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Easter in the Luleå Archipelago

Easter in the Luleå Archipelago

We got back from a 6 day Easter trip to Luleå last Monday. We drove more than 1500 km! Below is a map of the trip (click to enlarge). I have added some of the place names along the way. We did not drive to Luleå in one day, on the way there we stopped overnight at Gällivare, and on the way back in Muodoslompolo.

We left on a very sunny day, but as soon as we reached the mountains near the border with Finland it started to get cloudy and quite gray. The road there is endless and you can often see for miles! We saw some large herds of reindeer. We stopped for a break at Karesuando, on the border between Finland and Sweden. They had one of those signs giving the distances to random places in the world 🙂

We walked onto the frozen river which is the border and also a snowscooter highway. Under the bridge there was an area of clear ice, which looked amazing! Here is Paul standing underneath the bridge…

And here are some photos of the ice! The ice was really thick and very clear (almost like glass), it was almost unreal to stand on it and be able to look down and see the thickness and the cracks in the ice!

After the stop in Karesuando, we drove straight to Gällivare. We stopped for the night at Gällivare Camping where we had rented this cosy cabin:

The next day we only had a short drive to Luleå, about 3 hours. (It’s funny how you get used to long distances, I used to think a 3 hour drive was very long) We stopped in Överkalix, where we found a very nice bakery selling amazing cakes!! There was also a hardware shop selling mostly ice drills and other stuff for ice fishing.

We got to Luleå quite early. We had found a very nice deal at a hotel right in the city centre, Luleå Stadshotellet. I think that the Swedes (like the Norwegians) all prefer to stay in huts over Easter so hotels don’t get much business. The hotel was really nice, quite luxury but relaxed (and such a great breakfast buffet that I hardly needed any food for the rest of the day, hehe). It even had an English pub, so we had a burger and a pint for the first time in ages!

In the afternoon we walked around the skating rink. Luleå is a harbour town on the Gulf of Bothnia which freezes in winter. They make a long skating rink (about 7 km) circling the city centre. With the bad weather, they hadn’t cleared the snow off though, so nobody was skating but it was nice for a walk. We found some signs saying no cars or motorcycles allowed (in the middle of the harbour!) and also a buoy…

The next day we went on an exciting trip: driving the ice roads over the frozen Gulf of Bothnia! The sea ice is strong enough to support cars, so every year a few (official) roads are opened on the ice, connecting the mainland to some of the islands in the archipelago. Paul has been fascinated by this for a long time, and this was the reason for our trip :). Below is a map of the ice roads, we drove all of them except the one to Storbrandon. Enlarge the image to have a better look – it’s hard to read the scale on the bottom left but it indicates 2 km.

On the first day we drove to Hindersön island. It was scary at first to drive onto the ice, but the roads are very wide and easy to drive on. It was snowing heavily, so there was hardly any contrast between the road and the sky, it was all just very white! The TomTom didn’t seem to mind us driving on the sea 😉 These photos are actually taken on the way back when visibility was better, except for the first one with the big sign on a sledge. This was at the junction of the ice road – also note the Easter tree behind the signs!

We drove to Jopikgården on Hindersön island (see the map), from where we continued on skis to visit some other islands. The first one was about 3km away, and the second one another 3km from the first one. Skiing through the endless white was a strange experience. The skiing is very easy as it’s all flat, but it still took us about an hour to reach the first island!

This panorama shows how when the clouds reflect the surface underneath, you get very dark clouds over the islands! They can really look like rain clouds, and at first I didn’t realize what was going on, but Paul told me that on his cruises that’s how they know where there are areas of open water – the clouds above will be much darker. How cool!

Here are some photos of our ski trip that day. Close to the islands, you get the ice breaking up and forming interesting formations. Further out at sea there’s actually an ice front that can be up to 8 metres high! Unfortunately that was too far for us, but we still found some cool formations around the islands 🙂

 

 

Just before we came back to Jopikgården where the car was parked, the sun finally came out!

The next day we decided to visite a town called Piteå, about an hours drive south of Luleå. It looked like a friendly town, but there wasn’t much to see or do there, so we didn’t stay very long.

After leaving Piteå, we decided to drive another ice road, this time to the island of Junkön. This island had a large reindeer herd living on it! We had to drive slowly, as many of them were close to the road. A great opportunity to get some photos 🙂

It had been misty all day and this had turned all the trees to a pretty white colour, it looked very wintry and cold (and I can tell you it felt very cold too!!). When we took a closer look at the trees, we saw that all the branches were all covered in ice on one side…

We went for a short ski tour, but we found that about half of the island was military practice ground and had big warning signs around it, so we didn’t get very far. We didn’t want to cross to other islands as it was quite late already and the visibility was really bad anyway. It was a nice little trip though. I was really cold at first, so I was wearing a face mask – only my eyes were exposed to the cold!

Coming back to the car, that we had parked next to the ice road. Paul took a photo of us driving back… don’t worry, it wasn’t dangerous, there was hardly anyone else on the road and we found that these roads are so flat that the car will keep driving in a straight line even if you let go of the steering wheel!

The photo below is taken just after we left the ice road. The trees were so beautiful!

The next day we left Luleå and started our way back to Tromsø.  But first we had to get some photos with the giant chicken family opposite the hotel… they were really funny!

We were looking forward to visiting the twin border towns Haparanda (Sweden) and Tornio (Finland), but were disappointed to find there was not much to see there. Mostly a lot of huge supermarkets and also an Ikea – the closest one to Tromsø in fact, but still about 600 km away ;).  We visited Kemi instead, a Finnish town nearby. It had the feel of a coastal place. The weather had finally turned sunny, but with the wind it was very cold. We went for a short walk on the frozen sea and looked around the town a bit.

And after the giant chickens, we found a giant bike too… Come to think of it, we also saw a giant chair. What is it with giant art here? 🙂

Even though it was Easter Sunday, all supermarkets were open, and we visited a giant one in Finland. We found a lot of curious things in there, like these donut-shaped water bottles (I still don’t see how that is useful, but maybe I am missing something), and all the sauna paraphernalia. 

After that, we pretty much drove straight on to our accommodation (much) further north. Our arrival to Rajamaa was quite bizarre. We drove through the forest for hours until we got to our destination. We walked over to the main building to get the key of our cabin, opened the door and walked straight into a wedding party! The first person I saw when I opened the door was the bride – very bizarre! Lots of slightly drunk people but everyone was very friendly. We stayed in a very cute cabin, and the next morning we woke up to a beautiful sunny day… And the drip-drip-drip of snow melting 🙂

 

After packing the car we decided to go for a ski tour now that is was so sunny. We followed the river for a while – this is the river that forms the border between Finland and Sweden. It’s not very wide here and there are rapids. Because of this, the river doesn’t freeze completely and we couldn’t cross it. It was very beautiful though!

It was warm enough to ski without a jacket or gloves etc… Paul even skied in his tshirt!

We found a nice fireplace, with reindeer skins! Paul couldn’t resist…

After a while some clouds started coming in, a very pretty sky! Unfortunately it did eventually become overcast, but we made t

he most of the sunshine 🙂 

After our ski trip we drove back all the way to Tromsø, which took about 5 hours. When we crossed the border from Finland into Norway, we were surprised to see a green landscape! Five days previous it had still all been white… The fjord where we have been ice fishing was bright blue from all the melt water and the ice had huge cracks in it – so no more ice fishing until next winter… It has been very warm in Norway over Easter, in Tromsø temperatures reached +10C! A lot of the snow has been melting and I was getting excited about Spring. Paul doesn’t agree with me, as he would like to keep skiing for some weeks longer. Lucky for him it has gotten colder again and we had some new snow. Still, the snow is slowly disappearing and the trees have buds so I just have to be a bit more patient, but Spring is definately on the way!

I’m not sure how often I’ll be writing in the coming weeks, I’m going to Norwich in 3 weeks for a symposium and a meeting (probably my last!!) with my supervisors. I have a lot to finish before then! 

Beautiful Stockholm

Beautiful Stockholm

I’m in Stockholm for a conference (on boundary layers & turbulence) this week. It’s been a very busy week – the disadvantage of going to such a specialized conference is that I can’t really skip any sessions so I am usually around from 9:00 to 18:00 every day. I gave a talk yesterday, it went fine and it was a relief to have that done!

So there hasn’t been much time for sightseeing, and even most of the evenings were busy with receptions and conference dinners (at stunning locations!). Luckily the evenings are long – no midnight sun here, but it doesn’t get dark until midnight or so. Stockholm is an incredibly beautiful city! I’d love to spend more time here… The city is built on lots of islands, so there is a lot of water and ships everywhere, I love that. Here are some photos to give you an impression… they don’t really do the city justice though, as I have only been able to snap quick pictures while walking around town with a group of people.

Today is the last day of the conference, and it ends at about 15:00. So there finally is some time to see a bit more! I’m going to visit the Vasa Museum to see the ship that “sunk and then came up again” as my supervisor keeps calling it. Then I have to leave VERY early tomorrow (4 in the morning…) to fly to Geneva (through London). I’ll meet Paul there for the weekend, before he heads off to his paragliding course and I will go to a summer school in the French Alps. Busy busy… but enjoying myself!

Easter trip to Kiruna (Sweden)

Easter trip to Kiruna (Sweden)

We hadn’t really made any plans for Easter, but the weather was so stunning that we decided to go for a road trip. We managed to find a room in a hostel in Kiruna, Sweden – almost 400 km from Tromso. The trip there was very beautiful, with many ice waterfalls next to the road…

Kiruna Kiruna

… and stunning views along the way!

Kiruna

Crossing the mountains on the border between Norway and Sweden was very impressive. We also got to see where all the Norwegians hang out for Easter – all parking places along the road were more than full, there were campers and caravans everywhere too. Crazy!

The next morning we explored Kiruna. It’s a strange town – it exists because of a huge iron mine next to the town. It’s a bizarre sight! Because of the mine, there is subsidence below the city and the city will have to move to a new location in the coming years.

Kiruna has a beautiful wooden church. Because it was Easter Sunday, there was a mass going on so we didn’t want to go inside and we just admired the church from the outside. Very impressive how it’s all wood!

Kiruna Kiruna

Kiruna Kiruna

Kiruna is located in the interior of Sweden and thus much colder than Tromso – almost -20 during the night, about -14 during the day. A very dry cold though, it reminded me of Fairbanks – they even had the same glitter snow falling :-). Because of the cold, most cars are plugged in overnight to keep the engine warm. We discovered first hand that this is not just a luxury, we couldn’t start our car on the second morning… luckily a friendly neighbour of the hostel helped us out enormously until *finally* our engine started while he gave us a tow. Btw, the car in the photo on the right is really abnormally long!

Kiruna Kiruna

Kiruna has many appartment buildings (probably to house the miners), but they are not ugly. There even were some brick buildings, wow 😉 (you don’t see many of those around here!)

Kiruna Kiruna

A bizarre advertisement in such an Arctic town, and some funny graffiti:

Kiruna Kiruna

The view from our hostel window…

Kiruna

In the afternoon we went skiing. It’s incredible how empty this part of Sweden is! If you think the population density around Tromso is low, think again… So much empty land, such wide rivers and huge forests. It’s called the last wilderness in Europe and it does definitely feel that way. We went skiing next to the road though, near a snowmobile highway, hehe. This friendly dog stayed with us for a while.

Kiruna Kiruna

We went to the river, where we thought we could see big boulders covered in snow. Such a pretty sight! When I tried to destroy one (hmm some aggression??) I couldn’t find a boulder inside though! Big mystery! We don’t quite understand how they are formed. I couldn’t investigate fully though, as at some point my skies broke through the ice (very scary!!) and I was afraid I would really fall through. I went back on the land and did not dare to go back on the ice.

Kiruna Kiruna

Kiruna Kiruna

We skied back along the river, and we even saw a swan there and some cute black and white shorebirds who were singing beautifully. I do miss the birds in Tromso, there you don’t see much more than crows, magpies and seagulls most of the time.

Kiruna Kiruna

Paul jumping on his skies…and the last sunrays over a big frozen lake.

Kiruna Kiruna

The next morning we left Kiruna. Some last photos: completely buried cars next to a house, and the big mine right next to the town.

Kiruna Kiruna

On the way back, we visited the Ice Hotel in Jukkasjärvi (very near Kiruna) – a hotel completely built out of ice. We thought it would be small and very touristy, but actually it was huge and very impressive! Here’s Paul on the ice toilet, and in one of the corridors of the hotel…

Kiruna Kiruna

This is the central hall of the hotel and full of beautiful ice sculptures.

Kiruna Kiruna

These are the “budget” rooms (still at least 200 pounds for a double room!) – very simple small rooms with beds in it. The beds are made of ice but have mattresses on top with reindeer skins. The one in the photo is for 6 people, nice and cosy 😉

Kiruna Kiruna

The art suites are more impressive, and each one is designed by a different artist. Some are really cool! When I saw those suites, I could imagine you’d want to spend the night there. Those start from 250 pounds a night, so I don’t understand why anyone would choose the budget rooms hehe.

Kiruna Kiruna

The one on the left (below) was my favourite! It’s a big dragon, its head is the bed (you sleep on its nose) and on the right you can see its feet and the tail goes all along the room. Cool!!

Kiruna Kiruna

The Turbo meter changed colour, it was next to the room with the car in the photo above. The photo on the right is a design suite (designed by the team of the ice hotel itself and not individual artists).

Kiruna Kiruna

Kiruna Kiruna

I loved this bird, it’s really amazing what they can do with ice! The photo on the right is the northern lights room and looks like it’s been made of snow!

Kiruna Kiruna

There was also an icebar, sponsored by Absolut vodka. They didn’t seem to sell anything but vodka, hmm not very tempting at noon. On the right is the chapel, I liked the decorated ceiling.

Kiruna Kiruna

There were lots of “sparks” – kicksleds typical for this area. You often see them around Tromso as well, people use them a lot to go shopping as you can put your shopping on the front and it gives more stability than walking. I finally got to try one, good fun! We also found this room where they make ice sculptures.

Kiruna Kiruna

We drove back the other way around, through Finland. Still in Sweden, we found this road over a frozen lake to a graveyard on an island… of course we had to try it out!! There were lots of signs saying how heavy the car could be and how much distance there should be between cars. And there were snowmobile crossings too 🙂

Kiruna Kiruna

This was what the road looked like most of the time – endless forest and hardly anyone on the road. Very beautiful!

Kiruna Kiruna

It was a great trip! Now it’s back to work for a few days, and on Saturday Paul’s parents are coming to visit for a few days. I’m keeping my fingers crossed for better weather, it’s been snowing a LOT here. Today I came back from town completely covered in snow hehe.