Tag:Snow
After having only grey skies, alternating showers, and heavy rain for four days, we woke to blue skies and sunshine. On the day we were flying out of Tromso to London. How true to form.
Tromso Airport
Our flight was leaving around 1 pm. So, we organised a big cab to take all five of us plus luggage and headed to the airport. Arriving at the departure door, we were greeted by the view of the mountains around the airport, snow-capped peaks, fluffy clouds, and blue skies. Everyone grabbed their cameras and started firing off shots.
Happy at finally getting some pics that didn’t involve rain, we entered the terminal, checked our bags through to London, went through security, grabbed some lunch, and chilled till the first leg of our flight. Tromso to Oslo is just on 2 hrs. Then we had a two-hour stopover in Oslo before we were back in the air and heading for London. Followed by another two-hour flight. We were treated to a gorgeous sunset as we approached London and landed in the city’s twinkling lights.
London
I would have to say that Heathrow is the worst airport we dealt with on this trip. It took about 90 mins to get to the top of the queue to get our passports stamped at immigration control – a couple of big planes landed, and only two windows open processing people! We had hotel transfers booked, and the poor man was waiting for us forever. It was great to step out of immigration and be met by a driver who took our bags and took care of us.
For the next four nights, our’ home’ was the Glenlyn Hotel in Finchley, about 30 mins out of London by underground – but nice. Comfy, clean rooms with a lovely buffet breakfast included. The only drawback, and shock as we didn’t know till we arrived) was there was NO lift! Getting our large suitcases up two flights of narrow, steep, twisting stairs nearly killed us all the first night.
One big bucket list item was Tromso and the northern lights. Tromsø is 350 kilometres north of the Arctic Circle and is the largest city in Northern Norway. From September to March, many people come to Tromsø to see the northern lights”
Tromso
Tromso may be ‘easy’ to get to, but it’s a long way from Australia. We left Melbourne Airport at 10.30 pm on a Thursday night flying 14.5 hrs to Doha with Qatar airlines. In Doha, we had a two-hour stopover before getting back in the air for another 6.5 hrs to Oslo, which finally put us in Norway. Stop over this time for six hours.
The final leg of two hours to Tromso has us arriving totally worn out 31 hrs after leaving Melbourne. We were staying at the Viking Hotel in Tromso, a ‘budget’ hotel but still nice. The rooms were warm and clean, the reception was super helpful and friendly. We were an easy walk 10min to the port, shops, and restaurants.
We were in Tromso for four nights, with plans to take a Fjord tour and two Northern Lights hunts. The weather while we were there wasn’t great, overcast and showery, but not too cold. In fact, we were expecting it to be a lot colder. Waking up each morning, we had a view over the city rooftops to the mountains beyond. And every morning there was a little bit more snow in the mountains than the day before.
We attended a Tromso and the Northern Lights Photo Workshop on our first day with Wandering Owl. Not having photographed the lights before, we wanted to nail down the technique and settings. The workshop was good. Interesting and informative. Following the workshop, we went out for dinner and then back to the hotel for an early night. We were all still recovering from the long flight and had a Fjord tour planned for the next day.
Rain and Fjords
The weather the next morning was horrible, bordering on dreadful. Very windy, cold, and raining. Tour still went ahead, though, and we saw some fabulous countryside, including Kaa Fjord, where the German battleship Tirpitz was sunk on Nov 12, 1944, with a loss of approx 1000 german sailors. The tiny rocky ‘island’ to the right of the image was nicknamed ‘corpse rock’ by the locals after they stacked the recovered bodies there while they worked to collect all the bodies for burial. At low tide (according to the guides), you can see the outline of the Tirpitz resting in the waters below.
Leaving Kaa Fjord, we travelled on to Ersfjordbotn Fjord before stopping for lunch hot BBQ, hot dogs, marshmallows, and hot chocolate. Totally delicious though I had never thought of barbequing a hot dog before. A hardy lot, those Norwegians. We watched quite a lot of them out surfing in the rain while we ate our lunch. With water temp around 4°C, they were in full wetsuits, and even then, I reckon they’d have been cold.
During lunch, the rain got heavier and heavier. With concerns that the bridge back to Tromso could be closed, leaving us stranded, we headed back towards Tromo, stopping briefly off at a fishing village museum. A lot of the buildings were original, having been relocated to the site from elsewhere
Northern Lights
That evening we went on our first Northern Lights hunt. While the lights didn’t last long – we did see them! We photographed the lights while the guides made tea, coffee, hot chocolate with soup, and toasted marshmallows.
It was around 2 am before we finally got dropped back at our hotel and fell into bed.
Cable Cars and Snow
The next day was a ‘free’ day, so we wandered around town, visited the Arctic Cathedral, and went up the cable car. The cable car runs from Solliveien in Tromso up to the mountain ledge Storsteinen (421 m above sea level) in just four minutes. It was bitterly cold and snowing up the mountain, but we had a ball getting snowed on and taking shots of the view over Tromso.
That night we were due to do a second Northern Lights hunt – but it was cancelled due to weather. Unfortunately, as we were leaving the next day, we couldn’t reschedule it. And as is always the way when on holiday, the day we left to head to our next destination – the weather was perfect!
We flew out of Tromso around 1 pm bound for London (next post). Beautiful city to fly out of with all the fjords below us.
Footnote:
The people of Tromso are lovely – friendly and smiling. Most speak English. There are many pedestrian crossings in the city and all drivers are super aware of them and so mindful and considerate of pedestrians. Many times we would be standing at the kerb, facing the road, nowhere near a pedestrian crossing… just working out where we were going to go… and cars would stop and wait for us to cross!
It was late May, and the photography tour to the South Island, New Zealand, that I had been waiting almost a year for finally rolled around. We flew out of Melbourne via Jetstar to Queenstown, NZ.
The flight
The flight was only around half full, so we had room to spread out. We approached Queenstown in a blanket of low clouds and rain just over three hours later. The pilots must have done 100% of the approach on instruments because we didn’t see the ground until we were only about 100 feet above it. The landing was comfortable, though, and we were through customs and biosecurity and out the door within a short time. Into rain, snow-capped mountains, and cold. Very cold.
Queenstown
We quickly found a shuttle bus that drops you off at the hotels in Queenstown, and for the princely sum of $13NZ, we were shortly deposited at the door and to the warmth of our hotel for the night. Looking at the weather, we dined in the hotel restaurant that night while the rain came down outside. The following day we were up eager to be collected by our tour host Jarrod from Jarrod Castaing Photography; we flung back the curtains to greet the day.
Funny thing about rain. When you start heading up the mountain in zero degrees and get to 700-800 feet above sea level, the rain becomes snow.
Coronet Peak
After picking up everyone, we drove up to Coronet Peak. Roads were icy, the lookout under a heavy blanket of snow. We had prepared well with our thermals, windproof pants, and feather down coats, but I should have also packed a full face balaclava. The wind off the snow was icy, pretty, but icy. Driving from Coronet Peak to Lake Tekapo, we went through the usually brown plains of Lindis Pass. They also were blanketed in snow, and it was still coming down quite heavily as we drove through it.
Church Of The Good Shepherd
Arriving safely in Lake Tekapo, we drove straight to the Church Of The Good Shepherd, which was oddly deserted. -1° Celcius and heavy snow falling go figure 😉
The plan was to do a sunset shoot at the church, but as getting one looked as likely as a heatwave, we all decided to relax in our rooms until dinner time. Fast forward to the following day, and the snow had stopped overnight, and the sky was clear. So we headed back to the church around 6 am, in the pitch dark, and set up the tripods to wait for the sun.
After standing around in the cold and the dark, the image that ended up as my favourite was the one above. Taken about 5 mins before we left as the sun came up. Leaving the church, we drove to Lake Alexandrina. Gorgeous place. totally empty of tourists, shhhh, I don’t think they know about it yet 😉
Mount Cook
From Lake Alexandrina, we headed for breakfast and then off towards Mount Cook. Passing by Lake Pukaki, we stopped in for a quick shoot. Lake Pukaki is a sparkling blue lake fed by the alpine glacier lakes. Sir Peter Jackson chose this part of the Southern Alps – the main divide stretching north-south the length of New Zealand’s South Island – as the setting for ‘Lake-town’ in The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug.
Arriving at Mount Cook, we booked into the Hermitage and got ready for the planned afternoon shoot at the Hooker Valley. I had been looking forward to this part since I first signed on to the tour. But I had drastically overestimated my ability to walk 1.5hrs each way, uphill and down dale. And about 40 mins into the walk, we turned back and left the others to finish. It was mean (but rewarding) to hear later that the others also struggled with the walk, and the light was dreadful when they got there, and no one got their postcard shots.
Hooker Valley trail
The Hooker Valley trail leads to Hooker Lake. the valley is ruggedly beautiful, and I still haven’t seen the lake in real life, but I can live with that.
Wanaka Tree
The following day, the sun was out. As it rose and hit the snow-capped peaks, they turned a glorious golden yellow. Coming from a city that never sees snow, it was a sight to behold. After breakfast, we headed off again. Our destination was Lake Wanaka and that famous tree. We were scheduled to do a sunrise and sunset there. Sunset cooperated with us, but sunrise just didn’t happen. It was drizzling as we arrived for the sunrise, and heavily by the time we sought the refuge of the van.
Leaving the lake, we headed into town for breakfast and dried our coats, hats, gloves, etc., on the grate around the fire while we ate breakfast. Following breakfast, we headed towards Milford Sound, going over the Crown Range, which had been closed to traffic a few days before due to heavy snowfalls.
Milford Sound
We passed down the Crown Range road, through Queenstown and headed towards Te Anau for lunch. Then the last 2-hour leg to our final and last night destination Milford Sound. Once we left Te Anau and got closer to Milford Sound, we lost mobile reception. The last 21 kms before the tunnel is an avalanche zone, and no stopping is allowed. like so many bridges in NZ, the tunnel is single lane – one car at a time – so we stopped to shoot some pics while we waited for our turn to enter
Envisaged by early settler Henry Homer in 1890, the tunnel was eventually started during the Great Depression in 1929. Five men armed with picks and shovels hacked through to the solid bedrock of the Homer Saddle and brought in the heavy machinery to start drilling. Years later, the tunnel was complete when the workers finally emerged into the Cleddau Valley. Unfortunately, several men had died over the years from avalanches, including one avalanche proof hut in 1945.
Sunset at Milford was beautiful. and a very accommodating Egret decided to sit in the foreground for the tourists 🙂 We were staying at Milford overnight. They really have a seller’s market, being a long way from anywhere and with limited accommodation options. Our accommodation was backpacker style, at prices dearer than our plush hotel in Queenstown!
Sunrise
As the sun came up, it lit up the snow-capped mountains. Again we were there from 6 am – and sunrise was about 8 am. This shot was taken at about 8.20 am. I wasn’t moving until I got the alpine glow on the mountains!
Back To Queenstown
After breakfast, we piled our gear back into the van to head back to Queenstown, stopping along the way at Mirror Lakes and Cascade Forest.
We arrived back in Queenstown late afternoon, picked up our hire car and headed to our hotel. Had a fabulous time. I learned lots and finally have my head around histograms lol I was left wondering a few things though New Zealand is a funny country.
- why so many single-lane bridges? didn’t they think cars or horse and carts might like to pass each other? and if it dates to horse and cart…geez a couple of hundred years later and they haven’t widened them?
- Things that we buy over the counter here in Australia you need a script for in New Zealand
- For a country with more sheep than people, why are all the woolen products so expensive?
- And possums… supposedly they are vermin to be eradicated. Yet to buy anything made from possum fur – you could have bought a mink coat!
- Petrol….$2.05 a litre!!???
As an infamous redhead said, please explain, lol