My search for the Northern Lights

My Search for the Northern Lights

I left Birmingham on a crisp, frosty morning, dressed “like an onion”, with plenty of layers to peel off - I felt a bit like the Michelin Man! I would need these thermals later on in the day – that is what I told myself – or was it because nothing else could fit in my case! I flew to Copenhagen, over the North Sea, that looked so calm and flat, you could have easily thought you were heading for a tropical destination – not the Arctic! As I approached Copenhagen the land below was completely white, I could just make out the outlines of fields, like a delicate pattern sewn on linen. I could see vast areas of ocean along the coast were frozen and there were huge white swirls in the sea – resembling giant jellyfish. The second leg of the journey was a flight from Copenhagen, along the Swedish coast to Bergen. As I approached Bergen, the sun cast shadows over the snowy hills, giving them a pink glow (this must be the arctic sunset that I have heard of).

The backdrop of these hills against the mirrored ocean and fjords was a sight that took me completely by surprise - it was magical! It was almost dark when I landed, and I followed my instructions, to go out of the airport, turn right and look for the bus stop (a bus was arranged for me). After waiting at this bus stop for an hour in sub-zero temperatures, I went back into the airport and found out that – they had forgotten about me! So I had to go and get a taxi, I was quite calm about it! Have credit card – will travel! I didn’t get to see much of Bergen, once the capital of Norway, just the taxi journey to the ship terminal, where I was greeted by the Ships Percer - a real Captain Birdseye!

He was expecting me, and I told him my woeful tale of being abandoned at the airport! The ship was The Kong Harald (part of the Hurtigruten fleet) built in 1993; it wasn’t a cruise liner but one of 11 working vessels, transporting passengers and goods along the Norwegian coast. I was pleasantly surprised how nice my cabin was - I had 2 beds, a wardrobe, toilet and shower, TV, and under floor heating. Tonight’s meal was a buffet, but only served until 7.30pm, so I quickly changed and headed for the restaurant where I was told that I was on table 27 with a nice old German man – who did his best to communicate with me. I had a tasty salmon dinner but decided not to over indulge and have pudding – as I was thinking about “sea sickness”! After dinner, I headed for the panoramic lounge for a briefing on the ship, the trips, safety procedures etc. It was a bitterly cold when we left Bergen at 11pm, and the lights along the shoreline twinkled as we pulled out of port. I put my warm clothes back on and went up on deck to see this magical sight, but amazing as it was, I didn’t stop up there very long, it had been a very long day and my warm cabin beckoned me!

I slept really well and was just woken when the ship docked at several ports through the night. After a “continental” breakfast, it was announced that we would be in open sea for a couple of hours, so I didn’t have too much to eat, I went and found a good seat in the lounge and read my book for a while.

It didn’t get light until 9am, and the coastline looked dramatic against the black shining Norwegian Sea. We briefly docked at the small town of Torvik where I got off to take some photos. We only had another hour to sail until our main stop of the day – Alesund. This lavishly colourful city had ornamental spires and gothic facades, and is renowned across the world for its beautiful Art Nouveau architecture. 

It was an enchanting town to walk through with its quaint streets and picturesque harbour – with different coloured warehouses. There was snow piled up everywhere, and the pavements were solid with ice. Tourists were clinging on to anything, just to stay upright; I would like to have walked up to the viewpoint to see the surrounding mountains and islands, but I was told that it was far too dangerous. 

It was strange walking around the town – there was no one about – I think they must all have hibernated! So I wandered along the harbour, over some bridges and into a few shops. Although this was supposedly a mild day, the freezing rain was starting to soak me through, so I headed back to the comfort and warmth of the ship. The afternoon’s sailing was wonderfully calm, the water although dark, was very smooth; and it was strange that there was land on both sides of the ship.

On the seaward side, there were many islands – it was like going through a Fjord. Whenever I ventured outside, even though it looked calm, the strong wind was penetrating. Just before dark we stopped at Molde, which was the capital of Norway during WW2, with magnificent views of the Romsdal Alps. I had been given a tip to have a shower whilst the ship was “in port”, so I took this opportunity to get myself ready for dinner. 

Afterwards I went back to my cabin, put a drink, a book and my camera in my rucksack and spent the rest of the evening in the panoramic lounge – looking out to sea between pages – until I was too tired to stay awake. We were told that if the Northern Lights were spotted, there would be an announcement over the P.A. – and I had switched the P.A. on in my cabin and was ready with my clothes and boots – incase I needed to get up on deck in a hurry!

At 6am I was woken by the sound of the engines reversing the ship into the port of Trondheim, Norway’s third largest city dating back to 997, when Vikings flourished; and even now, Norwegian kings are still crowned in its ancient 11^th century cathedral. It is Scandinavia’s largest medieval building, erected over the grave of St Olaf (a Viking King) and in years past, pilgrims from all over Europe used to visit this shrine. When we left the ship it was still dark, and we drove through the empty city up to a viewpoint where I took some unusual photos of the city below with its river and many bridges.

It started snowing, and that added magic to the tour. Trondheim is full of charm with different coloured wooden houses with Georgian style windows, well-kept gardens and narrow cobbled roads. One particularly unusual feature here was the houses had their corners rounded off (like three penny bit shapes) – so that horses and carts could manoeuvre the street corners easier. The larger warehouse buildings along the wharfs were brightly painted in reds, greens, and yellows – a real vibrant place.

The highlight of the tour was the cathedral and learning about King Olaf, the first Viking King to become a Christian. He was a brutal man who lived and ruled “by his sword” and was feared by his people. It was only after he had been dead for a year that their feelings changed, this was when his coffin rose out of the ground and strange things started happening in the town. The people moved his coffin and buried it elsewhere, but within 24 hours it had risen again! The townsfolk removed the lid and were amazed to see that Olaf’s body was in perfect condition, his hair was tidy, his nails had continued to grow and the skin on his face was still pink. After this, he was declared a saint, and from that time, Trondheim became a place of pilgrimage. The cathedral took 250 years to build and is a mixture of gothic and Norman architecture – with stone arches and columns, marbled floor and grand circular stained glass window. The darkness inside the Cathedral gave a feeling of mystery, serenity and of the ancient time when it was created. At midday we set sail again, passing Monk’s Island - originally a Viking place of sacrifice.

As we headed up the coast a curtain of dense grey cloud hung down from the sky right down to the tips of the waves, and it was bitterly cold. Luckily I managed to see Leuchturm lighthouse - it reminded me of a gigantic red pillar-box stuck in the ocean. Then later, the clouds lifted as we sailed through a very narrow passage – with steep sides to both sides of the ship. It was the most picturesque area, the water was calm, the sun shone and the quaint, red coloured houses were an absolute picture. Most of the buildings were red because they were painted with whale blood, which was easily accessible along these shores.

For about half an hour, it was lovely to be on deck and take in all of this beauty. Alas, as soon as we were out in open waters again, the mist came back, the cold got into your bones and the water became choppy. I felt like I had frostbite on my fingers from taking photos! We were told that there had been a lot more snow up north, and the dog sledge rides were definitely going ahead in Tromso. Great news!

There was an announcement saying that it would be very rough soon. I didn’t need telling twice……more tablets helped me get through those few hours! The next brief stop was at Rorvik, I didn’t get off the ship, it was dark and cold and I didn’t feel the need for any exercise. I gathered my belongings and headed for the lounge, complete with my outdoor clothes again – in case I had to rush outside. I had a coffee to keep me awake, sat reading and looking out the windows – for hours.

There were only a few people up there, but it was only me and Elaine, whose hobby is astronomy, that stopped up until 2 in the morning. Like me, she had only booked this trip to see the Northern Lights. The sky cleared and the stars came out; the ship moved slowly into the blackness in front of us - it felt very special. As much as I didn’t see the display of bright green lights wafting like a curtain, my eyes kept seeing patches of green cloud – I think it was my imagination! We were told that it was too cold to see the lights, then it wasn’t cold enough; it was too cloudy, then it was too clear. Apparently we only had a 30% chance of seeing them – but tonight was not meant to be. We would have two more nights to try to experience the lights – and the area that we were going to, is one of the best in the world for sightings!

I slept like a log and can only recollect hearing an announcement when we passed over the Arctic Circle Line. After breakfast there was a “crossing over the line ceremony” - I did feel a sense of “privilege” at having crossed into the Arctic Circle!

Whilst I sat there watching the snow covered coastline, the weather changed every few minutes, and there were hailstorms, snow storms, sometime sunshine – but always the Arctic wind. At lunchtime we stopped at Bodo, the Gateway to the Arctic Circle and the capital of Nordland. The bad weather lifted, the sun came out, and it was a pleasure to wander around the small town – even though nowhere was open as it was Sunday.

There were magnificent views of the snowy mountains. After I had stretched my legs, I returned to the ship for lunch; and then watched a DVD on Norway’s Northern Lights. As soon as we left Bodo, the fog and rain returned – it was a miserable afternoon. We had a few “rough hours” at open sea and most people went for a lie down - including me! The next part of the journey was through the area of the legendary Lofoton islands, which is made up of thousands of little offshore islands and steep mountain peaks.

Vikings had dominated this area, they were hunters and fishermen and the islands were full of fishing villages and burial mounds. It was dark when we docked at Stamsund, and I joined the trip to the Lofotr Viking Museum, which is the largest Viking building ever discovered in Scandinavia. In 1981 a farmers’ plough hit ruins of this 83 metre long dwelling, which originally belonged to a powerful Viking Chieftain. The Chieftain’s house has been recreated to full size complete with exhibits; and the current Chieftain and his helpers, greeted us with warm blankets and ensured that we all joined in with their feast (which consisted of lamb, vegetables, oat cakes, dips and cream). We had real honey mead and sat along wooden benches around a big open fire in the centre of the hall. We watched as they made sacrifices to their Gods (hoping that the sun will come back after winter and shine again), sung songs and ended the evening making everyone hold hands and dance around the fire.  We were told about Vikings history, and heard Norwegian folk tales of supernatural creatures that lived in the forest, such as Trolls, Giants, Elves, Fairies and Dragons.

The bus journey back to rejoin the ship was in total darkness, all you could see was that the road was thick with snow and the pretty lights that shone in the window of every house – it was a Christmas card scene. The buildings looked so neat and tidy, covered in snow and where melting water had frozen immediately – it left a frozen cascade of icicles. When I got back on board, I gathered my belongings, plus a few extra items of clothing – incase I felt like braving the elements again and sat waiting for something to happen.

At 11pm we all went out on deck to experience us passing through the narrow Raftsund Strait and were given hot fishcakes. There was absolute, total darkness outside and after about thirty minutes the ship’s lights were switched on so that we could see the entrance to the Trollfjord. We were supposed to go through a narrow gap, with sheer rock faces stretching way up into the sky – and covered in snow. The ship tried to get through, but after about half an hour, it backed up and went a different way. Most people went to bed after this, but I was determined to stay up and see the lights tonight – that is what I had come for! I didn’t know if I was imagining it again, but I felt sure that my eyes kept seeing green – behind the clouds. Apparently that was it - that was the Northern Lights! Because it was a still a blizzard outside, with dense cloud above us – that was probably as good as we were going to get. So what I thought I saw last night really was the Northern Lights too! I stayed up until just after 2am and managed a few more glimpses of the “green” behind the clouds; but I was so tired after another late night and I took no rocking to sleep.

When I woke up and went for breakfast we were at Harstad, but soon set sail again. This was my last few hours on board the MS Kong Harald – the picture outside was like a dismal faded, old photograph again – black, white and grey. I had a brisk walk around deck 5 and took some more snowy photos; but I could see there was a storm brewing. Within five minutes of being inside, this storm was upon us! What a snowstorm it was! It lasted for hours and hours, and I have never see a blizzard like it!

On a positive side, the scenery began to look even more enchanting. There were “white things” floating on the water, surely they couldn’t be icebergs! They were chunks of solid snow that had fallen off rooftops into the water or were parts of huge piles of snow that had been abandoned by the snow ploughs. I really did get Christmas card pictures of pretty houses covered in snow.

We continued sailing up the Vagsfjord, past the great peaks and stopping at a snowy town called Finnsnes; before continuing on to my final destination of Tromso. The scenery in the last hour was incredibly impressive, the water was like a mirror, the land was glistening white and there were some glimmers of blue sky up ahead.  I had enjoyed my time onboard the ship, the journey had lived up to my expectations, and even the cold, snowy weather had added to the magicalness of the trip. I couldn’t have gone to the Arctic Circle and not have had arctic weather – could I?

I got off the ship at 2.45pm and walked to the Rica Ishavs Hotel on the water’s edge; I unpacked what I would need for later and went out exploring. I couldn’t believe how much snow was about, there must have been at least 12 inches of solid ice on the roads and the piles of snow at the sides of the road were over 6 feet high. Tromso was a delightful town, with quaint interesting shops, places to eat and fabulous views. This really was how I had imagined one of the largest towns in the Arctic to be. 

When the sun went down, the “Arctic Twilight” was turned on and those memories of pink tinged mountains came flooding back. The sky was magical. The stars were out and it could not have been more perfect. Was it too warm or too cold for the Northern Lights to appear? Was it too clear or too cloudy? Was it too early or too late? Everyone had an opinion of the perfect time to see them – and whether or not they thought we were going to be lucky enough to see them tonight. I went back to the hotel and put extra layers on, I had four pairs of socks, three layers on my legs and four layers on my body – I really was the Michelin Man now. I had booked to go on a husky dog-sledging trip on the island of Kvaloya, in a very desolate part of Tromso – prime location for seeing the Northern Lights. We were collected by a coach and driven to the Wilderness Centre that was home to 250 husky dogs; here we were greeted by our guide for the evening and taken to meet our team of huskies.

I was assigned to a sledge with Marion and her husband Roy (he was going to drive us). The wooden sledge was very basic and very low down – I couldn’t move very well with all these clothes on and literally fell into it! We waited to be covered up by a blanket or something else nice and warm – but it did not happen. I wrapped my scarf around my face (to keep warmer), but that made my glasses steam up! Anyway, the shout came to “go” and we all shouted, “mush” – off we went into the darkness. There were ten dogs pulling our sledge, and we were following a couple of other teams. The only light was a small lamp on Roy’s head. The snow glistened like it had been sprinkled with stardust, and the trees had icicles hanging off them. It was bitterly cold, and even though I had gloves and mittens on – my hands were still freezing. The dogs had a problem; they were either weeing as they ran along, or passing wind – what a smell! All of a sudden the dogs had stopped running and were leaping into the air. We must have come to a stream; there was frozen water everywhere. Luckily the dogs found their footing and started running again, we could so easily have tipped over and got soaked! I found out later that someone’s sledge had tipped over earlier and she had fallen into the water – which was 3 feet deep. The sledge did bounce about quite a bit especially when we went over some bumps – although it wasn’t too painful. We continued over the snowy plains into the darkness, our eyes desperately searching into the sky. Then it started!

We saw an arc of pale green over the horizon – that was it, it was the lights. We would have loved to have stopped the sledge and take some photos, but we were in convoy, so that wasn’t possible. We felt slightly disappointed, but still, we had seen them. I didn’t think I was going to be that lucky. When the ride was over, we all gathered at the Wilderness Centre and chatted about our adventure and the glow that we had seen in the distance – as well as giving the dogs a “well done pat”. Our guide said that we were really lucky, there had not been much solar activity lately and the lights had not been appearing very often. We all felt lucky to have experienced them at all, and no one was prepared for what happened next! In the sky above us, the lights appeared like you see them on the television. The sky was full of the most amazingly wonderful shapes that could have been dancing to music, they were spirals, they were like puffs of smoke and like curtains opening and closing. I don’t think I was the only person there who just stood and cried – it was so emotional. And even writing this account of it, I find it impossible to think of what I saw without my eyes filling up. Our guide took us to see some husky dog pups, but I couldn’t take my eyes off the sky. I thought that we would have seen it happen for just a few minutes, but it wasn’t stopping, the performance went on and on. Someone switched all the outside lights off at the Centre, and that made the lights in the sky more intense, clearer and more perfect. It was really, really cold – my feet were starting to feel numb. But it was so hard, I didn’t want to miss one minute of this, this was what I had come for. It was going to be something that I would never experience again.

After about an hour, we were invited into a Sami tent, which had a warming log fire burning in the centre, where we sat on logs covered with reindeer skins, and were treated to supper. We had a very tasty reindeer soup, reindeer stew (potatoes, vegetables, meat and gravy), and then coffee with chocolate cake. It was all absolutely delicious and a surprise, as we were only expecting coffee and cake.

Whilst we were having our supper, I kept going back outside to see the Light show, which still hadn’t stopped – and only went back into the tent to get warm. I cannot believe how long it went on for. At certain times the whole sky seemed to be aglow with the green haze, at other times, there were streaks of bright light, but for 3 whole hours, we were entertained by the most amazing phenomenon I have ever experienced. I felt so privileged and could not believe that I had seen this – when so many people had tried to see it and not been as lucky as me. At 10pm we boarded the bus to be taken back to our hotels; everyone was beaming! No one had been able to get any photographs though – I took hundreds of photographs of total blackness, hoping that I might be able to lighten some of the pictures and see just a few of those images that had enchanted me for the evening. As I was getting off the bus 2 women from my ship asked me if I would like to join them in the bar for a coffee – what a wonderful idea! I don’t know about a coffee though, I felt like celebrating. It must have been midnight before I went to bed, and just having one last look out of the window, I could still see the Lights faintly in the sky – but nothing like the show they had put on, just for me, earlier that night. I had done something that I had set out to do, achieved one of my goals and experienced the Aurora Borealis – at its finest.

Next morning I began my long journey home from Tromso to Oslo where I saw the snow capped mountains of central Norway – that looked like perfectly whipped meringue peaks. Then a short flight from Oslo to Copenhagen, where I could see even more frozen ocean than there was 6 days ago. After a couple of hours I flew to Birmingham, the last part of my trip; and what a trip! If I could do this by myself, I could do anything, see anything and go anywhere. Watch out world, I have to think of my next adventure!

A few weeks after I had been home, someone I met sent me a few photographs of our special night – these are my Northern Lights and yes..............It made me cry again!

I hope you have enjoyed reading this adventure as much as I enjoyed reliving it and putting it on here.

Coming next - Camping in Kakadu, Northern Territory, Australia,

Thank you

Lynne 

Please check out my other blogs ..............

http://lynnemorleys.blogspot.com

http://lynnejmorley.blogspot.com

http://morleysjourneytoozandback.blogspot.com