With a 5.15am start, a car ride and a train I got to Oslo Airport on time only for the plane to delayed but it gave me some time to take a few photos and start listening to my new audio book about the history of Marvel Comics.
It was possibly one of the most amazing flights i’ve been on. The country was literally blanketed with snow. The only thing that wasn’t white was cliffs and ice lakes. The colours were incredible out the window. But I started to realise even at 30,000ft the side barely breached the horizon, its going to be dark at midday when I land.
Didn’t do alot that day other than eat dinner and go for a walk in -11 (in the city!) and attempt to dial in my camera to shooting in darkness and long exposure. Got a couple of good aurora shots though despite the light polution.
Day 51 – the big day.
Today was the day I get to go to Camp Tamok run by Lyngsfjord Adventure. On the bus out there the temps dropped substainally to -16.
First activity up for the day was Reindeer sledding. The guide made a point of saying “Its only -15 so it should be fine”. Strangely the cold didn’t feel like death since it was so dry and no wind all all. But I did start to get ice forming on my jacket and ice covered sideburns just from the mositure in my breath.
Below the sled was a 500mm thick sheet of ice, part of a frozen lake.
Midday I realised that I was the only one staying on for the afternoon session instead of taking the bus. The options were to just hang around before the dogsledding or go snow shoe walking. But luckily my awesome kiwi hassling skills managed to talk them around to taking me snow mobiling with the guide for a little extra coin.
It was on of the coolest things I have done on the trip. It was 2pm and pitch black, only lights around were the ones on the snow mobiles. Around a 30km round trip averaging about 25-30km/h it was pretty cool. I didn’t crash it and only got it stuck twice, once when the tracks slipped into a rut and once when I wasn’t going fast enough. All I had in my head was WWPD (what would Paul say) which is when I realised I should just fucking nail it going up the hills, worked out well.
After going for a ride went back and had some food waiting for the others. But it gave me a great chance to play with my camera. Remembering that I have no tripod I had to figure out a way to take still long shutter speed shots.
Hello tree stump with a glove on it! fuck me this camera takes some good photos.
Leaving the shutter open for 20 seconds gave great results and even the stars came out for a picture!
Once everyone else turned up we suited up for dog sledding, in the -15 temps in the afternoon. And I even took a picture for proof.
And we couldn’t really take photos while dog sledding due to holding the sled and trying to not tip the sled into the river and or tree.
Halfway around we stopped to swap drivers and passengers and try take some photos. a few people were like “i couldn’t setup my tripod in time” Which is where I thought fuck that and threw my gloves on the snow and my camera on top of it to take a photo of the amazing most intense Aurora we had all day.
We dropped the dogs back, and I must say it was so cold. -16 and dog sledding is possibly the coldest i’ve ever been, couldn’t feel my face, fingers or toes for like 40mins. We had snow suits for the rest of our bodies thankfully.
After an epic the most fun day in Norway so far it was time to go back to Tromsø. An hour an a half it was time to head back. If anyone comes to Tromsø I highly recommend camp Tamok.
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