Sunday, September 2, 2018

An amazing few days

WOW!
Ok I probably need to backtrack a little and try to do the last few days justice..... On arrival at Heathrow on Thursday morning we hit a minor hitch, our ticket did not include checked bags! Somewhere along the way the airline had cancelled our booking, rebooked us, almost sent us to Singapore then rebooked our original flights but alas without baggage. £180 later and we were sorted... (and an email to our travel agent to sort it with the airline!) A couple of hours in the air and we landed at Oslo for a 5 hour stopover so decided to pay to get into the SAS airline lounge rather than hang out with the masses. This turned out to be a pretty good idea as not only were the chairs more comfortable, the food and drinks were free and our connecting flight was delayed by another hour or so. Once the flight opened we had a reasonable walk to the gate (they didn’t mention that) and we had to negotiate some strange ticket scanning setups just to get to the right part of the terminal, including verifying pictures of our luggage. 
When we arrived in Kirkeness we stood around for a while until the bags started coming around on the carousel and, you guessed it, no bags! No problem as only 80% of the people had left and the other locals just stood around patiently and waited for at least another 10/15 minutes for “round 2”. In the meantime Old mate from France started stressing and banging on windows, trying to force doors and rant and rave. Second round and still no bags for us, or old mate (more banging on windows, shouting and storming around - strangely security didn’t arrive to check out the ruckus) and a couple of others. Off we went to find someone who cares, tired and stressed we made a report, described the bags and collected our overnight emergency kit from the airline with assurances that our bags would be delivered to our hotel in the morning and old mates would go direct to the ship as he was leaving the next day.
Back at the hotel Robyn opened the ‘ladies bag” to find deodorant, toothpaste, toothbrush etc and the lovely XL tshirt. - mine had the XXL and a razor. When we mentioned to the hotel reception that our bags had been lost they assured us all would be fine and they would be delivered the next day. It seems it is not uncommon! True to their word our bags were delivered to our hotel the next morning so all was good! (We have since met another couple on board who arrived the day the boat sailed and his bag has not been located yet - we donated him my Tshirt which I hadn’t used).
The unfortunate upshot of losing our bags was we were so tired from the delayed flight and filling in missing luggage reports etc - having left Twickenham at around 7.30am and arriving at our hotel to check in at 9.30pm and too focused on our missing luggage we had no time to organise activities for the next day and so were unable to do the King Crab safari - Oh well! Luckily we had 30min before their kitchen closed so were able to get something to eat before trying out our emergency supplies and getting some much needed sleep.
After breakfast (food in Norway is very good but expensive to eat in restaurants - luckily breakfast was included) we decided to explore Kirkeness which is quite a small town and book a sightseeing tour for the afternoon as the King Crab Tour was not an option. For a small town we managed some very good shopping at an outdoors store and clothing outlet. Only took us a couple of hours to wander the town and check out the shops of interest. The town, however has some very interesting history starting with conflicts over land back in the days of the Vikings and British through to the Second World War when the town was devastated. Apparently Kirkeness was the most bombed city in Europe so virtually completely destroyed. Norway had declared neutrality but Germany invaded anyway so the Russians bombed and blew up everything in attempt to thwart the Germans. They currently share a boarder with Russia which has an interesting history also. Boarder security is taken very seriously. We drove to an official boarder checkpoint where we were able to take photos but it is forbidden to step over “the line.” We met a Norwegian boarder patrol team at another point along the fenced boarder who generously posed for photos with us. Another two of the team returned from patrol with automatic rifles, dog etc and people are caught.
Back to the hotel for dinner - Steak or Salmon - $50 or King Crab or Reindeer $70 each and a glass of wine $20 to $25/ small glass or splash out on a bottle of average wine for around $70! Ouch! Alcohol is heavily taxed in Norway. You can purchase it cheaper in a store but it is still much more expensive than home.
September 1st - time for our Hurtigruten cruise. We had a couple of hours before pick up at the hotel so decided to check out the museum. Worth the visit and filled in a bit more of the story about the history of Kirkeness in WW2.
Off to the ship - on board - offered a cabin upgrade that would cost us an additional $3,150 so we declined and have a nice little cabin with ensuite and a window, plenty of storage, very comfortable and lots of places to sit and relax around the boat. Spectacular scenery!
The boats are working boats and stop at numerous places along the route sometimes for only 15 minutes and obviously longer in others to allow you to go on land and explore the small towns. The first two land stops have not delivered a bottle shop as I have a plan to smuggle some contraband on board to supplement the bottle of Gin I have already hidden in my luggage in a feeble attempt to minimise the “hit” on the wallet. 
First night on board and conditions were good for the Northern lights - Aurora. She had made an appearance the night before which was the first for the season so we could only hope. Alleluia, after several excursions outside we finally got the call that it could be seen on the horizon. Thankfully we were still dressed in our thermal gear so straight up to level 5 and out we go. As with our previous outings you could still see the twilight on the Northern horizon but there was a distinct glow of green light strengthening between the beautiful orange red and blue twilights that we had already seen. Just beautiful and then, shapes started appearing overhead that could almost resemble clouds but where did they come from? The camera worked a treat as the difference between the naked eye and the camera is significant and we started to get some great streaks and swirls of green light across the sky. An hour later and heaps of pictures it began to fade and so did we. I think it was around 1.30 but we were a little too excited to sleep. 
I woke around 5am and realised we were docking in another port so thought i should have a quick trip on deck for a few photos then back to bed.. Wasn’t going to happen as it was just too beautiful so I decided I needed to drag Robyn out and of course that meant we were unable to get back to sleep. Sorry honey. ( but it was worth it!)
Later in the morning we docked at Hammerfest for two hours. This is the Northern most town in the world so a great opportunity to set foot on land. The Polar Bear Insitute is next to the ship so a great place to start and some great examples of stuffed arctic animals, including, bears, arctic foxes, Reindeer, otters and birds. And if we thought the day was about as good as it can get, then think again, REINDEER! Woohoo. One in the street that we followed up into the scrub and watched him massage/clean/de-fur his antlers. The other just down the road in someone’s front yard grazing on the grass and flowers. We were able to get within a couple of feet and took far too many photos. But then again its not every day you get up close and personal with a Reindeer!
Back on board - lunch - more beautiful scenery, snow and ice pockets on some of the mountains but the scenery would have to wait for a bit as it was back to the cabin for a rest as we have booked the midnight concert in the cathedral at Tromso! Another late night (and if the clouds clear maybe another light show) - what to do - take it all in. Spectacular!











Yes it was only 6am! But still looking beautiful!










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