This article is the final part of a series. To read about the pre-Tromsø part of our trip please check out these articles. 1 2 3
Finally, on the morning of January 3rd we touched down at Tromsø, one of the world’s northernmost cities! It’s so further up north that the sun never comes above the horizon during winter. It’s completely dark till 9 in the morning, then you start seeing a faint light that gets brighter till 11:30 and by 2:30 or 3, it’s completely dark again!
Entering the Arctic!
We had booked for a rental car from Hertz as we had planned road trips in search of the Aurora. After collecting our bags, we went over to Hertz, thankfully they’re there at the airport itself. And for whatever reason it was, we were given an upgrade. 😛 We had a booked VW Polo class car for the 5 of us, but got a bigger BMW 2-series
We were spending 5 days and 4 nights in Troms – 2 nights in the city and 2 nights in a village an hour away from the city. Actually, we were taking a risk by spending only 4 nights in Tromso. Because, there is no guarantee that we would be able to catch the Aurora in that time. Okay, let me add some context.
Having a good lens is important to capture the Aurora clearly.
Auroras are produced when the upper atmosphere is disturbed by intense solar winds. Greater the intensity, the more amazing the Auroras will be. It is not possible to predict it well in advance. And, since, it happens very high up in the sky, weather is very important. If it rains/snows or even if just clouds are present, it gets difficult to see them. That is the main reason for us to rent a car, so that we will be able to drive to places where the weather is good (And, the package tours are freaking expensive 😛 ).
So, this is where we spent the first 2 nights. It was a nice house, it was big enough for 5 people and well maintained too. Our host, Gudmund, was even better. He had stocked the kitchen with a few basic needs, like coffee/tea/hot chocolate, and he also provided hand/leg warmers, discount coupons to restaurants and a cable car pass, all free of additional charges! Gudmund’s family lived in the floor above and we found them to be warm and understanding people.
By the time we reached the house, it was well past noon and it had already started to get dark. We went out to collect the snow shoes that we’d rented from Tromso Outdoor (The shoes were life savers!) and got frozen pizzas for lunch. Then, we went back to the house, had the pizzas – Danvarsh screwed up the first one, thanks to Hari, the second one was fine – and started to come up with a plan to hunt the Aurora. To add more context, there is a measure of earth’s magnetic field’s disturbance called Planetary K-Index. It is on a scale of 0-9. Higher the index, the more intense the Auroras will be. We were so incredibly lucky that we had clear sky predictions for the two days we were there. Before and after, it was always overcast and had been snowing/raining on and off. On top of this, the K-Index forecast for the first night was 4 and 5 for the second night. At 4, you get good Auroras, 5 is categorized as a geomagnetic storm! So, naturally we were excited and started scouting for places around Tromso where we could drive to, in the night to hunt the lights. It’s important to get away from the city to escape light pollution. We finally decided to drive up to Ersfjordbotn.
Around 6:30, we finally got our lazy asses up and decided to head out. Bharathi got out first and she started freaking out, she thought she saw something in the sky. We thought she was hallucinating. 😛 But, we stepped out of the house, and there it was, right across the night sky over Tromso, slowly building up in intensity, visible in spite of all the light from the city. All of us had our mouths open, we did not expect to see lights so soon, with so less effort, right from the porch of the house we were staying in! Bharathi started dancing in the snow like a maniac, Hari and I took out the DSLRs are started trying to capture the lights. It got better and better for the next 45-60 minutes.
After spending more than an hour right outside our porch, we packed up our cameras as the lights were almost out now. We started driving towards Ersfjordbotn. There were many places on the way where we saw people waiting in their cars, by the road, for the Aurora. We reached a secluded place that was covered by hills. We figured it would be a nice place and there were a few cars there already. We got out, and it was freezing, temperature was close to minus 20 degree C and there was breeze. Bharathi and Rukmani decided not to get out of the car, it was that cold. We waited there for sometime, and we did see the Aurora, though not as intense as what we saw from the house itself. Still, Hari captured some nice pictures and we decided to start back to the house. All our hopes were on the next night, with a K-Index forecast of 5.
We had a good sleep that night and got up next morning ready to go for dog sledding. It was organized by Tromsø Villmarkssenter and they picked us up in a bus from the city center. They had close to 300 Huskies in their camp. They gave us protective clothing, a quick intro and tour of the camp and we were also given some time to play with the dogs. Any dog. All of them were very enthusiastic, especially the young dogs, and were well behaved. Then we got on our sleds, 2 people per sled, which will be pulled by 7-8 dogs.
Love is in the air. 😛
It was a 45 minute ride that was just amazing. We got to explore the forests around Tromso, and the landscape was stunning. Even with so many layers of clothing it was still freezing and our faces were numb by the end of the ride.
A husky at the dog sledding center. PC: Hari
After the ride, we were provided with lunch, thankfully there was a vegetarian option and the food was pretty good. We were dropped back to the city later, and after roaming around for sometime, we reached back to the house and relaxed till the evening. We were eagerly waiting for the night.
That evening, we decided to go for a longer ride to Sommarøy. We left around 8-9 after having some food and taking some hot chocolate and a lot of warmers for the road. With a completely clear sky, temperature was going south of minus 25 degree C! There was a faint light in the sky right from the moment we started. We were sure it would only get better, hoping the ‘geomagnetic storm’ lives up to its expectations.
I could do this all night!
Road tripping through the Arctic – Video 1 2
Throughout the ride, we were trying to peek into the sky to check if something’s building up. And whenever we thought it was getting stronger, we would immediately find a rest spot by the road and stop. The first time we made such a stop, probably half way through to our destination, the Auroras got really strong, it was magical. We could actually see the Aurora dancing in the sky right above us. We were even lucky enough to see the lights in pink! Even after that, the lights were not slowing down, it was only getting better as the night progressed.
Ooops, the mountain’s on fire! PC: Hari
We made numerous such stops along the road trip. There was one stop that all of us will probably never forget. It was a very secluded place, with no cell signal. Temperature was touching minus 30. There was some wind, and the whole area was covered by small hills on all sides, it was completely dark and we could not see a single soul around us. This was where we witnessed the full might of a geomagnetic storm. The Aurora showed up all around us. We did not know where to look. We did not know what to capture. We were stunned looking at what was going on. We could not believe our eyes. At one point, I stopped caring about taking a picture, just laid down on the snow to get a full view of the sky and marvel at the Aurora. Even though it’s been months since it happened, it is still fresh in my mind. I have never seen something like that in my life. That 30-45 minutes we spent there was worth going through such extreme conditions and all the money we spent. At the end of the night, when we returned back to the house, all of us had that feeling of fulfillment, we knew we had gotten what we went for. 🙂
The next noon, we checked out of the house and started towards Laksvatn, for our final two nights in the Arctic. On the way, we made a quick stop at the Arctic Cathedral, a church that’s known for its modern architecture. It is actually visible from anywhere in Tromso. Unfortunately, we could not go inside the church as a funeral service was going on. Then, on the way to Laksvatn, we missed an exit on the E8 highway and we had to drive in the wrong direction for close to 30 min to make a U-turn. It was almost dark by the time we reached our host’s, Bard, farm. It was a small and a cozy place that’s ideal to just relax and spend time with friends/family. Downside was that you’d have to travel 30 min to the nearest supermarket. After some shopping we went back to the house, Hari and Bharathi cooked Jeera rice (yes, for real 😛 ) and we had a sumptuous dinner. Then we played Cards Against Humanity throughout the night while unsuccessfully trying to stream a movie on the TV.
We were excited for the next day as were doing a 300 km roadtrip, up an down, to Polar Park. We left early in the morning as we wanted to spend as much time possible at the park with sunlight. We took around 2.5 hours to reach the park and the drive on the E8 and E6 was a breeze, with good roads going through some stunning and intimidating landscape that we could only dream of. We spent a couple of hours at the park, roaming around, trying to explore as much as we could, as it was huge. We could see animals like deer, reindeer, lynx, bear etc.
We started back when it was beginning to get dark. We reached back safely after another breeze of a drive. We were just relaxing in the house thinking about dinner, when ‘someone’ had an idea, ‘Why don’t we just wear shorts and t-shirt and go out in minus 10 degree C arctic weather and take pictures?’. So, that’s what we did. 😛
After another night of Cards Against Humanity, we got ready to drive back to the city in the morning, to catch a flight back to Oslo in the afternoon. We reached Oslo in the evening, got a locker for all our luggage and we just walked around the beautiful city one last time. We took the last train to the airport that night, as we had an early morning flight back to India.
At the end of the trip, all of us were worried that this trip has set a really high bar, for the future trips. With a lot of happy memories, we bid goodbye at the Oslo airport, as Hari & Rukmani were flying back to the US and Danvarsh, to France.
Norway, I’ll be back one day!
THE END
Thanks!
A few of you had asked about the budget for the trip. Total expense, including visa, accommodation, flights, food, transportation was around INR 1,40,000 – 1,50,000. We booked our India – Norway round trip flights for INR 50k. And we booked them 4 months back, before applying for the visa, which was a risk. If you have questions about visa processing or Auroras or foreign currency cards or Norway in general or if you would just like to know more about the trip, I’ll be glad to help you out. 🙂
Bloopers! 😀
Travel With Naren 