DAY 1 UK – VESTERALEN ARCHIPELAGO – AURORA BY NIGHT
Direct flight from London Gatwick to Evenes in Northern Norway. Private group transfer to Sortland for 4 nights at the Sortland Hotel with salmon wraps and hot chocolate served on your coach. Welcome drink, programme briefing & 2 course supper. Evening Aurora hunt to local Northern Lights hot spots.
DAY 2 WHALES BY DAY AURORA BY NIGHT
After breakfast in your hotel, short walk to the Hurtigruten quayside and board M.S. Whale1, a former high speed police launch, ready to sail up into the Norwegian Sea. The skipper will be looking out for Humpbacks ‘flipping’ their fan tails on the surface; sky hopping Orcas with their characteristic white markings and harbour porpoises all of which feed off the herring migrating towards the land. Concurrently white tailed eagles, Arctic Skua, Herring Gulls, Terns and Cormorants will overfly the ship. Cod, haddock, coalfish, redfish, ling, flounder and halibut are all to be found here.
Supper in Expedision, a local restaurant by the harbour, after which Aurora hunt for the Northern Lights.
DAY 3 HUSKIES BY DAY AURORA BY NIGHT
After breakfast short bus trip to Bjorn and Hilde Utsol’s mustard ochre, wooden clapboard home where in their yard they keep a small pack of cross bred Alaskan and Siberian huskies. In the Lavvu by the yard Hilde talks through mushing techniques (Bjorn is a little more reticent as befits a regular entrant to the 500km Finnmarkslopet endurance race). Fortified with some hot coffee and after mastering your traditional larchwood sled, mush in the surrounding countryside. Return to Sortland.
Evening private group transfer along the serpentine Blokken Valley strewn with boulders topped with conifers to Gladbrygga, an historic wharf by the water's edge overlooking Sortlandslusset. Gladbrygga's lap board red ochre buildings have been carefully renovated echoing the era when trawlers set off for weeks at sea returning with their catches which were filleted and packed on the quay. Here you will feast on locally reared moose, salmon, reindeer and home style cooked cloudberries while watch is kept over the sound for Northern Lights.
DAY 4 ACTIVITY CHOICE BY DAY AURORA BY NIGHT
Today is free for optional activities of your choice including down hill & cross country skiing, fishing by boat, a cruise down the Sortlandssundet, Horse trailing or a whale and seal safari by RIB.
Dinner at your hotel after which an evening Aurora hunt to local Northern Lights hot spots.
DAY 5 REINDEER & A JOIK – RETURN TO UK
After breakfast drive to Laila and Arild Inga’s home and their guest larch wood Lavvu set back up on a hillside, beneath which in a fenced area they keep young calves, ill and animals that are [in their words] a bit ‘gormy’ to feed and tend in the winter months. Lunch round an open fire whilst Laila tells of her family history, Sami culture and reindeer husbandry before rounding of with several Joiks, Sami song poems. Private transfer by bus to Evenes airport in the late afternoon for direct return flight to London Gatwick.
