Chill Thrills...

Day number 2, Sunday morning.  We were excited about our planned husky expedition, scheduled for Sunday afternoon.  We were going to be collected from our hotel at 12:30, taken into town to be dressed and then off to a husky farm.  My parents called us at about 7am, forcing us out of bed a little earlier than planned.  We had just showered, washed hair, got partially dressed and ready for breakfast, when reception rang us to say that our safari was there to collect us.  So, unfed, we headed off on our next big adventure.

When we arrived at the husky farm, the dogs were all tied up and ready to go.  They were absolutely going nuts to start their run and the noise was deafening in the silence of the snow...   

 I wish I could put the video up here, so you could hear the volume of their barking...

 After a brief run down on how to control a sled, we set off on our mushing experience.  Unfortunately (or fortunately if you prefer), I was the odd number in the crowd, so I ended up going with the main musher on his sled with the 3 kids in the group. We spent about 2 hours running through snow covered forests (OK, on roads running through the forests).  Our journey took us near to the airport and the wind was blowing a little.  It was very cold and I was glad to be able to snuggle up under a blanket with Jake...

 The dogs are really unbelievable.  They're so strong and they have so much energy.  Our sled was pulled by 12 dogs, because we had an experienced musher.  The rest only had 6 dogs. Typically, the strongest dogs are right in front of the sled, the cleverest in the very front of the pack.  Males are on the right and females on the left, because the males pull to the side to sniff and piddle and the females have to force them back on to the track...

 Our guy let Jake have a go at mushing.  It involves kicking off the ground to help the dogs on the uphill and standing on the breaks to slow them down.  He was very excited to get a go at being in charge...

 This is out near the airport, you can see how open it is and it was freezing.  When we went back into town, the board said that it was -10 deg C that day.  I have no idea how to calculate wind chill factor, but it was definitely there...

 This is one of the other guest's sleds.  One adult sits, the other mushes, then they swap over.  We had plenty of little stops, so these guys could catch up to us.  Their kids were riding with Jake & I in the sled...

 This picture was taken on one of our little breaks at our half way point.  Jake was really cold and starting to get a little grumpy because of it.  His hands were freezing.  Shortly after this picture, he came and sat back with me and we shoved his hands into my gloves to try warm him up a little.  Despite thermal underwear, thick woollen socks, gloves, hats and snow suits, we were ill-prepared for the cold...

 At the end of our ride.  Jake was virtually in tears at this point, he was so cold.  Then again, I could only manage to take 2 or 3 photos at a time, before my hands froze up and had to be re-heated in my gloves.  It's an unbelievable kind of cold when you're outside in it.  It's fine running from your warm hotel to the cab, or walking around in town, but out there in the wild, it's a different story all together...

 We were ushered inside a log cabin, with a gorgeous fire burning inside.  Jake and I literally sat on top of it.  We were given the most delicious warm berry juice to drink and they had the biggest bowl of gingerbread cookies I've ever seen.  I think Jake and I had about 15.  Each.  This is the view looking out of the cabin, from where we were sitting around the fire...

 After warming up for a few minutes, we were allowed to go outside and meet the huskies up close.  These two pups were crazy about Jake and his teddy bear...

 A happier boy...

 Then it was back into town to do more shopping, this time for a bag to pack our luggage back into for coming home...

 Frost covered buildings opposite the taxi rank...

Jake in the lobby of our hotel.  The garden is beautifully lit up to show off the winter wonderland outside...

 We had a little free time, so spent it exploring the hotel and gardens.  It gave me a little chance to mess around with my low light photography a little (shew, it's challenging when you don't know how).  It was about 2:30 in the afternoon and already quite dark.  Thanks to photoshop, I was able to lighten some of these up a little... 

 Personally, I couldn't believe that this wasn't that much snow.  Because it had been so cold the week before our arrival (-25!!!), it hadn't snowed.  That said, it snowed pretty much all the time we were there...

 By 3pm, it was basically dark.  By 6pm, it felt like it was already the middle of the night...

 Snow Angels (finally!!)...

 Not so successful.  Actually (and I don't really know too much about snow), the snow there was very soft and fluffy.  We tried building a snow man and throwing snow balls, but the snow wouldn't compact.  When we threw it, it just poeffed away.  Not sure if that's because it was fresh snow, or what.  When we went to play in the snow in Ceres, it just felt much harder...

 This is looking down towards town from the ski slope next to our hotel.  Like right next to it.  I wish I'd been brave enough to try.  We didn't even get to go on the lift...

 Here's the same view, without flash and lightened up in Photoshop.  I like the one above better, I like seeing the snowflakes...

 Frosty booth...

 This is the view from the roof of our hotel.  The frozen river in the background is the one we travelled on during our snow mobile excursions...

 Jake having a little go on his bum board at the ski slope...

 Oh, here are some room shots.  This is the sauna in our room.  It was gas and I was too scared to use it.  The room was so beautifully heated in any case, we didn't really need it...

 We were collected again from our hotel at 6pm for our last outing.  We were supposed to be going to look for the Northern Lights, something I've always wanted to see, but it was overcast, so we had no chance.  We still went out though and had a fabulous time...

 The kids had to ride in the sled again, Jake was super disappointed that he couldn't ride with me.  That's his little head popping up in the front.  For this trip (after the morning's cold husky ride), we both had on 2 full sets of thermals, a T-shirt, a long sleeve T-shirt, fleece tracksuits, snow suits, 2 pairs of thick socks, gloves, balaclavas, a scarf, a buff and a hat.  It was still cold...

 We travelled for 40 minutes back to the reindeer farm on the frozen river.  When we arrived, we were welcomed with warm berry juice and a huge camp fire (outside this time)...

 The guides roasted sausages around the fire for us (Jake's sitting middle right), which they assured me weren't reindeer.  Truth be told (sorry veggie friends), I was so hungry, I didn't care.  They told us about the Northern Lights and we had time to play on the slope again...

Back at the Safari centre, we took our suits off and put our own shoes/gloves/hats back on.  Sorry about Jake's disgusting pants, they were the only warm fleece ones I could find in his size.  Disgusting...

When you get dressed to go out, you first put on your socks and shoes.  Shoes need to be bigger than you need, because the air inside warms up, keeping your feet warm...

Next up are the snowsuits.  They have zippers up each leg, so you can get your big feet in. I felt like a stripper getting undressed...

 The last room is where you get the helmets, scarves, gloves, hats, balaclavas, etc...

Reindeer boy... 

And that was the end of Day 2.  It definitely wasn't as magical as Day 1 for either of us, but, shew, what an incredible experience...

Sue X

The most magical trip ever...

What an amazing experience.  I have so many photos to share with you and work has been so super busy that I just haven't had time to sit and look at photos till now. 

We left Cape Town on Thursday evening at 7:05pm.  We flew to Frankfurt, arriving at 5am on Friday morning.  It was dark when we landed, but the ground was covered in a blanket of white.  We had 4 hours to kill at the airport and since it was our first point of entry into the EU, we had to go through passport control.  Thank goodness for kids - Jake and I were allowed to go through the express line, which took 5 minutes instead of an hour.  Needless to say, as soon as our passports had been stamped, Jake and I made our way to the exit for our first touch of snow. Frankfurt is a huge airport and we weren't sure how far we had to walk to our terminal, so we were only outside for a few minutes.  Plus, we weren't dressed nearly warmly enough.  The picture of Jake above is just after sun up from the departure hall.

Our flight leaving Frankfurt was slightly delayed and it meant a huge rush (and a little stress on my part) at Helsinki airport, where we only had an hour until our next flight departed for Rovaniemi. We eventually landed at about 4pm.  Here's a very tired little man at Rovaniemi Airport. As the sign says, it's the official airport of Santa Claus...

I must say, that the locals really go to town to make everything festive and very exciting.  Even the baggage collection area is decorated with polar bears, huskies, wolves, snow owls - it was super.

Once we'd realised that our luggage actually wasn't coming off the aeroplane, we reported it and were taken to our hotel.  We dropped our luggage off, called a cab and headed into town to do some shopping.  Fortunately, we'd travelled in our warm shoes and I had both our jackets as hand luggage.  We were told that our bags would probably arrive the following day, so we made a short trip into town to buy the essentials - thermal undies, thermal socks, hats and gloves.  We had an early start the next morning and I knew that our jeans just wouldn't be warm enough on their own.  In hindsight, having lost our bag and having to go into town was fabulous and I tried not to let Jake know how upset I was, although I'm pretty sure that through all my tears he knew.  The trip into town got us out and we really enjoyed our little bit of sight-seeing...

This was one of my favourite shops, it's called The Christmas Shop and I could've spent a lot more time and money there...

 Jake's letter to Father Christmas, along with all my addresses (sorry for not sending cards, it wasn't my fault) was in our missing bag, so after our huge buffet breakfast (including hot chocolate and waffles) we had to make a very quick new letter first thing the next morning.  Jake spent hours doing the original and it was beautiful.  We were both very disappointed that it was missing.  But you know, Father Christmas is a very magical person and we know that he managed to get the original out our bag in any case... 

 This is the view out of our bedroom window.  By this time of year, the snow is usually between 75cm - 1m deep, so the locals thought there was very little.  Jake and I couldn't believe how much there was...

 I also lost my tripod and camera battery charger in our bag, so had to make do as best I could without.  Fortunately, my battery lasted the entire trip.  This is Jake sitting in front of our window...

After breakfast, we were collected from our hotel by Lapland Safaris and taken to their offices in town to get properly dressed for the snow.  This is Jake in his snow suit.  Oh, our travel agent gave us that we had to take a bear with us to take photos of with Jake, but that was also lost.  This one was our replacement...

Here's Jake & I all dressed and ready to go on our first snow mobile safari to a reindeer farm...

 Kids under 15 aren't allowed on the snowmobiles, so Jake had to ride in a sled pulled by Sami, our guide...

 Our snowmobile trip to the reindeer farm was incredible, I had so much fun!  We had to travel about 40 minutes each way, on the frozen river...

 Once we arrived, we were taken to a little hut, where there was a fire burning in the middle of the room.  We all needed to defrost a little...

 This is Tappi, he's a traditional Suomi man.  They're the local migrant reindeer herders.  Lapland extends over parts of Russia, Finland, Sweden and Norway.  These herders are allowed to move between the four countries freely.  Here, Tappi's performing some traditional ceremony with the kids, which involved brushing their faces with a reindeer pelt and dusting their noses with ash from the fire...

 Showing us his hand made knives and explaining that to release tension in adults, they cut the backs of the person's neck twice and burn their foreheads with sticks from the fire.  He "did" the ceremony with us, but I think it was just so we'd look silly in our photos later...

 We were taken around the reindeer farm and it was explained to us that these are really Father Christmas' reindeer in training.  It's here that they learn how to fly and pull a sleigh.  If they aren't good enough, they are simply released into the wild again...

 Jake & I ready for our sleigh ride...

 Jake was as fascinated by the snow as I was.  He kept throwing it into the air over himself.  I couldn't believe that the snow didn't melt as quickly as I thought it would.  It just lay on our clothing and we could brush it off.  I didn't feel wet from melting snow.  And I thought that the best thing about the snow was that I could actually see the shapes of each snow flake.  They're quite big and you really can see that they're all different.  It was fascinating.  Lee, Roo, you who live in cold snowy places - my challenge to you is to get some photos of snowflakes for me.  I didn't pack my macro lens and the pictures I took didn't come out so well.  Pretty please...

 As a surprise, Father Christmas was actually visiting his reindeer while we were at the reindeer farm.  The kids had no idea and it was really special.  We were a small group of only 5 adults and 2 kids, so we were able to chat to Father Christmas, give him our letters and take some photos...

 Despite looking like one of Father Christmas' elves, can you see how excited Jake is here?  He was absolutely bursting.  I think this might be my favourite photo from this trip...

 I was cheeky enough to ask Father Christmas if I could sit on his knee (see the silly ash on my head?)...

 hahaha - look at my elf...

 After the sleigh ride and catch up with Father Christmas, we went inside and had tea/coffee/hot chocolate/berry juice and doughnuts and gingerbread cookies.  I think Jake & I might actually hold the record for the most gingerbread biscuits ever eaten in one go...

 Outside, there was a little slope and sleds and bum boards.  We had about an hour to play and it was incredible.  I guess it was our first real play in the snow and we had so much fun...

 See - I went too...

 This is one of the views.  The little slope is on the right...

 Back at the Safari centre, here's Jake and I on the snow mobile...

 From there, we were taken to The Santa Claus Village, where we had lunch and were given free time to meet Father Christmas (again), post cards and do some shopping...

 This is Santa Claus' main post office.  We posted what cards we could home from here...

 Jake is learning quickly how to take a decent photo.  That's me on Saturday, still in the jeans I travelled in.  Nice...

 One of the views at the village.  They play Christmas music and everyone is super friendly.  They make it all so magic, especially for the kids and those young at heart...

 Here's Jake on the Arctic Circle line.  The building behind him is where Father Christmas is...

 All the trees are decorated...

 Unfortunately, we weren't allowed to take any photos of Father Christmas this time, but we did find a statue of him with a stuffed reindeer...

After Santa Claus Village, we went back into town and did more shopping for proper clothes.  Our bags still hadn't turned up and we needed proper gear.   After much complaining (both of us hate shopping), we did what we had to and headed back to our hotel. 

On our way back though, we passed an open air ice-skating ring and decided to stop.  Fortunately, there was a huge slope and Jake decided to rather do some bum board there instead of skating.  I can't really skate all that well and he's never tried, so I think this was a better option.  It was seriously cold though and I eventually got him to pack it in and we escaped back to the warmth of our hotel.  Jake had a blast though...

And that was the end of day one.  Needless to say, we slept like logs after a very exciting, very busy day!

More tomorrow!

Love Sue XXX