Day 16: The Kirkenes adventure continues

The view from the window this morning.

 From the RICA Arctic hotel in Kirkenes where we stayed the day after the Snow Hotel.

Day 16
Priority #1. long hot shower.
Priority #2. sleep in a bed that doesn't dance to the tune of the ship’s engine, is not frozen and does not involve scary sleeping accoutrements.

On the adventure agenda today husky sledding to see the Northern lights again.

Again I was surprised by my lack of anticipation - I failed to consider this adventure would involve dogs *face palm*. If I'm honest I'll admit I'm afraid of dogs. This didn't occur to me until I was standing in the midst of a huge pen of them, all over-excited by the prospect of going for a run. It helped, though when MGM reframed the situation for me by saying "just think of a pen of Bobbys". I was okay after that, ready for adventure, just not so hands on as some of the participants.

 

Little did we know that we’d be in for an adventure of a completely unexpected intensity, but first, just for Emily, here are the beautiful animals. This lovely dog is so affectionate they keep him next to the gate as a greeter, he actually jumps up puts his front paws around your waist and snuggles in.

MGM was instantly won over.

The dogs were all adorable, some were standoffish, some were affectionate, all were gorgeous.

See what I mean, cuddly.

The first part of the evening was spent learning about the dogs, how they work as a team. Some people took turns "sealing" the dogs into their harnesses and the teams.

 

This is Marius setting up the sled he'd be driving for us - the lead sled that all the other teams follow.

 

See my toes? I'm sitting in the sled (which is actually a thin piece of plastic sheet). MGM sat on a seat (which is actually an milk bottle crate covered in reindeer skin) behind me.

 

waiting for the order to run.

 

and there the photos end. We skidded through beautiful frosty landscape. 

 

Of which I felt every.single.bump.

 

Getting ever further away from civilisation.

 

Learning a lot as Marius chatted happily away. Uphill (which I felt). Down dale (which I felt). Over jumps (yes I really felt them), skidding along at a surprising speed until we weren't.

 

With no warning the dogs baulked, turned right around and started running back at us in a panic.

 

Alarming.

 

Marius had them more or less in control very quickly and discovered that the problem was a frozen stream, breaking up and not safe to cross. Marius parked us unceremoniously in a snow drift, told us not to get out as it wouldn't be safe and went to investigate if there was another place where we could cross.

 

We waited.

 

Now add to this scenario a team of dogs coming at us the other way, driven by a private musher who was not in control of his animals in the same way as Marius was. Well we were then in the middle of a lot of frightened dogs who were very quickly getting all their lines tangled. Remember, we're waiting? Well the wait was extending past 30 mins and this is not good.

 

The worst thing you can do in this kind of cold is to sit still. We started to cramp and get cold, despite the stylish blue suits, extra gloves, extra socks etc. that we wore over our own rather bulky clothes.

 

Marius actually ended up in the water trying to calm his dogs down and untangle them. The other thing you don't want it to be is wet, it's very dangerous.

 

After a lot a technical stuff worked on by several of the mushers we tried to get across in a different place. What actually happened was the sled ended up on its side in a deeper snow drift, MGM & I still had to stay put. The mushers tried again, everything got tangled and eventually we decided we had to give up and return.

 

Now this is the adventurous bit. We were asked to get out of the sled on the uphill side. hmmm I thought to myself I'm not sure I can shift my bulk UP hill with nothing to lean on or pull towards, and sure enough I was right. Marius said "please just roll". So roll I did. Off the sled, spread eagle (think upside down snow angel) into soft, deep snow, full face plant. As unattractive as this was it was not my first concern which was breathing. I was suddenly aware that one cannot breath in a full face plant (bit scary actually). Somehow I regained verticle, the men folk I suspect, although not MGM who was incapacitated (by laughter) at the time. Marius wanted us to move away from the dogs. Happy to oblidge I set off in the direction as instructed, to find a nice deep spot so I could go up to my knees in water.

 Chilly.

 

Everything got turned around and we started the trip back. The one small hitch was the lead team was now in the rear and the other teams were a bit flummoxed running in a stop/start fashion that was actually quite worrying for Marius who was standing on feet that were fast going numb. I could relate although I wasn't standing on them and hadn't been wet nearly as long.

 

When we did get back Marius leapt off the sled and ran to protect his feet, as he was starting to lose feeling. Apparently that's the time when you should worry. If you're in pain you're not going to lose your toes.

 

My toes  were safe then.

 

MGM got me out of my shoes in record time and I have never been so grateful for dry socks.

 

We've decided no more adventure for a while, just plain old tourism for the rest of this trip.

 

 

**

*Edit. I forgot to mention ... after the cold, wet and unsuccessful, inasmuch as we didn't see the Northern lights tonight, adventure we had dinner around an open fire in a lavo (Sami tent). We were joined, as we enjoyed our delicious and hearty fish stew, by the others who had also ventured out on the sled                                           

As we got to talking we realised we were 7 Aussies and 2 honorary Aussies (the Irish have an Aussie sense of humour but with a better accent). The irony of coming all the way Kirkenes to find the strangers your table are from Canberra did not escape us.

You’ve gotta love the Irish, whose response to the story of me going into the drink was to produce a hip flask of peach vodka to warm me up from the inside, until the fire could warm up the tent. That hip flask went round the group a couple of times; honestly it was such a relief to be in the company of people who were not too up-tight to drink from the same flask.