the north. Elly was tripoded and ready to go, so she started to take photos. It is not always realised that the camera can see the Aurora much more clearly than the human eye can, so what was appearing to us like a dim glow, appeared as a startling image on the camera.

As we watched, the visible display became more spectacular even to our eyes, and varied from almost nothing through to amazing. This was Elly’s bucket list item getting a tick in the box as we watched.

We continued watching and photographing from that spot and then, at Jouni’s suggestion, a little further around the lake. At about half past midnight we had to retreat back to our igloo, although Elly would have stayed all night. I was exhausted after standing in the cold for hours, so I went to bed. Elly was about to do the same but suddenly the sky above our igloo came to life, and she said, “The whole sky is alight” At half past one, I was past it, but Elly threw a jacket over her pyjamas and raced outside, capturing some fabulous images. She finally went to bed at 3:30am!

What would we do without her?

02 November 2018

We had nothing organised, so we arranged to have Jouni pick us up and take us on a bit of a tour around the area for a few hours. We saw all the local scenery, including partially frozen rivers, Lake Inari, which was also mostly frozen, and, in fact, our next accommodation was to be the Inari Wilderness Hotel, right on the shore of the lake. An enjoyable day, at the end of which Jouni dropped us, with our luggage, at the hotel.

Alan waiting for Elly

Finnish Chow

Ice hole

At check in, it seemed that we were booked into a standard room with no view, so the friendly girl at reception gave us keys to check out what other options were available. We, of course, chose the most expensive upgrade, a stand alone, beautiful cabin with a section of glass roof similar to our previous igloo accommodation. Sorry about the inheritance kids!

Our schedule indicated that in the evening, at 8:00 pm, we were booked on an Aurora search drive for 2 hours, although the hotel had the tour starting at 9:00 pm. During dinner, at 7:45 pm a driver appeared and said he was collecting us for the 8:00 pm tour. It appeared that our travel agent had booked us with another company, which explained the time discrepancy. The sky was cloudy with little chance of seeing the Aurora, so we had to decide whether to abandon our dinner and rush to get ready, or cancel. The driver was a bit agro, and said he had other passengers waiting and he had to go NOW! He went!

The receptionist came over to us and said that he was not their tour guide, and was quite apologetic about his attitude, which, of course, was not her fault. She offered us space on their tour free of charge, so, even though there was not much chance of a sighting, we felt we had to take up her kind offer.

We went on the tour with a group of English speaking Italians, who were very friendly, however, even though the driver headed north, stopping occasionally to check whether the sky was clearing, it remained overcast for for the whole time, so no Aurora that night! It had been a pretty poor excursion which really should have been cancelled due to 100% overcast sky, but money is money, so why cancel even if there is no chance of success. The standard response is that the weather can change quickly, so you have to give it a shot. It was becoming obvious that we had been very lucky with our sighting the previous night.

We woke the next morning to a fairytale picture of snow falling gently all around.

03 November 2018

 We had to cope with the fact that breakfast finished at the ridiculous time of 10:00 am, but we just made it! We had nothing scheduled, and the snow was still falling, so we took our time, until, surprise, surprise, just as I was sitting down to do some catch up on the blog, Elly suggested that we visit the local museum, and was I ready yet because she would ring for a taxi. We had the option of walking 4 km in soft snow or taking a taxi – no brainer! We spent a couple of hours at the museum, which is focussed on the Sami people of Lapland, their history, and how they developed a system to preserve their culture.

Lake nearby the Sami museum

Back at our cabin, Elly fancied that she could see a break in the cloud cover, and that there was a green tinge to the sky, which meant that the Aurora was there above the clouds. I wasn’t convinced, and anyway, even if it was true, I believed that our encounter with the Aurora previously had yielded such amazing photos, as good as any you may see on promotional material, that anything less would be an anticlimax. So I encouraged Happy Hour with our last of the red wine. Elly went for a Finnish spa and I finished the wine. This was our last night, as we were due to fly out to Helsinki and home the next morning. Elly is still hopeful of another sighting at 2am tomorrow morning as there is forecast only 50% cloud cover. She has set the alarm. What can I say!

Sunrise a little too far onto the lake