Rallaren Kiruna

... une auberge ne c est pas presenter, alors j ai pu avoir une chambre simple pour la nuit... ma fois j ai payer un peu plus.. mais je voulais pas non plus dormir sous un pont en laponie.... La ville est vraiment moche. Les gens qui habitent ici, travaillent tous a la mine de fer... qui est la seule attraction estivale... Alors bon, le landemain je prend le 1er train a 5h40 pour le sud...

... through the snow, and sleeping in dorms for the last few days, etc it's a bit of a shock to the system to be driven in a Mercedes to a place with a luxurious reception, lots of wealthy-looking tourists, and actually, a lot of talking and noise - I hadn't realised it but I have been for the past couple of weeks in very quiet, remote places. The Ice Hotel was started after a group of visitors to an ice sculpture exhibition in the early 90s asked to sleep in a large igloo that had been ...

... next day I visited the 'official Santa Claus' and crossed the Arctic Circle. Unfortunately, due to the rather atmospherically-dead hotel costing and arm and a leg and the fact that I spoke and understood no Finnish whatsoever I thought it best to crack on toKiruna in Sweden and back to the original 'plan'. The journey involveda stop-off in Kemi, a rather sulphurous Finnish town with its very own Ice Castle and another even more expensive hotel room. I finally ...

... when it is black all 24 hours of the day. Once the hike was over, we drove to Abisko National Park. There are many hikes you could do here. The one that I have found to be very interesting was a 5 week hike which takes you from Abisko to Saltoloukta mountain hut. This walk takes you through to Kebnekaise which is Sweden's highest mountain, but only at 2117 metres. You could also do a 7 day hike from Abisko to Kebnekaise. You can guess that I will ...

... I won't, but it was kind of cool to be able to walk right up to a ski lift from my hotel. And, I got to play around on a snowboard for a bit. Dog sledding that night was fun. I was envisioning these big Siberian Huskies, and instead when they unloaded the dogs, they were these kind of scrawny looking dogs that were barking away. I was a bit afraid I had gotten myself into some horrible tour operator who was cruel to animals, but soon learned that ...

... accommodation (sooooo good when you have been so cold for so long), and did a bit of post drinking napping - but that didn't last for long, cause we were off on a skidoo ride to find the northern lights. (you can actually see the northern lights from everywhere, but they are harder to see with all the lights from the town and hotel around you). Justin got to drive the skidoo, it was a very sedate ride, not really reaching ...

... we were the 1st ones to use the path that had only been dug the day before so as they had 2 meters of snow in last week it was difficult, & I kept using trees to pull myself up & that would shake the snow off down on top of me & in my collar & down my back, but it was hot work so no harm! Then the guides (who were lovely, in fact all the Swedes were lovely) lit a fire at the top & gave us more hot lingon berry juice (which made C throw up!) & cake & then when we got our breath ...

We wake earlyish from what I think was a wake up call, but I am not a morning person and chose to ignore such instrusion. I was also traumatised by a dream about James being straight which resulted in me poking him in the middle of the night to check the status of his sexuality. He didn't wake so I took it as a plea of homosexuality. I was relieved. We were also chuffed to find that we were the best looking people in the hotel at breakfast and so we headed for the train ...

... all along the Kungsladen. Even the place where we had lunch had fire wood (plus a saw and axe for cutting it to size) just knocking about and available to all. Fantastic. Anyway. The camping - first time for all of us in our respective tents, but they went up quite quickly and we settled down for our second meal of the day (Wilderness Stew - it is a very bizarre thing), a game of cards and some Vodka - around the campfire (naturally). It was very ...