Daniel thought it was strange that we travelled so far to view the Northern Lights. Surely we live closer to the Southern lights. They are called Aurora Australis after all. Good point, I guess. Apparently parts of Tasmania and New Zealand can glimpse the Southern Lights. I tend to think Antarctica may be more ideal. Daniel was surprised we couldn't just nip down there on a budget airline and check-in to a hotel. Dude!
So out of dumb curiosity I Googled ‘Hotels in Antarctica’ and it just says ‘Dude!’. There are no hotels in Antartica. But it might be fun attempting a room service order from an Arctic research station. If penguins could give humans the finger, they would. I think that’s where they were originally going with Happy Feet.
There are a number of Northern Lights tours in Tromso. How were we to decide? So we set off as human lammingtons in the fairy style blizzard to locate the Visitor Centre. Rikki typed it into the maps app,
“It’s a 25 day walk”.
I took three steps forward and there on the left was Tromso’s quaint Visitor Centre. Well, well then. Where would we be without Google Maps? Probably just where we are, where the blue dot is. And yet, maybe we transcended time and the 25 day walk was all figurative. My pint glass from the night before had a map on it. Where was that now? Ah, I’ll Google maps it.
Talking to the tourist information lady was like a session with a fraudulent fortune teller. She couldn’t really recommend any Northern Lights Chases or tell us where they went. Instead, she took the brochure we already had and just reread it to us like a bedtime story. How wonderful, Nanny McPhee. How about I ask a chunk of snow if it knows the way to San Jose?
So we used our intuition and went for the Northern Lights Flexi Tour. A Scandinavian ex violist called Daniel, picked us up in his station wagon. Let the tour commence. Or was this an Uber ride?
Driving through the snow felt like an old-timey Atari game, well, as opposed to a new-timey Atari game. After leaving the city lights we eventually pulled up in a random location where clouds were dearly parting. Daniel opened the boot. Damn that I saw ‘Nocturnal Animals’ before this trip. Anyway he handed us some snow suits. It was like getting changed into a couch, although I didn’t find any hidden tv remotes. Were we dressing for an audition for some alien virus biohazard film? Is it a good time for a vaccinate debate? Nah, debating makes me anxious, that’s why I can’t watch ‘Q and A’.
So with my mum and my sister starring as the frumpy Beastie Boys, we headed out in the snow. I couldn't feel my feet anymore so Daniel lay out some reindeer skins and a yoga mat. At least I think it was a yoga mat, otherwise that reindeer had a horrible skin condition. I also discovered that the ‘Cobra’ pose was the best position for Northern Lights viewing.
The sky opened up to reveal large green bands which stretched between the vast dark. The stars looked different here, still identifiable as stars though. Daniel used the lights as a backdrop to photograph us.
“Just stand still for 8 seconds. I make fast light”.
He waved a light in front of the camera and Click, a portrait of the intergalactic Teletubbies.
As the cloud curtains drew on the mild skylit show, Daniel decided to take us over the mountain. It was quite difficult to remove Rikki from the deer skin, a female deer skin. Ray.
We stopped in a village Daniel didn’t like, but he needed phone reception for the weather conditions. Suddenly, an elongated pipe of light formed above us. Then it became a skinny fish and shape shifted, dancing green shimmers with purple edges. It was alive. But I’m more of a feelings person. Let’s see, everything stopped, the vastness engulfed the observer and participant. Silence and oneness. This is what beamed over our ancient Arctic ancestors, like smoke signals of light from heaven. This is not the scientific description for Wiki friends.
Daniel totally flipped out and wanted to use the pictures for his website. I thought it would be cool if he photoshopped some unicorn heads on us for maximum radness yo. Then put them on Tindr.
We had reached the pinnacle of the tour. It wasn’t going to get any better unless Daniel himself, morphed into a wise reindeer and produced a 6 pack of Arctic beers. Fingers crossed. Instead, he heated the car seats, cranked the classical tunes and presented us with home made chicken wraps, Danish pastry and berry tea. Dude! Aw Daniel.
We tried to keep our liquid intake down due to freezing outdoors toilet options. Daniel was like, “It’s nature”.
Ok, nature is not wearing a Grimace costume in a body bag. Nature goes through it’s own fur. I also recall my Grandad telling me about weeing in the freezing and his urine froze so he had to chop it with an axe. And yes, children will remember those stories and carry them through.
Mum started getting hot flushes in her snow suit. I was used to not feeling my feet anymore. Rikki and I persisted with the skylight gazing then resorted to our true selves, being dickheads in the snow. Instead of snow angels, Rikki did ‘trust falls’ into piled up dirty roadside snow and made Daniel take pictures of her. It turns out, you can count on piled up road snow.
This was an awesome tour. Very untoury. Tripadvisor: submit.
