Thank god for the months of intense artic driver training...sure it might have been in the icy wilds of Finland instead of Norway..and maybe it was rally racing instead of normal driving ..and quite possibly it was on an xbox controller rather than in a real car but hey who was I to complain as we negotiated the dark Lofoten landscape along a series of oversized ice rinks, througn variable snow blizzards while driving on a succession of narow roads where the snowed in landscape made it pretty difficult to work out where the bloody road actually was !
The day had started less stressfully as we left our fish smelling accommodation and picked up our hire car back at Bodo airport. With winter tyres provided and a few choruses of "good luck" from the rental agent, we drove back warily through Bodo on iced up roads to sit patiently in the queue for our Lofoten ferry.
Finally on board after a late departure we settled back for a smooth 3 and half hour crossing to Moskenes. The crossing was punctuated by an occassional sun clear moment where we raced outside in the freezing conditions to snap shots journey of the rocky island landscapes.
Finally arriving at 8.30p.m. to an amazing night mountain filled backdrop we took on our most serious challenge to date driving in the snow /ice conditions of Lofoten to our accommodation near Bostad over 80kms away. For the unititiated (me) driving on icy arrow roads in snowing conditions was a little more stressful than "traumatic" ! We were fortunate though to be in convoy and following a car driver two cars ahead who appeared marginally more traumatised than me keeping to 40kms/hr and annoyingly almost braking the entire way !
Fighting our way through localised snow blizzards while at the same time seeing clear skies across the way the traffic soon started dropping off as they turned off to their respective destinations. Now by ourselves and with limited visual aids we were soon on to the phone to our friendly accommodation owner who eventually guided us to our beautifully located and very isolated 3 bedroom house set against a magical mountain filled landscape. It was not without though a final drama or two as i bogged the car in deep snow just outside the property finally getting it out and then having to send Monika out to walk the properties supposed driveway suggesting to her that if I could see most of her body above the snow line then I knew the driveway was safe to travel on - if not then I'd have to go and dig her out !
We gladly unloaded to our beautifully warm house and settled back with a much needed cuppa. I even braved the clearing conditions to stand out in the middle of the road later on to take some night landscape shots ... and guess what, while barely noticeable the beautiful Northern Lights were there !
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