Travelling Diaries
2018 Swedish Lapland / Day 8 - Björkliden
Previous and next: Day 7 - Travel to Björkliden / Day 9 - Björkliden & Narvik
9th February 2018
Frost and foremost
We were still on a high from the events last night and thought that maybe we had peaked too soon, with just over two days left.
We went for an early morning walk in the surrounding hills to clear our heads and to try and get a sense of the place.
[Let's be honest, you'd have to be in a bad way to want to use this outside facility in the middle of the night]
There's snow fool like an old fool
After lunch we got geared up to go on snowmobiles.
Having never ridden even a scooter, I was wondering how I was going to cope on one of these machines, but it turned out that they are fully automatic and are idiot proof.
Ha! They haven't met this idiot.
Karen decided to leave the driving to me. There's brave. Leaving all the hard work to me. She's snow fool.
We set off nice and slowly but soon get a bit of speed up as we skated over a frozen lake.
It was a crisp, clear afternoon with a temperature of about -14°C. It felt surprisingly warm compared to the last few days!
The ride was exciting and you got a real buzz from the adrenaline rush as you felt the machine crunch through the snow and glide on the slippery ice.
The only problem was that you couldn't take any photos on the way as you had to hold on with all your might.
The handlebars at the front were heated which was useful.
Karen at the back also had some bars to hold on to but they weren't heated. She complained to me about this, but with my balaclava, hat and helmet on I didn't hear her.
Note to self. Must buy myself a balaclava, hat and helmet for back at home.
In the evening we went back to the Abisko tourist centre building and the other half of the group went off with the photographer for their evening of Northern light searching.
So it sled me to the right conclusion
Our group climbed aboard some specially made sleds that were dragged behind snowmobiles.
We disappeared into the woods a few kilometres from the centre and experienced true darkness with no light pollution. Although this is not strictly true. The stars were bright and, even in the dark, you could still see your surroundings but you got a real feel for the natural beauty of the night.
We got back to the centre and had a bit of a wait for our bus. The photographic group were just packing up and heading back first, and we had to stick around for the return bus.
As we were waiting, I ventured outside and I thought I would give my own camera one last chance to redeem itself.
As it wasn't as cold as previous nights, the camera decided to start up properly and I pointed it into the sky were I thought the lights might be and pressed the shutter.
The 30 second exposure seemed to take an age (half a minute to be precise) and that was followed by another 15 seconds of "processing".
To my surprise there was a little bit of green on the picture. Great, I thought.
I took one more to show this wasn't a fluke.
A group of tourists from Shanghai who had arrived in that afternoon, asked me whether I had seen the lights. I showed them what I had just taken that night and they were so excited. They even took photos of my pictures displayed on the back of my camera, as their camera phones couldn't pick up the lights on their own.
Within a few more minutes, the sky suddenly lit up and we had a brief reprise of the show from the previous night.
Wonderful.
My camera, although not as good as the one I borrowed last night, did manage to pick up something.
Two nights in a row. We were privileged.
I felt sorry for the other group as they hadn't had as good a display as we had the previous night, and they missed the brief show I had just caught as they were on their way back to the hotel.
When I got back to the hotel I didn't tell them, though.
Well there's snow use ruining their holiday.
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