Travelling Diaries
2015 Northern Lights & Lapland / Day 5 Bodø
Previous and next: Day 4 Trondheim / Day 6 Svolvaer
3rd February 2015
Hoping to see the Northern Lights? Are yer mad?
As we reach the mid point of our journey it is time to move further north in search of the magical but maybe elusive Northern Lights.
We were up early this morning for breakfast and the train left Trondheim for Bodø at 7.38am in the dark.
The temperature as we left Trondheim was hovering on freezing and as I reported yesterday, was expected to only go one way.
The train was, as usual, the normal efficient service we expect in Norway. We left spot on time and even though the driver would come on the intercom and talk about the occasional delays, we always managed to get to each station spot on time.
Early on in the journey we went through a place called Hell, which the train conductor was eager to point out to us. The train even slowed down so that we could all take a picture. Unfortunately we were on the wrong side of the train and all I could get was a blurry view.
“You’ll have gone through Hell to get to Bodø” was the obvious joke.
As we travelled further north the temperature started to drop. By 8:30 it was -3°C, before it slowly sank to a low of -15°C by 12:02 (although it did rise up again in the afternoon to a positively balmy -7°C).
Winter is definitely coming. (I’ll avoid the obvious “winter drawers on” joke. Oh no, there I’ve said it).
The days so far had been cloudy without a chance of seeing anything (never mind meatballs). However, after 4 days of darkness, we finally saw our first sunlight on the journey up to Bodø. If this stays clear then there is a real chance of seeing those Northern Lights tonight.
The language in Norway had not been much of a problem for us. Karen had spent a year in Denmark in 1980 and had learnt a good bit of the Danish language. This helped her in Norway as the Danish, Swedish and Norwegian languages had many similarities. However, even if neither of us had any sense of the language, the Norwegians (like most Scandinavians) generally spoke excellent English (unlike what I do).
However, language is a funny thing.
Sometimes knowing what a word means doesn’t always help you understand what someone is trying to say. Context and inflection can often influence what a person is trying to say.
Dara O’Briain had a funny piece in his book called “Tickling the English” from a few years ago. He talked about the word “Grand” and how it is a common word used by Irish people.
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“How are you”, “Grand!”
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“Ah, ‘tis a grand day”
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“What was the food like”, “It was grand!”.
Now people may look at this context and think that it signifies that something is fine, or ok. But actually that is not quite true.
A good example that Dara quoted was when you were going to buy a car from someone. If you asked them what is it like and they said “Ah, it’s Grand” then you shouldn’t touch that car with a barge pole. Because in this context they are saying that it is barely adequate, or just ok.
Or if someone said to you “you’ve got a grand head on yer this morning” they are not praising your good looks. Quite the opposite. They are probably saying that you look like you had a rough night last night and resemble someone who has been dragged through a hedge backwards.
What brought about this rant is that Karen’s favourite phrase at the moment is “Ah yer mad?” She seems to use at least 5 times a day. Here are some examples:
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D: “Do you fancy a Chinese takeaway tonight?”
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K: ”Are yer mad?”
Or
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D: “I’ve bought us some thermal underwear for our Norway trip”
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K: “Are yer mad?”
Now, someone might overhear this and think that she sees me as either a crazy impetuous fool who wants to spoil her with a little culinary treat, or someone who has gone way over the top in terms of clothing suggestions for this trip.
But in fact what she means is subtly different.
In the first one about the Chinese, what she means is, “we have a whole load of food in the house and you are just being lazy and couldn’t be bothered to cook.”
Of course, she is right.
However, in the second one about the undergarments her thoughts are “If you think that I am going to traipse around Norway wearing those ridiculous things, then you have another thing coming!”
Well, with the temperature plummeting the further north we go, it looks like madness could be the order of the day (but don’t mention the joke about the winter drawers again. Oops, I think I just did!).
In the afternoon, after about 8 hours of beautiful train journey we finally crossed over into the Arctic Circle – 66 degrees north – just before we reached the town of Lonsdal.
(The interpretive centre at the Arctic circle)
(The marker showing that we had crossed the Arctic Circle - apologies for blurry picture.)
By now we were at a height of 512 metres above sea level passing many frozen lakes and heading out towards the Fjords. Here are some shots of the scenery on the way.
(This is actually a frozen lake)
On the way, Karen thought she saw a little Moose, but she couldn’t make it gel.
I tried to take a photo of it but it had, well, vamoosed!
(We stopped at Fauske station so I jumped out (at -8°C) to take a picture of the train)
(Here you can see the plough at the front of the train to clear the tracks as we go)
Anyway, as darkness fell we finally arrived at Bodø.
We were told that as tonight could be a clear night, we were going to attempt to go and look for the Northern Lights later this evening. However, we were also told that a similar group had been here two weeks ago and had also gone out in search of the elusive lights only to see nothing. So our hopes were not high.
We were told that it was going to be cold. Very cold. This suited Karen and I as it gave us an excuse to finally put on the hundreds of clothes we had dragged all of the way from Ireland! So on went the thermal underwear, the woolly socks, scarves, balaclavas, gloves, snoods, the many other layers and finally the giant duvet like coats. I could hardly move. If I had fallen over I would have just bounced back up again.
We were taken by coach out of the city to a local beach where the light pollution was low giving us a better chance of seeing anything if it happened. When we got there, the temperature was around -5°C but there was an incredibly strong easterly arctic wind which brought the temperature down to at least -15°C and was strong enough to whip hats off heads.
The ground at the beach was frozen and treacherous underfoot. We made it to the beach and the Tourettes had a bit of a beach party! The guide had brought some wood and we built a fire. He also handed out hot drinks (which we needed very quickly).
Anyway, we were only there about 20 minutes when I thought I saw something in the sky. It looked at first like a bright cloud, but then it quickly turned into a glowing green, blue and occasionally red curtain right across the northern sky. It was magnificent!
All I needed now was photographic evidence.
Now Karen and I had both brought cameras; Karen had bought her expensive digital SLR and I had brought my small but powerful mini digital camera. We had both read up on the best way to photograph the lights and thought we were prepared.
However, we weren’t prepared for the cold.
To use the cameras you had to take off your gloves. Now we had both fingerless gloves and bigger thicker outer gloves on at the same time. However, within 5 seconds of taking off your outer gloves, your fingers froze. The result was that neither of us could correctly use our cameras.
I had found a setting for night shots, but it needed to take an eight second exposure. As I didn’t have a tripod, the combination of the wind whipping everything around us plus frozen fingers meant that I wasn’t sure that anything was coming out.
After a few attempts at the night setting, in desperation I switched the camera to what is called “Intelligent Auto” mode and took a snap. However, with my fingers now looking like something you would serve with a plate of peas and mash potatoes I switched off the camera and stuffed it into my duvet like coat pocket.
The polar light display went on for about half an hour or so then disappeared. We then decided that rather than wait to see if it might or might not reappear, we would take our success as a good sign and head back to the hotel.
Back in the coach I did a quick check of my pictures. They were all black. Except for the last one I took. A little scrappy, but certainly the Northern Lights!
What a great end to the day, and to Karen’s birthday! Certainly a day to remember.
Tomorrow we leave Bodø in the afternoon to sail (yes, sail) to the Lofoten Islands to hopefully see more of the Northern Lights.
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