Chasing the Northern Lights in Tromso

Its time for January date weekend with hubby, and this time we are heading to Tromso, optimistically hoping to view the northern lights. Hubby is an avid photographer and is all prepped with 10kg of camera gear including a tripod and a remote shutter. I have done some googling, and my expectations are managed, in that I am expecting to see absolutley nothing. Duncan Craig from the Times has managed my expectations well….

The northern lights isn’t really a holiday. It’s a bucket-list impostor, a low-season-filling, opportunistic marketing exercise propped up by a million calendars and screensavers and a swanky Latin name — “Behold the aurora borealis and its mystical wallet-emptying powers.” Your chances of seeing that? Vanishingly small. It’s a £2 scratchcard of a holiday. Which costs £2,000.

Norwegian Air conveniently has direct flights from Gatwick to Tromso, which is one of the many places where you can see the lights (there are so many articles to be honest, it was all a bit of a crap shoot but I had narrowed target locations down to Tromso and Ivalo, and only Tromso had easy flights). After a wonderful quiet three hours on the plane getting work done (i love planes for working), we arrived in Tromso at 7pm, in the pitch black and took a quick taxi to town using the extensive network of tunnels

Tromso Harbour

Gastronomy in Tromso – Hubby had done his homework and we headed out for an outstanding meal at SMAK – run by a delightful husband and wife team, the service was wonderfully friendly, and the food would have held its own next to Noma, but was truly extraordinary to find in a tiny town like Tromso. Everything was locally sourced but the highlights were the wild lamb hot dogs, the cod tongues, the local veal with mushrooms, a yogurt sorbet with toffee and an amazing blackcurrant souffle.

Escaping the city to Malangen – Waking up the next morning, I was surprised that there was some light in the sky at 8am. After a sturdy Scandinavian breakfast we wandered around town and then took the shuttle bus out to the Malangen Resort with Steve the worlds friendliest driver. Malangen is a c 90 minute drive from Tromso across islands and around fjords. The weather was clear and the views were stunning, with the sun tantalisingly just below the horizon.

View through the trees at 1pm
View of the cabins
Malangen Fjord

10 minutes of sunshine – We arrived at 12.30 and the sun was peeking above the mountain, apparently, it surfaces for ten minutes every day at this time of the year. We went for a stroll and by 1.30 it was already getting dark. It was a balmy minus five degrees. Our cabin was a lovely typical red scandinavian cabin, so we ended up having a very very lazy afternoon doing not much with the log fire roaring and the sky getting darker and darker outside.

Lake front cabins (ours was one of the further cabins)

Dinner was an uninspiring arctic char for me, and a very dry reindeer shank for Stephane. But we were happy to have full stomachs to keep us warm for our evening activity of waiting for the Northern Lights.

A man fishing
Morning on the fjord

The northern lights – We rugged up, (the resort lends you very fetching onesies and boots) and headed up the hill to Camp Nikka which is secluded spot facing North which has the best local viewing and no light pollution. We got lucky and the lights came straight away. I was expecting extraordinary dancing green lights, and that wasn’t actually what I got. With the naked eye, it was more like looking at standard city light pollution, but when viewed through the lens of a camera photo (with a long slow shutter), you have the terrific green effect. Hubby had a ball playing with all his camera gear, the highlight being an intervalometer so he could leave the camera running while popping back to the fire for a hot chocolate. It was brisk (minus 15 degrees), but quite lovely to wander around in the dark enjoying the stars. It was a late night, getting back to the resort around 2am.

The Sami Lavuu with fire pit to warm up while watching

Cross country skiing virgins – Up bright and early (at 9am), we headed out to go cross country skiing. I haven’t alpine skied for over twenty years, as I am not a fan of cold and am rubbish at balancing so have never really figured it out. I had never kind the cross country version before, and I loved it! We had a guide and we had a wonderful time, apparently we went further than the guide normally gets to go, and the highlight of the morning was having a cup of tea looking over the fjord from the top of the hill. The lowlight (well it was fun) was trying to figure out how to get my butt out of the powder after taking a tumble. Skis don’t quite feel like an extension of my feet. At the beginning my hands were numb and I couldn’t feel my fingers, but we soon warmed up scooting along the snow tracks. by the end I was zipping along pretty happily and quite warm in spite of it being minus 20 degrees, although my eyelashes and nostril hairs had icicles in them. We saw the dog teams taking other people out, and that would have been much colder – sitting on a sledge in the wind at minus 20 would have been too cold for me.

Looking uber fetching in my onesie
Dog sledders going by

More lazing – we got back in time for the 10 minutes of sun and then headed back for more relaxing in our cabin. I can see how locals struggle with the darkness. It is pretty challenging to get motivated to do much when it is minus 20 degrees and pitch black outside. We were mildly social in the afternoon and had a couple of hilarious women we had met on the bus over for a cup of tea and then had dinner together – more char and halibut, but better cooking skills this evening.

Running in the snow hmmmmm so my plan for our last day was to have a sleep in and then go for a lovely arctic run. I woke up with the roof shaking from the wind and the meteo registering minus 20 degrees….. the wind was howling across the fjord and the waves looked fantastic…., but totally put me off going outisde. So instead we walked to the restaurant for a substantial Scandinavian breakfast (and in the two minute walk my face froze). We then lounged around for the day enjoying the entertainment put on by the weather outside of our windows. After a leisurely afternoon, we headed back to the airport for a late flight back to London.

Malangen, January 27, 2019

Additional info

Stayed first night at Tromso Thon, and then two nights at Malangen resort. Activities were organised through the resort and they weren’t cheap. It is worth looking for a package as it might be cheaper.

Direct flights to Tromso with air Norwegian were pretty cheap, just as well as everything else is eye-wateringly expensive

Take warm clothes, lots of them. Definitely take a few buffs to cover the face and heavy winter gloves. Any ski gear you have would work

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