Norway and Icelandic Horses

So for my 24 hours in Tromos, I did a 24 hour experience on an Icelandic Horse farm. It was BEAUTIFUL!!

Honestly, Norway is just too pretty for words. So I will let the pictures do most of the talking in this episode. 

Bard (the owner of said Icelandic Horse farm and my host) picked my up from Tromso after my Reindeer and tent experience and I was mostly just keen to stay in a car/indoors for a very long time! But I was also really keen to ride an Icelandic Horse.  They have a distinctive way of moving that is unique to the breed that is very smooth to ride called a tolt. (video here if you're interested https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B6H4sUpmWzU )

On they way to his farm, we drove past a frozen fjord. He was saying that the tracks are snowmobiles that drive out to check on the fishing holes!

 I was a bit apprehensive walking out on the the ice as this is technically the ocean and affected by tides and the 'shore' cracks when the tide moves... Plus it was quite slippery and very cold..

 So the way it works is they dig two holes and string a net between them then once a day (or however often you want I guess) they pull the net back through one hole and collect the fish.  A very easy way to get food! He collected 10 fish this day. Mostly Cod and Salmon. 

 They leave the entrails and heads on the ice for the birds to eat but there is so much that the birds have left heaps behind.  Apparently the otters help themselves too sometimes.

The road curved along the side of the fjord and the view from the car was just beautiful. This was around 11am so probably peak sunlight. 

Then after a delicious lunch (with more brown cheese!) we went to find the ponies!!! 

There were two of his friends horses kept in the barn because they kept escaping and they were quite excited and energetic from being cooped up.

Oh I might not have mentioned, these are the fluffiest horses I have ever seen!!!! They are totally happy living outside - in the SNOW! I call them ponies because to me they are very small and technically they fall into the pony size range of 13-14hh (1.3-1.4m) but they are referred to as horses by those in the know.

 Bard had a few WWOOFers staying at his place. WWOOFer's are Willing Workers on Organic Farms. Basically they are backpackers who volunteer to help on organic farms for free food and accommodation. I think the work can be quite tough but on this day they got to go on the ride with us so I think it has its perks! 

This is me and my little pony! She was sweet but wasn't that impressed that I knew how to ride and wanted her to work! 

I have always always always wanted to go for a ride in the snow! Ever since I first saw The Man From Snowy River movie as a child and there is the scene where he is chasing the brumbies through the snowy mountains and they come to a clearing up the top and the music changes and it is just magical. 

In case you aren't as obsessed as me, you can watch this video. The bit I'm talking about is at 2 minutes in.

So this ride along the beach, in the snow beside the setting sun was just a dream come true! I couldn't believe it! 

Grace would love this arena. They have actually ploughed the snow into a figure of eight with sides... There is also a track around the outside to go a bit faster and work on the gaits (different paces) and lateral work. 

This is me!! 

 You can't really tell, but the brown blob above the snowline to the right of centre is a Moose!!! There is a family of three that live in the mountain behind the farm and they mooch around and drop in overnight.

Seriously, these things are so fluffy I don't know how they see!!

After the first ride, Bard asked if I wanted to ride the other horses that were locked in the stable because he wanted to let them out but they were so energetic they might just play or take off and hurt themselves.  He didn't need to twist my arm. I got the extra naughty one. Once he got going he was amazing! So smooth to ride and very sensitive to commands.
After the ride I just walked around the farm remarking how different it was to Australian farms.  The whole place might be 20 acres but 15 of that would be the mountain. The other 5 is the cleared slope between the mountain and the fjord. In this area there was the main house, the guest house and the barn. My apartment was attached to the barn. The fences were mostly post and rail and everything was covered in snow. The animals all had bales of hay to eat and were accustomed to living in the snow. There were 4 different paddocks that the horses lived in. They were all very sloped so the horses were quite nimble.

 Bard also had a large chicken pen and a herd of sheep. I think he said these were bred for their hide.. Super fluffy either way..

Talk about room with a view!

 He also has a few farm dogs. They are a mixed breed of big fluffy dogs. They sleep outside tied to a long line. They were super friendly and cuddly!!

 

After re-packing my bag (AGAIN!) We drove to the airport and I collected my big bag and checked them both in - All the way to LONDON!!!

At the airport they had this big aerial picture of Tromso that I really liked. I tried to spend all my Norwegian Krone at the airport and ended up with a phone charger and a bottle of water that I had to skull to get through airport security.

And then I was off, heading for London

I was enthralled by all the different snowy landscapes. Just everything was covered in snow. The mountain, valleys and streams. Finally I made it to Oslo and had a very quick connection (just enough time to find the right end of the terminal, get my passport stamped, pee and find the gate.

Talk to you again from the UK!!!!

Norway - Reindeer and Northern Lights

 After my hot chocolate and waffles I trotted over to the next hotel to meet the next tour who would take me to the Reindeer sledding and to sleep in a lavvu (a traditional Sami tent). This tour was run by Sami people who were the traditional reindeer herders and fishermen of Scandinavia or Lapland. We stopped at a tent near the airport to collect the insulating suits then headed out to the reindeer. It seemed like there were just some random reindeer tied to a line in the middle of a park but they seemed quiet enough. While this was all getting ready we could see a green glow over the city that materialised into the Northern Lights. Again, my phone is not great at taking pictures of it but you get the gist.

 The configuration for reindeer sledding seems to harness the reindeer to a sleigh then tie each reindeer to the side of the sleigh in front in a staggered pattern. This essentially makes it a conga line and requires very little steering. Which is fortunate because I don't think reindeer are fully domesticated. I got to ride on the front sleigh and the one in front seemed quite content to just walk along the path that had been prepared earlier in the day like he must do twice a day everyday. But the reindeer tied to the side of my sleigh had other plans. This white reindeer wanted to be the leader so every couple of minutes he would suddenly take off either off to the side or straight ahead. Unfortunately, he was tied to my sleigh as well so dragged me around too. I managed to stay in the sleigh. 

However, while I was trying to stay in the sleigh, the Northern lights were putting on a show! I would try and look up at the sky to see the beautiful lights and take some pictures, then crazy white reindeer would do his lolly again and I'd have to hold on again. But it definitely made it an interesting experience!

 Hopefully this little movie works and you can see the changing patterns of the northern lights. It really is amazing.

 This is me freezing to death on the sleigh beside the very naughty reindeer. 

Not a very comfortable way to travel. A lap blanket would be nice. And more padding. The reindeer hide I was sitting on kept sliding across the sleigh whenever crazy white reindeer did his crazy thing...

 You can sort of see the staggered pattern here with crazy white reindeer's sleigh to my left and another reindeer tied to their sleigh then another reindeer tied to its sleigh. 

 And then the lights got excited!

 After we dismounted the sleighs they took the 'tame' reindeer off to be tied up. Crazy white reindeer went crazy again and dragged one of the guys through the snow and decided he wanted to fight one of the other reindeer. This was a bit frightening as the guy was still holding his rope and then their antlers got stuck together and everything came to a standstill. It took three men to pull them apart again but all ended well. 

 So for fun, they took us over to the 'not as tame' reindeer herd to feed them lichen. Apparently this is reindeer's favourite food and children collect it for the herders for pocket money. These reindeer would let you stand near them but not pat them or hand feed them. They are much smaller than I expected only about waist high.

I have decided I significantly prefer horses. 

 They have really strange feet a bit like a cross between a cow and a dog. And I'm not sure, but I think when they walk, their back foot steps on their front foot print so they don't have to break through the snow twice. 

 These were some of the females of the herd. They had around 50 in this fenced off area here but the rest of the herd (over 1000) was still in the wild with the reindeer herders. All of these reindeer (including the 'tame' ones) are put back with the herd in the wild over summer and caught again for the winter season.

 And then the Northern Lights were so spectacular even the tour guides were excited. 

In Norway, the lights are normally only green but on this night we got tinges of pink and purple and it was very special. And I seemed to have gotten the hang of iPhone photography. 

 Hopefully this video works too!

When the lights had faded a bit and we were sufficiently frozen, they took us down the road for our dinner of... Reindeer Stew! It's lucky reindeer is quite tasty and this stew is exactly what you want to eat when it's freezing cold. I ended up sitting beside these two ladies from America. They were pretty cheery and promptly produced a small bottle of vodka to spike the cordial with. This helped to warm us up much quicker. For desert we had a slightly different version of the bread with butter and brown cheese that was even more delicious! 

Then we had a bit of a talk about the traditional Sami culture. The Sami people are the people who live in Lapland across the top of Norway, Finland, Sweden and part of Russia. There are many different dialects and some neighbouring regions can communicate while others have distinctly different languages. All of the men involved with running the tour were very proud of their heritage and wore their traditional gakti. They also showed us a few of the very traditional items. They made most items from reindeer hide as it is so common for them and such a warm insulating material. One guide was telling us a story about when he and a friend from town went to visit his cousin who was tending the reindeer out in the wilderness and the weather was -40 degrees. The guide wore his clothes made from reindeer while his friend wore the latest and greatest in synthetic materials but his friend was still suffering from the cold while he was relatively comfortable. 

These are the special snow boots they make. They fill them with hay that absorbs the moisture away from the foot and keeps you warm. The can also be worn like UGG boots- just about everywhere. The cute curl on the toe is specially deisgned to keep the snow shoes on. The traditional show shoe is essentially a ski with a strap of leather that goes over the toes and as you step, the curl catches the leather keeping the ski in place.

Simply genius!  

When we were well fed I got dropped back at the tent by snow mobile! 

This is my accommodation for the night. I was the only one staying the night and the host had a different tent so I was responsible for keeping the tent warm. This involved re-loading the stove when it burnt out (which was close to every hour).  Because I wanted it to last as long as possible, I stuffed it as full of wood as I could. But this meant it burnt really really hot for the first half an hour so I couldn't crawl into the super heavy duty sleeping bag they had provided. And then when it had burnt out, I was so tempted to just crawl into the sleeping bag but I knew that it would only get so much colder so I had to put more wood in. 

It was fairly cosy with the fire well stoked. The 'kitchen' is at the end and there were two pallets either side that had a layer of foam mattress then a collection of reindeer hides and my sleeping bag. 

 

I woke up to this spectacular sunrise the next day. The lights are the island city of Tromso. 

These are the premium bathroom facilities... 

   The door is held together with bailing twine..              And the toilet is styrofoam.. 

This is the strangely delicious brown cheese. It is distinctly caramel flavoured. 

I had some spare time in the morning so I walked around the grounds taking pictures of the reindeer. 

It looked like a much more sophisticated set-up by daylight. 

 

 The old and the new              

Because I was the only one there I got to have extra pictures with the reindeer. This is the boss reindeer who was at the front of the conga line pulling my sleigh. He had the strangest antlers. There was a random branch that went out the front like a unicorn. Apparently it grows back the same every year. 

 I was a bit worried about loosing an eye... 

The unicorn Reindeer! 

Crazy white reindeer!!

 The snowmobile is used just like a four-wheeler to get around and to pull the 'trailer' of fire wood up the hill.

 This is the collection of sleighs resting on their side so the don't get covered in snow. 

 Sunrise over the reindeer paddock

Sleeping reindeer

Around 9.30am I was delivered back to the city of Tromso to be collected for my next tour - Icelandic Horses!!! Hopefully there is a house with heating and a shower!