Wldlife

The wildlife got bigger and bigger as the day went on.

Starting with mozzies, we then moved on to Huskies. Our tour of the dog compound was meant to start at 10am but, not realising Finland is an hour ahead, we arrived late at 1015. Luckily we had a very pleasant guide who welcomed us warmly and introduced us to a large number of the 429 sled dogs they have at the Harrinivan campsite. I won’t list all their names but there was a set of young dogs named after the members of ABBA and a Star Wars tribute group. Yoda was particularly lovely and we met some of the new pups.

Moving on from the dogs, we left the site and headed south along the E8.

looking glamourous

young pups wit adoptive grandmother

A group of reindeer slowed the traffic for a couple of kilometres and we managed to get a quick video (click the link). We had several other encounters with reindeer as we drove south.

We are now in Kalix on the North West Swedish coast where we were entertained this afternoon by a Jet Ski race and over flown very closely by a helicopter who we assume was filming the race. It’s a lovely sunny day and there is a very different feel here to the Finnish wilderness which is only a couple of hours away.

watching the jet ski spectacle

Our diet has been pretty bad today. On crossing the border to Finland we decided to pop in to one of their supermarkets to grab a loaf of bread. We could hardly contain our excitement when we discovered that their food is (relatively) reasonably priced – crisps were reduced from £4 a Norwegian bag to just under £2 – so we went a little crazy buying chocolate, crisps and all the items of junk food we had been deprived of during our weeks in Norway. A pint of beer with dinner was still £6 though. 

Mr Fluffy has his own brand of Finnish bread

MozzFest

‘I’ve never seen you move so fast!’ Graham is obviously very impressed with my murderous actions. Growing up in Australia has been the perfect training.

It’s 630 am and the last half hour has been spent swatting and, dare I say, killing about 50 mozzies which spent the night supping on Graham’s person. Last night it was frustrating, if a little amusing, to watch Mr Fluffy nicely try to catch each mosquito in a plastic cup and kindly let it out the door (whilst letting 7 others in).

Refusing to spray himself with Avon’s Skin So Soft (as it is too girly), he has woken up with lovely big bites all over his arms and legs. I, of course, being unafraid of girly things, have gotten away with one or two small bites on my ear. (Thank you, Donna). Mr Fluffy even refused the more masculinely-named Mygg Stop as, in ever-optimistic mood, he would not believe the ‘myggs’ would be a problem.

He was wrong.

After a sleepless night punctuated with high-pitched buzzing and biting (from the mozzies not Mr Fluffy) Graham has now moved on and is actively seeking out and destroying every midge he sees with cries of ‘I’ll get you, you little bastard’, and ‘There’s more of the bastards, where the hell are they coming from?’ The Mygg Stop is being sprayed liberally around the van and the Tiger Balm is smothering the bites. Glad to see my Aussie sensibilities are rubbing off.

We were hoping one or two would pose for a photograph but I’m not sure they will survive the killing spree long enough …oooh I hear the click of the camera. Perhaps he’s having a break from the spree. You think you’ve got them all then another squadron comes in for a counter attack.

final moments

If you are thinking of coming to Finland in July and parking by a fly fishing river – DON’T. We’re heading for the coast.

A Night at the Museum

After enjoying the Alta rock carvings and looking around the museum yesterday we went back to Dickie and tried the external wifi aerial. Hooray! The free (museum) wifi meant we could catch up on emails and write the blog in the comfort of Dickie and we discovered that we could watch Top Gear on-line via Norwegian TV. With all of the above advantages we decided to spend the night in the museum car park along with a couple of caravans and three other motor homes. Don’t you just love the Norwegian attitude to motorhome parking?

This morning we filled up with free fresh water at a local garage and eventually found the Alta LPG supplier. We paid 50 Krona (£5) to a camp site to use their chemical toilet and grey water disposal but as we have not paid a penny for overnight camping for over a week we don’t mind.

entering Finland

So with full LPG tank and Dickie’s dunny clean and devoid of nasty content, we set off for Finland. The Finnish roads seem better than those in Norway, fewer bumps, good lane markings, very few cars or trucks and even fewer interesting features.  We have been spoilt with gorgeous scenery over the last few weeks and we were a bit disappointed by the scrubby mile after mile of low, mixed woodland interspersed with the odd scruffy settlement.

The Samis are of course a nomadic people, rather like us at the moment, but they are rather better at reindeer herding than us - not that we have tried it yet.

We are staying at a camp site in Muonio and had some rather dry shavings of reindeer with mash and lingenberries for dinner in the café. Kerriann has booked us in to visit the local husky dog slay team in the morning …… watch this space.

Alta Rock Carvings Museum

The fjord was the colour of mercury this morning as we woke up to a bit of rain and cloudage. Even in bad weather this place is beautiful. Mr Fluffy continued with his lack of success fishing while I applied my face before we headed off up the E6 to Alta. This is Northern Norway's main route and it has now become a narrow potholed road winding its way along the fjords and through the mountains via endless tunnels. The road was closed for a section as there had been a major rock fall which had taken out half the road. 

all rugged up

Alta rock art

There was snow along the way although it doesn't feel massively cold (around 15 degrees), and we saw reindeer herds by the road.

stone art on the mountain

the white dots are reindeer

We made it to Alta by around 230pm and spent the afternoon walking around the rock carvings. Really interesting place with some fantastic rock art and a couple of interesting exhibitions on the region's bronze age finds along with some fishing info and a display on a famous local ski jump champion. The images were carved on the rocks at sea level, ie where the water and earth meet. This appears to have had a special significance to the Sami people as when the water levels fell they recreated their art again at the new sea level.

Alta rock art

Satellites and stuff

Being so far north brings with it some strange problems.  It is difficult for example to estimate what time of day it is. The sun doesn’t set unless you are lucky enough to be South of a large mountain and even then it is still daylight all night. I now pull the blinds over all the windows and skylights apart from one at the rear of the van which I leave open a few centimetres – just enough to see by. I still find myself waking up several hours too early and my internal body clock has ceased to function!

satellites point down here

I thought I would have a go a getting some television last night. My mobile phone compass can’t work out which way is north, it give various different direction seemingly at random. Even my good old magnetic compass seems totally confused.  In the end I did manage to get locked on to the Astra 1 satellite which must be just above the horizon. My disk was pointing down as are all of those mounted on local houses.

You will be unsurprised to hear that Kerriann soon changed channel away from the news and found a  program about the 1960s naturist movement in Germany which would have been fascinating had either of us spoken the language. It was, however, extremely amusing to watch black and white footage of nude Germans cavorting around playing volley ball, doing yoga, and all manner of outdoor pursuits. This was followed by a programme on German folk music that made The Wurzels look current.

Out of interest we are now North 69° 36’12” and still heading north but only for another day as we hope to reach our most northerly target (the Alta rock carvings) tomorrow.

Senja

The whale trip was amazing but we wanted to move on as there is not much else to do in Andenes. The ferry to Senja, the next island, left at 5 and we were on it. The aire we ended up in was by a graveyard in Sandsvika, just a short walk to a gorgeous beach and surrounded by mountains. We start to take the beauty of this place for granted then we remind ourselves just how lucky we are to be sending time in this beautiful country.

Sandsvika Beach

Mr Fluffy lost, yet another, lure on the beach so we headed off again and are now on our way to Alta to see the rock carvings. I actually caught a coalfish, also known as rock salmon, at our aire by the marina in Olderdalen tonight. It was very tasty too.

Eating the catch outdoors

My left buttock is dangling below the newly formed rip in my jeans. As I stepped in to Dickie from a stroll on the beach the strain became all to much…RIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIP….. I heard as the jeans gave way. Perhaps they were trying to get into the seventies vibe of a denim short after seeing me in my kaftan. 

Whale Watching in Andenes

It’s not everyday you get to see a live whale’s penis.

We’d arrived at Andenes on the north tip of the Vesteralan Islands the night before and called into the Sea Safari Centre to book our trip for the next day, Tuesday, July 1^st. They did their trips in a Rib boat which we felt would be more exciting than taking the larger boats that hold either 80 or 120 people. The ribs take 12 and the people who ran them seemed really friendly. On the trips out that day they had only seen one or two whales but we were optimistic for the next day.

Taking the Michelin Man Look too Far

At 1030 we duly arrived for our 11am trip only to be told they’d mistakenly booked us onto the 3pm slot. Dejected, we held on as instructed and they squeezed us on to the morning trip by leaving the guide behind. Marten Bril, a fantastic photographer, captained the rib and we set off in our arctic jump suits. There were sightings of groups of pilot whales so he was in a hurry to get going.

Captain Marten

Puffins bobbed away on the sea as we headed out and soon we saw the first fins, black in the distance. Before long there were pilot whales everywhere. Several separate groups came together and circled our boat, diving under it and putting on an amazing display. One chap even slapped his tail a few times then rolled on his back with his penis on full display. A rare sight indeed and marten got some great shots of it At one stage it was like they were sheep dogs herding mackerel into one area to eat them then they would stop I groups and go to sleep on the surface.

Too many whales to photograph all of them

We were out for about three hours and there were whales around for pretty much the whole time – probably around 80 – 100 in total over the area we covered. When we returned to shore the extremely enthusiastic Spanish guide/whale expert saw Marten’s photos and said what we had see was very unique and was likely to be a ‘sexual gathering’ where different pods meet to breed as they usually travel in large family groups and are careful not to inbreed.

Giant halibut caught by this girl on her first fishing trip

We have some video footage of the whale watching that shows the groups that came close to the boat. It’s a bit long but we’ve cut it down from about 2.5 hours. No penis shots unfortunately.