68ºN 18ºE

So, after our enjoyable stay in Narvik, we took a train to.... ABISKO NATIONAL PARK!

It was a really scenic ride, with all the fjords and SNOW! Really amazing, you could see people skiing and stuff, wish i had their skills. Like the children could even ski backwards, do jumps and all. WOW

Fjords!

Abisko was like barren land, the moment we got in, there was only 1 building. HAHA. Dropped our bags, did some souvenir shopping and we were off for Husky sledding! Woohoo! :D

Didn't have the moolah to do the tour where you learn to mush the dogs yourself, so we took the easier tour, the dogs were just so cute and adorable! We were taken around the national park to see the scenery and all and it was a roller coaster!

After sometime, they paused, ate ice, pee and pooped..

and continued!

they were always roaring to go! It was really nice, we shared the sled with a couple from australia and their commentary on it was totally hilarious! It was definitely a unique experience for us :D

We stopped at a "Sami" tent and had the best blueberry juice ever, with warm fires, while the dogs rested!

They had pretty cool names! If i remember correctly, these 2 were called aragon and legolas? There was Gimli too. HAHAHA!
Well in the tent we got to learn more about the life of a musher, and how they have dog hotels. Things you would never have heard/thought of! Then we headed back!

On the way, people out camping in the open would take snaps of us haha and yeah, they were out to chase the NLs too! But they had all the gear, Paul and i had NOTHING.

Headed back to a beautiful sunset!

Cooked and prepared ourselves for what is to come, the make or break moment of our whole Scandi trip.

We were so ill equipped, we didn't have proper jackets, shoes and clothing. We took the comforter out to keep ourselves warm, ha! Well, so we walked from the lodging into the open, under starlight! We didn't even need torches and all, it was just amazing, words can't describe it. After walking for probably an hour in the snow, we decided we have found our spot, some what a valley, so we had a nice angle to capture the sky and the foreground, but guess what geniuses we were, the amount of wind we got was killing us!

So, no NLs, and this is what we did to occupy ourselves. Star trails!

Even got a picture of the moon!

It was so cold, probably around -15 °C - 17 °C, that we were jogging on the spot, as we were fiddling with our cameras and gear with our bear hands. We even took off our shoes in the snow, to put our heat packs into our soles, just to keep them warm. The toes were the worst. Well, fingers we just had to bear with it, for the sake of pictures.

Then, it all started, a hint of green in the sky! Here there left right, we started pointing our cameras in every direction!

Sadly, i didn't put on my fast lens, as i wanted a wider angle. So the shots are kinda blurry, as the lights were moving so fast as well!
Then, everything died down, it was probably 11ish. We were out in the cold for probably 4 hours and kind of rejected. Tried to drink my water, but guess what, it was frozen -.- Stupid me. hahaha thats how ill prepared we were guys, all i had was a PET bottle. HA! Something i'll remember my whole life! Then, yeah we decided to head back to the lodging to get some warmth.

So we started walking back again, in the darkness of stars, after walking a good 5 minutes or so, IT BEGAN AGAIN. This time, it was the strongest. We were fumbling, dropping our stuff setting up our gear and all, pointing in all directions just to get the shots! And yeah, of course enjoying the moment as well. Our jaws dropped. We saw red.

RED NLs guys! Holy crap!

The pictures doesn't do justice to what we saw. You have to be there to see it! We were directly under the NLs and it was just breathtaking. Yeah after this display, there wasn't pretty much anything again. So we headed back near the lodging to try our luck after getting some warmth and rest!

Then we headed out out to the tent nearby and it was just mild, compared to what we got earlier.



And this was how i was dressed the whole time, Ninja Andrew!

So, decided to try another star trail again! This time, it turned out green with all the NLs in the background!

Finally, too exhausted from being in the cold for approximately 9 hours, headed back inside, with my frozen tripod and camera, that was so cold i couldn't even carry it! :/

The next day, before we left, we walked 2km to the nearest town, just to get to a supermarket, and we found a secret! S$3 dollars only man!

Well, we had the most eventful night! :D Moving on to somewhere in Norway next!