Lofoten

One thing that I have not managed to blog about yet is the trip J and I did to the Lofoten islands. We had heard about a surfing competition being held on this crazy set of islands above the arctic circle and as soon as we knew that a friend of ours would be competing, we decided we had all the excuse we needed to visit this spectacular place nestled in the far North Sea.
Fortunately we happened to visit in autumn. All the islands were painted in yellows and reds. It was truly beautiful.Every corner we went around just seemed to offer another stunningly spectacular view!
Water, mountains, autumn colours and occasional splashings of snow.
It was lucky it was so stunning though because the weather was horrendous! Gale force winds, literally! The flight on the small plane in was heart stopping. As soon as we got in the plane, the hostess announced that we were expecting extreme turbulence and that we should not undo our seatbelts at any time. Not even she left her seat from start to finish! Just sat there with a smile pasted across her face as we bounced around the sky. Weirdly something went wrong with the aircon system too because it just kept getting hotter and hotter in the plane, with everyone playing with their vents trying to get some air. J and I were actually supposed to land and then take off again and head to another part of the island group, but J flat out refused to get back on the plane and we hired a car from where we landed :) It was bad! When we got there, the caravan park where we had arranged to hire a cabin told us that because the surf competition was on and it was going to be noisy in the park they were putting us in our own little house 100m down the road. So funny! It was a real little shack and suited us down to the ground. Here is the kitchen to give you a sense of its shackiness.
The weather was so incredibly bad the whole time, there were many times when we thought the roof would blow off the house and when we thought we would literally blow off the road. Clearly this weather was normal for the locals though as there were quite a few houses that had concrete walls facing into the breeze.
The funniest thing was was that the surfing competition went ahead despite the weather. In the beginning the waves were big but okay, but the swell built continuously throughout the day and in the end it was total madness! Surfers were being washed down the beach by the current as soon as they got in, they would then have to get out and run back to the start again. If you could catch one you stood a good chance of winning the heat! In the end I resorted to taking pics from the car :)
Despite the weather, J and I had a fantastic time! And in a way, the weather was exactly as it should be on islands above the arctic circle! To cap off the weekend, our mate won the longboard competition. Unfortunately he is the rep for ocean and earth in Norway and therefore could not use any of the mechandise prizes that he won. All those near death experiences just for the fun of it I guess ;) It was some consolation though that one of the kids he sponsors as part of the ocean/earth team won the shortboard comp, while another took out the free surfboard prize for best young talent.
Seriously though, if anyone reading this ever gets a chance to visit Lofoten, surfing competition or not, don't hesitate, just go, it will be one of the most incredible places you ever experience. xxx

First Lesson in Cross Country Skiing

After our luxury ski resort Xmas in Geilo, J and I headed further towards Oslo to meet our friends Kamilla and Karl Arne and head to one of their family cabins in the mountains. There they gave us our first lesson in cross-country skiing, an absolute must try for foreigners because Norwegians are said to have 'invented' the sport. While not everybody here skis, of course, staying in mountain cabins and going on ski tours for the holidays it is an astonishingly widespread practice. It is also a deeply embedded part of national identity and culture. I was particularly thrilled to get the chance to try it, J might have been happier snowboarding, but had fun nonetheless ;)

The snow was not as much or in as good condition as hoped so the idea of skiing around and across a big frozen lake was off the cards. I was quietly grateful with my visions of falling through the ice, but the lake was beautiful and we did walk on it later with the dogs.
The best thing about not being able to have our first cross country skiing lesson on the lake was that the piece of forest we used instead had real life moose tracks! I was super dooper excited!
And even more super dooper exited about the little hard blocks of real life moosey poo.
J and I were given the basic instructions from our wonderful instructors and we set off in some small circles around the moose track tract of forest. Once we got a sense of the gliding striding action, which was a rather delightful sensation when one managed to get in the swing of it, we were asked to take on the mountain!
Okay, well more like the hill we had been circling around, but it did prove to be quite a challenge. K-man led the way and gave instructions for climbing up the hill fishbone style. Unfortunately, this is where J came unstuck. Quite literally I am afraid. After a couple of falls trying to fishbone up the hill, J ripped off the entire bottom of his borrowed boot and it was game over for him. I soldiered on without him though don't worry!
After a while I managed to work out the going up part, and even rather shakily, the turning around on the slope part. It was the going down that proved difficult! I extended my run with each attempt but never quite made it to the bottom standing up unfortunately. Note the snow on the bum as I watch K-man demonstrate super smoothly!
Oh well, it remains something for next time, when J actually may actually manage to keep his boots in one piece for more than a couple of hours :)

Xmas 2008

A white one!
Not snowing but snow covered. This was the view from our room on Christmas morn.
High in the Norwegian mountains we even had real reindeer. Real reindeer in the hotel that is, with santa giving out presents in the bar. Odd to say the least!
Our hotel also let us have our dogs in the room. We just had to hang a little note with 'Dog in Room' on the door handle. So cute. Mina looks like she is enjoying the floor here but don't be fooled, both her and Mojo were straight up on the bed the moment we left the room. They are not idiots! They also loved running up and down the corridors when we would get back - their feet sounded so cute pounding the carpet!
We stayed in a ski resort town called Geilo, about halfway between Oslo and Bergen. It had a pretence of being a bit flashy but was actually as good as empty in comparison to other major European ski locations, which was just perfect for us! Being Christmas, most Norwegians were celebrating with their family at home or in their cabins, so the hotel had just a handful of guest families from various places staying in it. They served a huge Christmas dinner buffet with traditional Norwegian dishes on the 24th: included cod, birch boiled lamb, mashed swede, salmon, various other seafoods and salads. No complaints from us. Well perhaps one little one when it cost us over $AUS100 to buy a bottle of wine to accompany the feast! On Christmas and boxing night we were served a set three course menu where the food was absolutely delightful! We also got massages and hung in the sauna and enjoyed the spa as often as possible. But of course the real reason we were there was for the snow, and board it we did!

Here I am specially dressed in my red, white and green contemplating the mountain on Christmas morning.
We spent all Christmas day and boxing day exploring different trails down the mountain, repeating the ones we liked and scaring ourselves a little taking on the main drag with enormous jumps splashed in various people going crazy all around us! My favourite track was one that took large tracks of quiet, gently sloping trail through a forest. It also had sections of wider faster dashes down to various lifts onto various other levels. Here I am resting at a turn in the forest, having just videoed J scoot past me at 100 miles an hour and throwing snow in my super slow face.
While the snow was a little short on the ground, a bit hard, and occasionally icy towards the end of the day, I did manage to use the terrain to really start working out my toe turns. J gave me some pointers early in the day and for the first time in my snowboarding experience (all of one whole season!) I managed to really pull them off, and to link them with my heel turns. This was a major progression for me and at times when I was in a little zone going through the forest on my own I was quite proud of myself. Of course there were many many other times when I fell on my arse and was not so proud - one occasion actually resulted in some serious pain, the kind of pain that involved little involuntary cries when trying to move around. I ended the days with a black as pitch knee and a deeply bruised coccyx, that is actually still too painful for me to roll over. No pain no gain though, right, and it was all in good fun. I actually can't wait to try my moves on some serious powder in the near future. As soon as I get the new snowboard boots to replace the ones I broke that is - sorry, still a sore point at the moment, let us not speak of it further.

Sorry for all the snowboarding talk! We also tried cross-country skiing this Christmas so I promise more about that next time! xxx