Day 8 - Part 1: "Don't wear anything you don't want covered in poo"

So went the advice given to us by our dining table companions, Annisa and Jack, on learning about our plans following their dog-sledding adventure the day previously. "Wear the coats they give you.  Wear the gloves they give you.  Wear the boots!  Wear everything!"

Um. OK.   Obviously brown is going to be the new black today.

Frigidly cold, stunning Kirkenes landscape.

What could that possibly be?  Surely not a hotel made of
snow and ice??

So, yes, today was a big day, in which we got to break out of our tiny cabin and leave the ship for the comforting icy embrace of the Snowhotel!  Whoo hoo!!  We were up bright and early (well, I was - ManpanionTM was less enthused by the early start!) to shower and have breakfast, ahead of having to vacate our cabins around 8am.  We'd put our main suitcases outside the cabin the night before, so all we had to do was gather our last few bits and pieces and wait til we docked at Kirkenes to disembark.  Despite trying to get some clarity about the sequence and order of events of the day, it was all still a bit confusing - we were obviously staying overnight at the Snow Hotel, but had also booked a husky ride from 1-3pm, so we weren't entirely sure what was supposed to happen on either side of that!   We'd been told to take the shuttle bus at the dock marked up for the Snow Hotel, so we figured to hell with it, we'll do that and see what happens!



We'd also been advised that the disembarkation process was a little, well, chaotic!  And they were right!  There were probably at least a couple of hundred people getting off at Kirkenes - firstly looking to be reunited with their luggage (which was lined up along the dockside) and secondly, trying to figure out which of the masses of buses they should get on!!  We managed to struggle through and found ourselves on the right bus so, after only about a half hour of fannying about, we were underway, heading off to the last part of our adventure!!

ManpanionTM meets Dogpanion for the
 first time

Here's what the Lonely Planet says about Kirkenes:

This is it: you're as far east as Cairo, further east than most of Finland, a mere 15km from the border with Russia – and at the end of the line for the Hurtigruten coastal ferry. It's also road's end for the E6, the highway that runs all the way down to Oslo.

This tiny, nondescript place, anticlimactic for many, has a distinct frontier feel. You'll see street signs in Norwegian and Cyrillic script and hear Russian spoken by trans-border visitors and fishermen, who enjoy better prices for their catch here than in their home ports further to the east.

The town reels with around 100,000 visitors every year, most stepping off the Hurtigruten to spend a couple of hours in the town before travelling onward. But you should linger a while here, not primarily for the town's sake but to take one of the many excursions and activities on offer.

http://www.lonelyplanet.com/norway/finnmark/kirkenes#ixzz3wWQJwA9C

Be careful of those chocolate kisses!

It only took us about 20mins, driving through the icy cold and snowy countryside to reach the location of the Kirkenes Snow Hotel, which was also where the huskies were kenneled.  We passed a number of lakes ("this first lake we are going past... is called First Lake"......"this next lake we are going past is called....yes, Second Lake") that were surprisingly unfrozen.  Apparently this is because the gulfstream current keeps this region "warm" - otherwise everything would be frozen solid like Siberia and none of the trees & vegetation & wildlife would be able to survive the winter.  Thank God for the gulfstream, is all I can say.  Even with it, it was plenty cold enough!!

We arrived at the SnowHotel just after 10am, by which case it had got just a tiny bit lighter.  This far north, forget about seeing the actual sun!  There were about 20 of us on the bus, some of whom were overnight guests like us, others just there for a tour of the SnowHotel before returning back to town later on in the day.

Our guide was a lovely friendly chap called Milly who was wonderfully enthusiastic about his dogs - he told us all about how they should be cared for, so they don't overheat and also how they are incredibly loyal and competitive.  Huskies just live to run so he was telling us that you have to be very careful not to let them overrun, otherwise they will just keep going until they overheat and actually die.  In case you ever fancy getting an Alaskan or Siberian Husky, here are a few things you should know first: http://www.wikihow.com/Take-Care-of-an-Alaskan-Husky

Husky Nation as far as the eye can see!

As he was telling us some of this, we couldn't see the dogs - but oh, could we hear them!!  There was a tour going out as we arrived, so we could hear the huskies in full voice, baying and howling with either excitement about their impending outing, or in frustration that they were kept leashed up while their doggie-mates were having fun!  As we headed over towards them, it got louder and louder - the cacophony was incredible!  One of the most surprising things was how friendly they were.  I'm not a massive doggy person, but even I had to admit they were incredibly endearing.  PLUS they didn't seem covered in poo at all!!  I kept my distance to be on the safe side, but ManpanionTM finally couldn't resist their canine charms and had some snuggles and he seemed not to be covered in husky nuggets, so not sure what Annisa and Jack were on about!!

Look into my eyes.... you are feeling very
sleeeeeeepy............

After oo-ing and ah-ing over the huskies for a while, we then went and had a look at the reindeer, including a very rare white one that is revered by the native Sami people.  Apparently a white reindeer is thought to thought to represent change in one of two ways - either a baby or death.  Awesome.  Good job I'm not a Sami or I'd be worried.  After looking at the reindeer, it was finally time to take a look round the snowhotel.......

....but more on that later! (in part 2!)

After our tour of the Snowhotel (which was incredible, btw), we all regrouped and warmed up in the building attached to it (a converted old barn) where we snacked on hot apple cider and reindeer sausages wrapped in this thin little potato pancake with mustard.  Then it was time for the non-overnight guests to leave and Matt and I were just left hanging about in the barn, with a couple of hours to kill before our husky tour.  There really was not much else to do, so we found ourselves a comfy couch in the lounge area and - yes, you guessed it - had a nap (or at least tried to).  Again, it was a real struggle to stay awake (it was pretty much dark again by midday) so we made ourselves as cosy as possible to snooze it out.

Proof that huskies can, indeed, grin from
ear to ear!

Around 12pm, we decided to go in search of food.  In our tour earlier that morning, we'd gone past one of the little restaurants, called Gabba housed in a Sami-style hut.  Here's the official description from the Snow Hotel's website:

This is how it all started – a few benches around a crackling bonfire.

Today, Gabba is the obvious choice for lunch in the winter season. Seating 40 people around the open fire in the middle, and built as a traditional Sami “lavvu”, Gabba Restaurant is truly special.


After a long day in the snow – what could be better than warming up with a bowl of hot fish soup, warmed over the fire?

Rolling in snow - that's one happy doggie!

Gabba restaurant was, indeed, truly special as it seemed to be a restaurant that specialized in the art of not serving any food!  When we went in, just after midday, there was only one guy there.  Now, I'm not sure if it was his first day or not, but he seemed utterly confused by our request to order some food.  He made some sort of comment that he was putting away dishes for the moment, so his confusion rubbed off on us, and we confusedly went and sat down at one of the wooden tables next to the central fire.   After a few minutes, we came to, thought "this is ridiculous" and went to ask if he had any menus and can we order some food?  He gave us a menu which had a total of 4 things on it - basically soup, sandwiches, sausage or cake and went back to arranging dishes with an even more harried air.  To cut a long story short, there then was a very confusing exchange where we tried to order soup, before being told it wasn't available, only for the people ordering after us to order - and receive - some soup!!   Fortunately to save us from our spiral of confusion and despair over ever getting fed, back-up arrived in the form of a young NZ guy (we guessed his nationality right in the end!) who thankfully took our order - and who brought us food, semi-warmed up over the fire, a mere 30mins later.  What a palava.  If you didn't know better, you'd think this was the first time they'd ever done this and they were making this stuff up as they went along!!  And - the biggest irony of all?  When we were ordering drinks, Manpanion wanted a whiskey on the rocks - but, guess what?  THEY HAD NO ICE!!!!

Milly and his favorite husky

By this stage, it was 1pm and lunch had taken so long it was then time for us to go for our husky ride!  Yippee!!  Our tour was to run from 1pm - 3pm and we'd been told to get there at 1.10pm - which we duly did.  Shame no-one else turned up to take care of us and get us dressed and ready until almost 2pm!!  Again, it seemed almost comically disorganized - you have one job to do - get the huskies ready for a tour at 1pm.  How is it that you can't get your collective acts together when this is all you do??  But finally, someone came to get us and shoehorn us into the massive (oh so sexy) oversuits and hats and gloves that were necessary to keep us warm on our trip.  And to protect us from flying poo, obviously.

We had a different musher to Milly - a seasoned pro who lived for his dogs, taking them out training 5-6 days a week, for runs of 70-100km each time.  He was talking about competing in the Iditarod and other long-distance challenges, so again, you got a deep appreciation for the sheer power and athleticism of these incredible animals.  We only had 5 dogs hooked up to our sled (most of the others had 6 and a few had 8) but this dog team was truly professional, so i guess 5 is all we needed.

Feeling slightly guilty about our supper on NYE

We got loaded into the sled, were told very clearly where to keep our hands and feet (so they wouldnt get caught under the runners and snap off) and, with very little pre-amble, we were off!!  WHOOOSH!!!  Man, it was FAST!!  Unfortunately my iPhone had run out of juice by this stage, so I dont have video of our sled taking off, but you can see in one of the vids I took of another one doing just that  - and boy don't they shift!!!  I spent the first half of the trip concentrating my head off making sure I didn't fall off, as it was super bumpy, especially going over the rolling hills and little bumps in the ground at high speed.  The musher had his brakes on pretty much the whole time to stop the dogs going too quickly - and just as well as it was fast enough for my liking!  We cut it close a few times to some branches and marker poles, but neither of us ended up losing any fingers, toes or eyes so all was well.  The second half of the trip, I started to relax a bit - but, before we knew it, we were back at the snowhotel and the ride was over!  Wait, what??  We were probably only out for about 20mins, so it felt a little disappointing and a bit of a swizz, given it was pegged as a 2hr tour.  I guess we just had different expectations going into it.  But, nevertheless, it was a fantastic experience and still well worth doing - but it would have been nice to have had a bit longer, given all the waiting around and build up.

An incredibly rare, and rather eventful, white reindeer

By this stage it was 3pm, so we had another couple of hours to kill until the final overnight guests arrived and we were due to attend orientation about "how to survive a night in a snowhotel" so, yep, we headed back to our couch and picked up the ZZZ's where we left off.

And...at last... 5pm rolled around, so it was finally time for Snowmaggedon and the snowhotel!!   I can't wait to tell you about it tomorrow.....

Crushing on the reindeer socks

The sophisticated oven in the kitchen in the
restaurant where food is more a concept than
an actual reality

After a long wait, ManpanionTM and I were
mildly hysterical about ACTUALLY GETTING
SOME FOOD TO EAT FOR LUNCH!

Our musher proving that he made the right choice
not pursing photography as a career.  That's actually
me and Matt in the sledge.

Looking a little nervous before the off!

Assorted husky vids so you can get a sense of how noisy and excitable these incredible animals are.  After being around them and watching them in action, the cruelty would be keeping them confined and not to let them run.  These are friendly and tame, but wild at heart, creatures that - in the words of the great man himself - were Born To Run.  I hope you get to meet one one day.