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Arm the Doors

~ Travel for miserable introverts

Arm the Doors

Tag Archives: Bucket list

Iceland – a land beyond language (part 2)

15 Friday Apr 2016

Posted by dannysigma in Places

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

Bucket list, DSLR, Iceland, Jokulsarlon, Lava field, Olympus OM-D E-M1, Volcano

Not far beyond the village of Vík, where I had spent the previous night lies the Eldraun lava field. At first it looks like mile after mile of low scrub, green and somewhat bushy. But it is in fact rock. Basalt; borne of lava from the Laki volcanic eruption of 1783-4. This was an incredible event, even for a country where the landscape seems so frequently to be doing its best to shrug off its inhabitants. The eruption lasted for 8 months and killed 22% of Iceland’s population and 60% of its livestock. The ash cloud affected the whole of Europe; the consequent continent-wide crop failure led to the French Revolution. The visible remains of the eruption are, like pretty much all of the rest of the country, spectacular. The landscape looks like something from the cover of a lurid 1970s science fiction paperback. What look to be thousands of cairns – man-made pyramids of small stones – were actually created naturally by lava bubbling up through the swampy coastal land. And the rest of the land is covered in that globular, green basalt. Again, the photographs I took show small portions of this, but my lens is not quite wide-angle enough to take in 40 miles of it…

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Eldraun lava field

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Eldraun lava field

The next stop was Kirkjubæjarklauster (you can imagine how much fun it was trying to type that into the semi-responsive screen of the sat-nav with frozen fingers) to look at another waterfall and to stop at another petrol station to buy another smoked lamb and three bean salad sandwich and to eat another chocolate bar which I would yet again discover halfway through had had liquorice slipped into it. Seriously people, liquorice is not a sweet. It is the byproduct of the manufacture of tractor tyres.

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Stjornarfoss waterfall

Then, a long drive across the black, glacial-sand plain of Skeiðarársandur to Jökulsárlón. The landscape was still incredible enough to make stopping at every picnic area to take photographs an absolute requirement. At one point, after crossing what seemed to be a temporary metal bridge (which, given that my car had snow tyres with little spikes on, made a sound like an air-raid siren in a washing machine) I stopped at a wide lay-by with what I thought was an incongruous but nevertheless quite striking, modernist sculpture – two enormous steel beams twisted around one another. It turned out to the the remains of a road bridge destroyed by icebergs calved from the Skeiðará glacier which melted following the eruption of the volcano Grímsvötn in 1996. Seriously, I can see why they have kept the bridges temporary ever since.

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The remains of the Skeidararsandur road bridge. In the background is the Skeidara glacier which destroyed it.

I arrived at Jökulsárlón about an hour before my ice cave tour was due to depart, which gave me ample time to walk up and down the lagoon and take photographs. Jökulsárlón is a glacial lake at the foot of the Breiðamerkurjökull glacier which, thanks to the glacier retreating, is growing in size year by year. The lagoon is famous for icebergs, which break off the glacier and float slowly towards the sea. It is the deepest lake in Iceland – as it would need to be given that 90% of each iceberg is submerged. There was one iceberg of notable size in the lagoon that day along with a few seals.

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Jokulsarlon Ice Lagoon

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Jokulsarlon Ice Lagoon

I arrived at the cafeteria – the muster point for the ice cave tour – in plenty of time. A bus full of East Asian tourists and a handful of Americans were also waiting. When the tour guide showed up I proffered my ticket to be told that I would be with a different company who were yet to arrive. I waited and waited but no sign. Fifteen minutes after the appointed departure time, I phoned the number on the ticket to be told that tour had been cancelled and that I should have received an email a month or so ago. Naturally, had this been the case, I said, I wouldn’t have been waiting in a freezing car park. It might be an idea that, for a trip that for which people cross continents, I added, to ensure that such emails were received, or to phone if no response were forthcoming. My words may have been a tad more earthy than that, but that was the gist anyway. By a stroke of incredible luck, the other tour had not yet left and they had space for one more, if I could pay in cash. By a further stroke of further luck, I could.

The delay, it turned out, was due to the fact that the caves that we were supposed to visit were a touch too melty (the reason the other company had cancelled) which would have involved squeezing through tiny, tiny gaps whilst waist-deep in freezing water. As I am intensely claustrophobic, this at least stopped tour groups from two different continents seeing me crying like a terrified child. Instead, we set off to see another cave.

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The ice cave tour bus

Ingmar, the tour guide was small but incredibly strong looking. Thankfully he also seemed incredibly cheerful. The drive to the starting point was across a ridiculously rocky field of moraine. As the huge-wheeled truck in which we rode jerked from side to side, up and down (at one point I could only see the ground through the windscreen) Ingmar, who was driving, had a cup of coffee. And he didn’t spill a drop. Such nonchalance may well have been calculated. But, hell, I was impressed.

After parking the truck, Ingmar proceeded to pass harnesses, carabiners, helmets and crampons out. I did not like the look of this. My only previous experiences of caves involved leisurely strolls through caverns with a guide using her torch to point out stalactites and stalagmites that looked humorously like elephants or penises or wheels of cheese (d0n’t ask – Derbyshire is a very strange place). It turned out we would have to undergo a “little” hike to get to the cave. I strapped on my harness and crampons and, grim-faced, set off. It turned out to be an incredible experience. Even though there was a narrow, handmade, wooden bridge across a chasm god only knew how deep and I am as scared of heights as I am of enclosed spaces. I was brave though, and hardly cried at all.

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Hiking towards the glacier

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The very scary bridge

The cave, when we reached it, was small but even more astonishing than expected. The light passing through the millions of tons of ice above turned the whole place an incredible, eerie blue. Ingmar pointed out that the stratified lines of grey we could see in the walls were volcanic ash from eruptions hundreds of years previously. A stream of water ran through the cave – water so pure, he said, that it would not quench your thirst as it lacked the minerals that the body craved. We stayed there longer perhaps than we should have, given that there were two more tour groups waiting outside. But hell, who cares?

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Inside the ice cave

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Inside the ice cave

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Inside the ice cave

As we re-crossed the scary bridge and scrambled across lumps of ice the size of small bungalows on our way back to the truck, we came across a lone, very grumpy looking tourist with an enormous backpack full of cameras and tripods. It seemed that the size and weight of his photographic equipment prohibited him from crossing the bridge and getting to the cave. In fear of missing the perfect shot, he failed to get any shots at all. I’m sure there’s a lesson in there somewhere, but I was too busy feeling smug about choosing the much-smaller-but-still-pro-quality mirrorless Olympus EM1 over a DSLR to figure it out.

We dismounted from the truck back at the Jökulsárlón cafeteria. Next came the Jökulsárlón ice beach – another black sand beach, but this time studded with stranded chunks of iceberg. Again, spectacular is not enough of a word, but it is the closest I can get.

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Jokulsarlon ice beach

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Jokulsarlon ice beach

By the time I had finished photographing the beach, it was 4.30pm. That night’s hostel was at least a 4 hour drive, so I set out hoping to make good time and get there before sundown. The weather, however, had different ideas. Bright and sunny, though still cold, with clear skies at first, the moment I rounded the outcrop that signalled the end of the Skeiðarársandur plain, clouds came down and snow started to fall. By the time I reached Vík, the snow was heavy and the road treacherous. I stopped at the now familiar Vík petrol station for what had become my usual Icelandic meal, and the weather worsened still. The twenty or so miles after leaving Vík were the most terrifying drive of my life. As the road wound up into the mountains, a full-on blizzard developed. Visibility was negligible and my speed was not much higher than walking pace. There was a pair of headlights behind me and I think without them, I may have gone crazy. It wasn’t like anything or anywhere I have ever experienced. And that was driving a VW Polo. I have nothing but the utmost respect for those crazy bastards who set out across Siberia or aim to conquer the North Pole on a dogsled or a pogo stick or whatever.

Eventually the snow lessened and the visibility improved and I was able to speed up a little. By the time I passed the Eyjafjallajökull volcano, I was making good time once again.

The hostel I had chosen that night was in a village called Gaulverjaskóli, deliberately chosen for its rurality (still hoping to see those damned elusive northern lights) and for being close to the Golden Circle, which was the bulk of the following day’s itinerary. Gaulverjaskóli is near the coast on a narrow, fertile strip of land between the Ölfusá River (Iceland’s largest river by volume) and the Þjórsá River (Iceland’s longest river). The drive along the banks of the Þjórsá was, again unsurprisingly, incredibly beautiful. The river was part-flowing, part-frozen with clusters of small icebergs jostling at the banks. The road itself was like something out of a rally stage – more potholes and mud than tarmac. And as I was in a rush to get to the hostel and as it was a rented car, it was great fun! All my Colin McRae fantasies played out against a backdrop of extreme natural beauty. There was not enough time (or light), sadly, for much photography, but I did manage to stop by one of many clusters of stocky Icelandic horses sheltering stoically against the wind and the cold and the occasional flurries of snow.

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I reached the hostel just before dark, and it really was in the middle of nowhere. Even in a country where a village the size of Vík is an important settlement, this was something else. There was a school, a farm, a t-junction with a road sign and the hostel. The hostel itself was great – the woman who owned it lived with her family in an upstairs apartment. She was incredibly friendly, showed me around and then left me to it – shutting her apartment door behind her. Perfect. The only slight downside was that the walls were heavy and thick against the climate and thus the wifi was negligible. The only router was in the owner’s apartment. She had indeed mentioned that I might need to move around the middle part of the building to get a signal. As there was only one other guest, who had already gone to bed, I had the place to myself, so I managed to get the only spot where the wifi actually worked. I settled down to upload some pictures, disturbed only slightly when the owner’s son came out of their apartment and tripped over me squatting on their doormat.

Again, I slept with the curtains open hoping for some Aurora action. Again, I was stymied by clouds filled with snow. But the bed was comfortable, and I had a spare smoked lamb and three bean salad sandwich tucked away for breakfast so, once again, life was good. Very, very good.

The next day I set out to see the Golden Circle – Iceland’s much (and quite rightly so) lauded triple-whammy of the Geysir and Strokkur geysers, Gullfoss waterfall and Þingvellir (Anglicised as Thingvellir) national park, which, along with Reykjavík, will be the subject of my next blog post. See you there!

Arctic Sweden and the Ice Hotel

30 Sunday Dec 2012

Posted by dannysigma in Places

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

Arctic, Aurora Borealis, Bucket list, Dogsledding, Ice Hotel, Kiruna, Northern lights, Sammi, Sweden, Winter

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The Ice Hotel, Jukkasjärvi

So what would you choose if you were given £500 to do something you had always wanted to do? This was the envious position in which I found myself in the latter half of 2012, after my father (the brilliant travel writer Jos Simon) gave me and my sister £500 each to do just that.

Of course, I immediately opted for a solo trip to the coldest, darkest place I could possibly find. Well, come on – you didn’t really expect me to head for the Maldives, did you?

The decision was not actually a difficult one. Ever since watching the fantastic movie Local Hero (also referenced in the trip to Western Scotland that previous summer), I had wanted to see the northern lights. Not a particularly original desire, granted, but I do try and aim to do things that I actually want, rather than just for novelty. (Though, if I’m being honest, the search for novelty plays a part in my travel decisions far more than it probably should. Who, after all, doesn’t want to win the game of ‘have you been to…?’. Iraq is currently my trump card…) So northern lights it was. As I live and work in the United Arab Emirates, the northern lights are typically a very, very long way away. However, taking advantage of the fact that I would be home in the UK for Christmas and New Year, I booked myself a flight from Manchester to Kiruna in arctic Sweden – the cheapest of the arctic airports to which I could travel.

I knew nothing about Kiruna, had never even heard of it, despite having toured Scandinavia (including the arctic) some 18 months previously. I went straight to booking.com and discovered that, as in most of Scandinavia, hotels in Kiruna were expensive! I booked a single room at the SPiS Hotell City for the bargain rate of €250 (£195; $275) for three nights. I also booked a rental car and a dogsledding trip into the wilderness. Where, of course, I would see the northern lights.

I didn’t think a great deal more about it for some weeks, until I noticed on the news that SAS, the airline on which I was booked, was in very real danger of going bankrupt: an eventuality which my annual travel insurance would not cover. Although I have never really been interested in financial news, I spent much of the following week glued to the city pages of the BBC website, growing increasingly frantic until… SAS survived. Just.

Filled with a renewed sense of excitement about the upcoming trip, I set about looking at what else there was to do in the area. I discovered that I would be 145km north of the Arctic Circle, considerably further north than Rognan in arctic Norway, the furthest north I had previously been. Far enough north, certainly, to ensure that I wouldn’t see sunlight in my four days there. Which, for a northern lights hunter, is a good thing. And, for a miserable introverted goth, a very good thing. I discovered that Kiruna has the world’s largest iron ore mine and has the Esrange Space Centre, from where they launch rockets. Cool! I also discovered that, although it was possible to tour the iron ore mine, it would not be possible for one person travelling alone between Christmas and New Year. More anti-miserable introvert bias at work! So, what, then, would there be for me to do?

Then I saw it. Nearby, near the tiny village of Jukkasjärvi, the original Ice Hotel. Built annually in December, the entire hotel then melts each April. It is built from snow and from blocks of ice from the nearby Torne River, with water so pure that the ice is transparent. Well what would you do? I had already accounted for the £500 by way of flights, hotel, car rental and dogsledding. I was not exactly flush at the time. But there was no way I was going to travel to Kiruna in midwinter and not stay there. No way on earth.

The Ice Hotel is not cheap. Neither is is comfortable. In fact, I would be spending €370 (£285; $405) for a night in the cheapest of the ice rooms – a room with no bathroom or minibar. A room, in fact, with no window or door. The more expensive, artist-designed rooms (more of which later) will currently set you back around €900 (£700; $1000) a night. Normally, people don’t stay for more than one night in the cold rooms (there is also a permanent block of normal rooms, not made of ice, on site that go for €185 (£145; $200) a night). I opted to stay for my first two nights in the hotel I had already booked in Kiruna, followed by one exorbitant, massively uncomfortable and totally unforgettable night in the cheapest of the ice rooms.

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Kiruna Ariport

Even though by the time I finally set out on the trip I had had a week of ‘acclimatisation’ in the British Midlands, the cold as I left the aircraft in Kiruna was painful. Minus 20 degrees celsius, and that was without windchill. I arrived late in the evening (though in the polar night, 20 hours every the day feel like late evening to deep night). The airport was compact and there were few travellers alighting beside myself. It was snowing and, from the heavy blanket across the landscape, had probably been doing so for some time. Like several years. I collected my rental car, finding to my pleasant surprise that I had been upgraded to a family estate car (the closest I think I will ever come to, y’know, actually having a family). All familiar so far, except the cable that I was shown how to fit into a port hidden in the car’s front grill which I should then, I was told, connect to the heating box which would be present in every parking space. This would keep the engine warm enough overnight to stop it seizing completely and fusing into a useless, frozen chunk of iron and thus completely ruining the car. I couldn’t work out how to connect it properly, but, hey, no pressure.

The drive into town was very exciting. So much so that I pissed myself. Or at least that’s what I thought when I felt a warm puddle slowly spreading in my lap. I had never come across heated driver’s seats before, see? Well I live in the damn desert. Once I realised that I had not suddenly become incontinent, I relaxed and enjoyed it. Such a pleasant sensation. So very, very pleasant. Oh yes.

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My grunge-tastic cold weather wardrobe

The hotel was sparse, but clean and, above all, warm. I had managed to hastily and cheaply assemble a cold-weather wardrobe from various factory outlets both in Dubai and the UK. As I finally closed my bedroom door, I caught sight of myself in the full-length mirror. Somehow, and entirely coincidentally, I had managed to become a refugee from early-90s Seattle. Oh well.

The following day I got up. I have no idea whether it was early or late, as it was dark out. I had already experienced the opposite in midsummer arctic Norway, and even if you can imagine how either perpetual daylight or unending night feel, the reality is still quite jarring. I ventured into town. I knew that Kiruna is a fairly modern mining city, and thus was not expecting it to be attractive. And I dare say that in the summer, it might well not have been. But heavy snowfall can make anywhere look pretty. I’m sure if snow ever fell heavily on my erstwhile home town (and presuming the locals didn’t then beat it up for ‘not being from round here’), then even Stoke-on-Trent might look pretty. Though that’s quite a stretch…

Kiruna, however, was delightful. I searched out the important things first – the supermarket (I couldn’t really afford to eat in restaurants) and the off-licence (Sweden only sells booze stronger than 3.5% through state-licensed liquor stores called Systembolaget). I checked out the tourist information centre in the town hall and found the place from where my sled-dog experience would leave that evening. I wandered the streets of central Kiruna (all five of them) for a while until the cold started to tell, then returned to my room to prepare for some (arctic) night photography. The first thing I found was that my tripod, unused in many months, had completely fallen apart in its carry bag. Well this was no good. There was no doubt in my mind that the northern lights were gearing up for a very special show just for me that evening. And there was no way I could photograph them without a tripod. This, then, became my number one priority. No matter how miserable, gothic or introverted I become when I travel, I need photographs! I used my iPad to find a local photography shop (how much more difficult was travel in the those far-off olden days before 3G and wifi?) and, thanking both of my lucky stars that I had seen fit to rent a car, set off in search of a small retail park on the outskirts of town. After first enjoying that heated seat for a moment or two. Or, indeed, three. Oh yes. Again. It turned out to be a fortuitous trip as I saw a few more of the sights of Kiruna that I might otherwise have missed – namely the Town Hall and a rocket monument to the local contribution to the exploration of space.

Kiruna City Hall
Kiruna City Hall
Space Memorial
Space Memorial

Thus it was that I set out for my dog-sledding in the the wilderness experience with a full photography set-up, including a brand-new tripod, all ready for some ass-kicking, world-beating, award winning photographs of the Aurora Borealis. And some dogs, too.

“You can’t take that,” said the terrifyingly manly guide, pointing at my camera and tripod. I was at the office of the dogsledding adventure company, pulling on the heavy overalls and fur lined boots provided by the company for the wilderness experience.

“Really?” I said, deflated. “But…”

“No room on the sled. Camera OK. Not this other.”

So no tripod then.

No matter. I’d make do. I’m good like that. And he really was rather terrifyingly manly.

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Dog sled

We travelled by minibus through the gloom, collecting other people from the few hotels scattered through the city, and drove for an hour or so to a location outside of the city. As is usually the case, I was the only solo traveller, garnering carefully hidden looks of sympathy from the others. I’m used to it – it happens a lot. We disembarked and were shown to our sleds. I got one to myself, given that I didn’t have another person to perch between my knees. I have often thought I should compile a list of these moments where solo travel marks you out as ‘different’, and should I ever marry again, write them into my vows: “I promise to take thee, XXXX, in sickness and in health, for cheaper prices on hotel rooms, so as not to pay the single traveller supplement, between my knees on a two person dogsled…” and so on. I often get the feeling that I’m destined to live alone…

The dogs were Siberian huskies, beautiful animals, yipping and prancing in delight as they were let out of their mobile kennel. I am not much of an animal person – in fact, usually the only time I like to get close to animals is when they are served inside a burger bun, but these dogs really were such beautiful creatures. They were lined up, 10 or 12 to a sled. I have no idea of what the animal cruelty quotient is here (and given that I am a bullfight aficionado, perhaps I am the wrong person to judge) but the dogs seemed well treated and happy enough.

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Sled dogs

 

 

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The Sammi tent (lavvu)

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The lavvu from the inside

It is easy to imagine a dogsled trip through the arctic wilderness, but again, the reality is so much more. To travel at speed through the darkness, with no sound but the excited yipping of the dogs and the swishing of wooden runners through packed snow, is quite, quite magical. The tour (clearly a tourist tour but none the worse for that) took us an hour or so out into the darkness beyond the city, to a traditional Sammi tent (lavvu) where we were served coffee brewed over an open fire, and assorted Sammi delicacies. The darkness out here was complete, the milky way resplendent overhead. Truly incredible. So breathtaking was the celestial view, in fact, that I didn’t even notice the complete absence of the Aurora Borealis for quite some time.

Back inside the lavvu, I continued with the pretence of jollity often necessary when being the only solo traveller in an organised group. Perhaps understandably, given my love of solitude, I have a somewhat lugubrious demeanour. As a child, I went to the dentist and was given gas and air. This, my first encounter with altered consciousness, was by far the best I had ever felt. The happiest I had ever been. “Cheer up,” said the dentist, “you look like your dog just died.” Forget resting bitch face; I have resting goth face. Which is much, much worse. And now, I am still terrified that my presence as a solo traveller might make others try and befriend me. Consequently I have to, at all times, appear happy and fulfilled as a human being. Which means smiling. Thankfully, there were no small children present on this particular trip, as me smiling frequently makes them cry. And in some cases, hysterical. But that’s a different story.

On the journey back from the lavvu, we stopped for a moment. The guide pointed to the sky. “Northern lights!” he boomed, manlily. “They are not always colourful.” I looked to where he was pointing. There was indeed a rippled sheet of grey-white extending across part of the sky. I decided to trust the guide (and not just because he scared me) and tick ‘seeing the northern lights‘ off my bucket list (ugh, I hate that phrase). Though personally I could have sworn that we were all oohing and aahing over some clouds. Cirrus clouds to be sure. But still. Clouds.

That night, we were back early enough for me to go out for a drink. Yes, I had been to the Systembolaget, but I actually felt like going to a bar. A real bar. With people. Real people. Needless to say, I took my Kindle, just in case any of the aforementioned real people decided to try and talk to me (they didn’t). The only bar I could find was warm, welcoming and lively. I bought a pint, switched on my Kindle and settled back to watch. Dear god, the people were beautiful. Sooo beautiful. Looking at the seven foot tall Viking males and their similarly statuesque female counterparts, I thought, I need to move to Scandinavia. These people are just beautiful. It took another pint for the correspondent thought to form: Fuck. These people are beautiful. And that makes me the weird, misshapen troll in the corner. And, looking around me, I knew I was right.

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Kiruna church at midday – this is as light as it gets

The following day, I took photographs in the lunchtime dusk (the closest it gets to daylight) before heading out to Jukkasjärvi. I visited the village of Jukkasjärvi itself, and its famous wooden church (now enclosed in a corrugated metal shell). I also found a small supermarket and bought a bottle of vodka. Vodka doesn’t freeze, see? Then, it was time for the Ice Hotel. I knew that access to the rooms was not possible until 6pm as between 10am and 6pm, the Ice Hotel is a museum (free access for guests!) allowing visitors to wander the corridors and rooms. And indeed I took the tour myself, (again, the only solo traveller, smiling and grimacing to ensure the safely-coupled that I was perfectly OK in my solitude and neither needed nor indeed would welcome any attempts at companionship). The hotel really is an astonishing thing. As mentioned before, it melts every April and is rebuilt every December. It is built from a combination of frames upon which snow is sprayed, and blocks of ice cut from the impossibly pure Torne River. Each year, artists are brought in to design the more expensive rooms, each coming up with their own theme.

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The Artist Suites: Dragon Residence, by D. Lkhagvadorj and Bazarsad Bayarsaikhah

 

 

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The Artist Suites: A Virgin in Space by Monica Popescu and Petros Dermatas, desigend to look like the spacecraft in the 2009 movie Moon

 

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Blue Marine, by William Blomstrand and Andrew Winch. Designed to look like you’ve been swallowed by a whale.

There is an Ice Bar (the original ice bar, whatever the management of your local Ice Bar franchise might tell you), an ice reception and, coolest of all (quite literally) an ice chapel, where one can get married. Again, on the unlikely off-chance I ever decide to couple-up legally again, this is where I want to read those aforementioned vows.

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The Ice Reception area

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The Ice Chapel. Where the miserable introvert can get married.

Even with the tour, I was still a couple of hours early for my room. It was, nevertheless, two hours spent very pleasurably, in the warm reception room, reading a book and drinking a whole series of complementary (and extremely good) hot chocolates. And if I gained weight because of them, I figured, it could only serve to make my evening more comfortable. I’m sure that if seals and whales had access to hot chocolate this good, it would become an intrinsic part of their winter-blubber-preparation diet. Probably. Again, scarves were invaluable here as a solo traveller – as the day progressed, the reception area filled up. Even though, as always, I took up as little space as possible, selecting a small table and a single chair in the corner, a well placed scarf and book ensured that the space was still mine after I returned with yet another hot chocolate.

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The corridor outside my room. Which appears to be on Hoth.

When it was finally time to check in to the room, the rules were explained to me. I would be provided with a heavy, warm, thermal onesie, fur lined boots and a four-season sleeping bag. As the rooms were made entirely of ice and snow, it would be a constant minus five degrees celsius inside, regardless of how cold it got outside. Well, that’s OK then! I would leave all my belongings in a locker in the permanent warm building, which is also where the bathrooms would be. If I needed to pee, then I’d have to leave the ice building for the warm building. Same as if I needed anything from my luggage. I would have a bed (made out of ice but covered in reindeer pelts), a table, chair, bedside table and sculpture (?) made out of ice and a woollen curtain instead of a door. And nothing else.

 

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My bedroom

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Cheers!

Thus I snow-suited up, stored my stuff and went to my room. Wow. Nothing really can prepare you for the silence of being inside a room made entirely of snow and ice. It is hard to describe the overall feeling. I can try, but it still won’t come close to the actual experience. As expensive and uncomfortable as it may be, I would highly recommend you give it a go it should you ever be fortunate enough to have the chance. Just wonderful.

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The bedroom ‘door’

There was clearly no way I could spend the entire evening alone in my room, as I normally might, so I had to make the most of the hotel facilities. I had a few drinks in the Ice Bar (the one made literally out of blocks of ice). It was sponsored by a vodka company (I forget now which one) so most of the drinks were short vodka cocktails. At about €10 (£7.75; $11) they weren’t cheap. But they were delicious. Also, you are sitting in a bar where the bar, all the tables and chairs and, indeed, the very walls, are made out of blocks of ice. And the gimmick with the drinks (and it’s a good one!) is that they are served in glasses also made out of ice. A truly incredible place, but much like the rest of the cold parts of the hotel, not comfortable enough to spend a whole evening in. So I went on to the warm (permanent and not made of ice) part of the hotel.

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The Ice Bar

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Drinks at the Ice Bar

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Drinks in glasses made of ice in the Ice Bar

First I ate at the restaurant. The food and the ambience were brilliant. All the dishes were local and organic and very well prepared. Reindeer meat, a variety of arctic fish and deserts made from arctic brambles, served by the most beautiful human beings you have ever seen, it truly was a perfect experience. As with everything here, it certainly wasn’t cheap. But also as with everything here, it certainly was worth every krona.

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The ‘warm’ bar at the Ice Hotel

From the restaurant, I had a few beers in the warm bar (also incredibly pleasant) before liberating a (plastic) glass, returning to my sub-zero lodgings and zipping myself and my nightcap-sized bottle of vodka in for the night.

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Ready for bed!

Thanks more to the vodka than the comfort of the room itself, I slept well. And the next day, was able to drive straight to the airport and thence home.

So the original question was: if I were given £500 to do something I always wanted to do, what would I do?  As it turned out, it cost double that. So, £1000 for a three night stay in an incredibly uncomfortable room in a freezing mining town where it never gets light and the aurora borealis are indistinguishable from a dirty strand of cirrus clouds. Would I do it again?

Fuck yes.

 

 

Mallaig, Skye and The Outer Hebrides

15 Wednesday Aug 2012

Posted by dannysigma in Places

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

Barra, Barra Airport, Benbecula, Bucket list, CalMac Ferries, Canna, DeHavilland Twin Otter, Eigg, Harry Potter, Hogwarts Express, Jacobite Express, Lochmaddy, Mallaig, Muck, North Uist, Old Man of Storr, Outer Hebrides, Portree, Rum, Scotland, Skye, Small Isles, Steam train, Uig, Whale watching, White tailed eagle

So, where would you go to mend a broken heart? Ibiza perhaps. Get tanked up and pull some birds, live life to the max, and all that. Forget about thwarted love with some good old fashioned lust. Or Paris. City of Lights. Heal the hurt by absorbing culture, arts, architecture. Faced with the eternal mystery of La Giaconda, what does a passing liaison amoureuse even matter? This too, after all, shall pass. Or even Amsterdam. Where, with sufficient herbal encouragement, one can forget about just about anything. Nope. The true miserable introvert goes to the Outer Hebrides. Alone.

Thus it was that in the summer of 2012, heart-broken and spirit-low, I found myself alone in Mallaig on the west coast of Scotland, gearing up for a solo jaunt across some of the loneliest terrain I had ever encountered. Why Mallaig? Simple really. For some reason, still unbeknownst to me, I had agreed that summer to walk the West Highland Way with a group of friends. Which involved two of my personal bêtes noire – exercise and dormitories. By the time we finished up in Fort William, despite the immense rush of having completed a week-long hike through the mountains, I was exhausted, and in desperate need of some alone-time.

I had, thankfully, foreseen such an eventuality, and planned a week-long jaunt around the islands, explicitly for the purpose of riding the Jacobite train to Mallaig and flying from Benbecula in the Hebrides, landing at Barra Airport – famous for actually being a beach. Implicitly, however, it was the loneliest holiday I could think of. Perfect for the heartbroken, and extremely miserable, introvert.

The Outer Hebrides. Just as a name it is rich with the allusion of loneliness. It sounds like the loneliest place on earth. The Outer Hebrides. Familiar from the soothing-but-incomprehensible lull of the shipping forecast on the radio in my parents’ car when a small child. The Outer Hebrides. In actuality, they are less than 50 miles from the coast of the Scottish mainland, and less than 35 miles from Skye. Still, they sounded like the perfect place to be alone. And I wasn’t wrong.

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The Jacobite Express crossing the Glenfinnan Viaduct

The journey from Fort William to Mallaig (from where one can catch a ferry to Skye and thence on to the Outer Hebrides) is spectacular. In 2009, Wanderlust magazine voted it the best rail journey in the world, ahead of such luminaries as the Trans-Siberia Railway and the Cuzco-Macchu Pichu line in Peru. Although one can make this extraordinary journey by regular, multiple-unit train, that would be missing a trick. A very big trick. The West Coast Railway Company runs the Jacobite Express for the full length of the route. Probably most famous as the train used to film the Hogwarts’ Express scenes of the Harry Potter films, the 42 mile trip is undertaken in ex-British Railways coaches from the 1960s and pulled by one of three ex-LMS/British Railways steam locomotives. A standard class single ticket will currently set you back some £29 (€37.50; $41). And, boy, is it worth it. The countryside is just incredible, from the end of the highlands all the way down to the coast. If possible, I would recommend sitting on the left side in one of the rearmost carriages; that way, you get a fantastic view of the whole train as it curves across the horseshoe-shaped Glenfinnan Viaduct. Also the left-hand side of the train affords amazing coastal views from Arisaig (upon whose beach Local Hero, one of my favourite ever movies was filmed) onwards.

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The Jacobite Express at Fort William

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the Steam Inn, Mallaig

In addition to being the terminus of the West Highland Line, Mallaig is also an important fishing port and the base for Caledonian MacBrayne ferries to Skye and the Small Isles/Inner Hebrides. I had planned two nights here, with a day cruise of the aforementioned Small Isles before heading out across Skye. I had booked a tiny, single room at the Steam Inn a pub/inn round the corner from the station. It was basic but clean, a perfect place to spend my first night alone. And alone I spent it – frazzled from constant companionship for the duration of the West Highland hike, I couldn’t even bring myself to go down to the bar. Setting a pattern for many, if not most, solo adventures to come, I bought a couple of bottles of wine from the local supermarket and retired to my room. I did, however, venture forth for food. As Mallaig is a major fishing port, the local fish and chip shops must be pretty good, I figured. Sadly, I was wrong, but two bottles of cheap pink wine quickly washed away the taste of stale batter.

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The Isle of Eigg

The following day I set out for the ‘mini-cruise‘ around the small isles. In effect, this is just a matter of sitting on the ferry as it makes its rounds. You don’t get to disembark, instead having to settle for photographing the aforementioned islands from the deck (or, as the day drew on and it got colder, through the window of the bar). Perfect. No interaction necessary. Just me, my book, my camera (phone) and an occasional foray to the bar for coffee. The non-landing ‘cruise’ took a little over four hours and cost around £10 (€13; $14.25) and was well worth it. As well as seeing four islands (Eigg, Muck, Rum and Canna, which sound like some obscure regional stag party itinerary) I got to see dolphins, a whale (distantly) and several white-tailed eagles. And jellyfish. Lots of jellyfish. Ick.

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The Isle of Muck

Despite attaining the loneliness I desired, I spent that evening deafened by settling gulls and huddled against a cold wind in the semi-shelter of the Mallaig RNLI lifeboat station – the only place I could get half-decent 3G reception in those heady days when small hotels didn’t have wifi.

I arrived in Portree, the ‘capital’ of Skye, the following day around lunchtime. The ferry from Mallaig to Armadale, the sea-bound entrance point to the Isle of Skye, had been half an hour late which naturally led to me spending most of the morning panicking that I’d miss the bus between Armadale and Portree. Of course, the bus only exists to ferry ferry passengers, so to speak, so it waited for us. Well, for me. The journey between Armadale and Portree was predictably stunning. (One of the few downsides I can imagine to being Scottish must be the constant inability to be impressed by natural landscapes. There really are very few places which, at their most beautiful, can even approach an average Scottish landscape. On the other hand, being from good old Stoke-on-Trent, I’m impressed if the barman has the normal number of limbs). We passed some of the most incredible views it had ever been my privilege to witness. The Old Man of Storr was just off to the left of the bus route. I only wished I had had the time and motility to see the island properly.

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The Old Man of Storr, Isle of Skye

Portree, just as predictably, was also incredibly beautiful. Having booked several weeks ahead of time, I was due to stay in a reasonably priced hostel dormitory. I arrived to find that I could not check in for another three hours. Three hours was enough to tour the town – another amazingly picturesque place with a (famous) quay of multicoloured cottages and a perfect view out across the Irish Sea (spoiled only slightly by a large cruise liner moored just past the end of the bay). Three hours was also enough for me to decide to abandon the booking and find a private room in the Portree Hotel, right in the centre of town. At £60 (€77.50; $85) for a tiny, aged, and somewhat distressed single room with no view at all, it didn’t exactly represent great value for money. It did, however, represent privacy. And as any self-respecting miserable introvert will tell you, privacy is worth whatever you can afford to pay. Another local supermarket, another couple of bottles of wine, and I was set for the night.

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Portree Harbour

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Uig at sunset

The next day I made my way to Uig. I would have dearly loved to spend more time on Skye, to visit the world-famous distillery and the even-more-famous Storr rocks, but the bus timetables were not my friend. I did swear that one day I would go back under my own steam. And indeed one day I will. My day’s journey ended at a Youth Hostel a couple of miles outside Uig. A Youth Hostel. With a dormitory. Into which I was booked. I went down to the local pub and proceeded to panic. I was set to spend the night in an enclosed room full of Other People. And their farts. I used the pub wifi to try and find a private room somewhere. Anywhere. But it was a Saturday night at the height of the summer tourist season. No dice. Enclosed room and farts it was then. Which meant I had to get drunk. Very drunk. Which I did. I could still feel myself breathing those damn farts though.

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Uig just after sunset

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Welcome to Lochmaddy

The ferry from Uig to Lochmaddy, the main port of North Uist in the Outer Hebrides proper, landed on the afternoon of Sunday 5th August. The day of the London Olympics 100m men’s sprint final. But, more importantly, a Sunday. I disembarked into a light drizzle to be met by a preacher with a broad Northern Irish accent bellowing scripture at a small and entirely middle-aged congregation on the dock-side. Not sure whether this was a frequent occurrence or a one-off some-sort-of-anniversary-of-something-or-the-other special, I tried to take a few photos, but Northern Irish accents have always enormously intimidated me, especially when coupled with religion, so in the end I just took off toward the guest house I had booked.

Sunday 5th August. Sunday. Lochmaddy had a shop. Right next to my guest house. But it was Sunday. The shop was shut. No matter. I arrived at my guest house at the time I had told the landlady. And, indeed, there she was to greet me. She was jolly and happy and very Scottish. She showed me the room, with which I was more than pleased. She explained how to use the tea and coffee making facilities and pointed out the free biscuits. She showed me the kitchen and which of the items in the fridge made up my breakfast. It turned out she didn’t live in the house. She didn’t, in fact, live anywhere near the house. And nobody else was booked to stay. I was the sole occupant of this big, isolated and more-than-slightly-spooky guest house. Damn. The local shop was closed, so no chance of wine or crisps. There were no cafes or restaurants open anywhere near the docks. I was, it would seem, buggered.

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Lochmaddy, North Uist

Lochmaddy itself was quite beautiful. Spread out along the coast, it had a bank (well, a bungalow with a Royal Bank of Scotland sign affixed to the front), a visitors’ centre (closed) and a mini-mart (closed) attached to the petrol station (closed). Thus it was that I found myself venturing inland towards the Lochmaddy Hotel. Which had a bar. That did food. And booze. It was there through a pleasant haze borne of fish, chips and beer, that I watched Usain Bolt beat the 100m Olympic record. I was happy for him. I was even happier for myself. By the time I returned through the foggy and totally silent streets of the village, I was hungry again. My breakfast called to me from the kitchen, but I had no idea where or when I would have a chance to eat the following day. And in any case, the breakfast only consisted of two slightly-stale and over-refrigerated slices of white bread, a banana and a yoghurt. Instead, seized by a stroke of drunken genius, I went from bedroom to bedroom (all thankfully unlocked) throughout the whole guesthouse eating the free biscuits that came with the tea and coffee making facilities. If you, dear reader, stayed in a guesthouse near Lochmaddy port in early August 2012 and found, much to your eternal disappointment, that the tea and coffee making facilities did not include any biscuits, then I apologise from the bottom of my wretched heart. But, damn, they tasted good.

The following day, there was but one bus to Benbecula Airport on the isle of Benbecula from whence I would travel by air to Barra beach. And it left in mid-afternoon. In the three hours between leaving the guest house and the bus departure time, there was little else to occupy me in Lochmaddy other than the (very good) visitors’ centre. Consequently, I now know more about the history of North Uist than I ever thought possible.

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Benbecula Airport

The bus journey from Lochmaddy to the airport traversed an almost alien landscape of craters, pools and barren land and ended quite anti-climatictally at a small industrial estate on the outskirts of Benbecula itself. That being the only possible bus that would connect with my flight, I found that I had three hours to kill at Benbecula airport. Now I am no stranger to long layovers. I have done 10 hours in the old Bangkok Don Muang Airport and a further eight hours at Amsterdam Schiphol at the other end of the same day without the slightest problem. Six h0urs in Heydar Aliyev International Airport, Baku? Bring it on! Even the best part of an afternoon spent staring at a dirty, tiled wall in Trivandrum Airport in India was manageable. But Benbecula? For three hours? I almost went crazy. There was a cafe. It was closed. There was a runway. It was empty. There didn’t appear to be anyone else in the entire building. Until I actually went to the gate to board the flight, when I was searched and patted down and questioned like I was wearing al Al Qaeda t-shirt and carrying a bag with a ticking alarm clock hanging from the zip. I can only assume that the security staff there were even more bored than I was.

 

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All aboard the DeHavilland Twin Otter

The flight itself was great. 20 minutes aboard a DeHavilland Twin Otter, seated right behind the pilot with great views across the Little Minch and the Sea of the Hebrides towards mainland Scotland. Barra Airport regularly features on Top 10 Airports bucket lists. It has a terminal building, with a cafe and a departure lounge. It has a baggage reclaim area (albeit a small shed attached to the side of the building). What makes it a constant presence on the bucket lists is the fact that the main runway is actually the beach. It is the only airport in the world where flight schedules are dictated by the tides. And, glued to the porthole as I was, it is a pretty fucking impressive place to land a plane. Forgive the swearing, but if you ever do this journey, you will realise just how justified it is.

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Landing at Barra airport

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Barra Airport

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Disembarking at Barra Airport

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Barra Airport luggage claim

 

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Castlebay, Barra

Unfortunately, famous beach-bound airport aside, there is not a great deal more to see or do on the island of Barra. I had two days in a B&B before my flight back off the beach to Glasgow, and spent much of it reading in bed and (surprise surprise) drinking cheap wine from the local supermarket. Cafe Kisimul is a very pleasant cafe that turns into a highly rated Italian, Indian and local seafood restaurant in the evening. However, having had lunch there, I was too late to book a table for dinner – it was sold out. There is a castle in the middle of the bay (the main town is called Castlebay – such native cunning!) which is worth an hour round boat trip and a few photographs. Failing that, it was a pretty good place to recuperate and read but nothing much more. The biggest downside, however, was that the B&B, clean, reasonable and well located as it was, nevertheless felt like staying in someone’s house. Hence my natural introvert’s reaction of 48 hours of buttocks being tightly clenched in embarrassment. Oh well.

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Loch Lomond and Conic Hill from the air

The flight back to Glasgow was even more spectacular than the flight in from Benbecula. It helped that I could clearly see parts of the West Highland Way that I had walked some 10 days previously – specifically Loch Lomond and Conic Hill; and was able to reflect on how much better I already felt than I had then. So perhaps, after all, a week spent away from the world with just myself for company was exactly what I needed. Sometimes, it’s just good to be alone, however shitty you feel. And don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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