The Hofmanns go to the dogs

Today we wake up in Tromso, the most northern city in the world, well north of Iceland. Breakfast is a traditional Norwegian dish of pickled wolverine testicles. We travel by bus to somewhere in the wilderness where we are kitted out in some serious arctic outdoors wear. The temperature here is minus 30 today. Our morning activity today is dog sledding; fortunately I have watched the entire series of Sergeant Preston of the Yukon, so driving a dog sled is second nature to me.

Our team of Alaskan Huskies are surprisingly eager to pull our sled. These little doggies are surprisingly fast and strong. This trip is quite exhilerating but also seriously cold. A certain member of our team suffers quite badly so I am forced to kill a reindeer and push her hypothermic body inside the carcasse.

We are also given copious amounts of fish soup.

We then return to Tromso by auotobus.
In the evening we go to our previously booked restaurant who have no record of our booking-anyway they manage to squeeze us in. The small menu consists of a total of 13 dishes all up; the waiter then informs us that most of these are unavailable; must be some sort of Norwegian thing.
Just an observation: the big problem with this arctic weather is that it causes all one's clothes to shrink,especially around the waist. The other problem is the constant battle to replace calories lost to extreme low temperatures-I believe we are losing this battle.

The Hofmanns are all at sea

Today we are on board the SS Richard With heading towards Tromso. We now have our cold weather gear organised:

Frank and Robyn have different ideas about outdoor gear

We step off the boat at Hammerfest, the world's most northern town, where we do a mini tour. The most exciting site here is the "meridian"

where some guy proved once and for all that the earth was flat, or some such thing.

In the evening there is a music quiz on board; we work as a well oiled team and are up against some serious cheats including a team of evil German scientists. Anyway goodness and niceness prevail and team Hofmann walk away with first prize which is a large crystal chandelier, which should fit easily into my backpack.

When Hell Freezes Over

So, sleeping on a block of ice in a room cooled to minus 5, what could possibly go wrong? Well I'll tell you:toilet breaks! We are issued with Norwegian army surplus sleeping bags, previously used for fermenting herrings-getting into these requires the dexterity of a circus contortionist during which time one's core temperature will have dropped by 10 degrees. Now imagine having to do this every hour or so during the night, punctuated by a trudge up the snowy corridor in socks. At 4am I give up and return to the heated section of this hell hole and sit up for the rest of the sleepless night. Robyn gives up at 6am and Claire would still be sleeping there had I not woken her up.
After a traditional breakfast of pickled seal udder we are driven to the SS Richard With, which will be our home on the high seas. I track down the captain and remind him what happened re Titanic and he promises me he will keep his eyes peeled for large white objects.
In the evening we are treated to a fine view of the Northern lights.

White Christmas at last

Frank,Robyn and Claire get crabs

Following a traditional Norwegian breakfast of fermented husky, we are spirited away to a hut in the forest and then we catch a snowmobile taxi

into the middle of a lake; a hole in the ice is opened and as if by magic a basket teeming with giant king crabs; there is a killing frenzy and we all get to touch these creatures which have the good looks of Alien and the charm of Predator.

We are then returned to our hut where this morning's catch is boiled up and served for lunch; they turn out to be meaty little buggers and we eat crab meat to a standstill.

Socializing, Asian style

We are then transported to the ice hotel where we are to spend the night. We stroll through the ice hotel and wonder which idiots would volunteer to sleep in these frigid rooms;

we are told that the rooms are kept at a constant minus 5 celsius, irregardless of the outside temperature.
We then head off into the woods for a trek on snowshoes; as it is now 2-30pm it is pitch black; all of as sudden we look up into the sky and FMD, there is the Aurora Borealis-fantastic.

Abominable Norwegian

We return to the hotel for our Xmas dinner in the heated dining room.

Traditional Norwegian greeting

We note that your Norwegian loves to eat reindeer..We then prepare ourselves for sleep in the ice hotel!!!!!!!!

Winter has arrived

A very small mistake can have huge consequences. We planned to leave our hotel at 0620 so the alarm was set for 5am-imagine my surprise to find out at"0540" that during the night someone had moved the time forward by 1 hour and failed to inform my alarm clock; anyway that's my story and I'm sticking to it. It is surprising how quickly one can pack when one concentrates the mind. Anyway we made it to the airport with plenty of time to spare which was lucky when the officious little p#### decided one suitcase was 3kg over limit and I needed to be fined for this misdemeanour-this was not an efficient process.
Anyway, we arrived safe and sound in Kirkenes at 11am. Kirkenes gave the impression that it was 5am according to the light conditions;

Kirkenes Airport 11am

I asked the bus driver what time the sun rises? He replied "about January 18"; this turns out not to be a joke!
So this is it how it works here;0900-1400-dusk:1400-0900-pitch black!Temperature: minus15-minus 40! Whose idea was this anyway.
We spend the afternoon exploring downtown Kirkenes

Kirkenes High St at 2pm

and have a traditional Norwegian dish called pizza which is served with "hamburger sauce" and "vinagrette"-WTF; and yes it was as bad as it sounds.

Dinner at our hotel is "fine"