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my story

Imaginary Travel – Lockdown 2020

It’s July 2020, and Covid has created havoc across the world. I live in Victoria. The leper colony of Australia. We are now in stage four lockdown with the harshest restrictions in the world. A Nighttime curfew only allowed 5km from home during the day, shops closed, masks mandatory, businesses closing, and public transport halted. The only option for a holiday is in my imagination.

Imaginary Travel - Lockdown 2020
Robe SA and Luminar 4
Photoshop and Luminar

My passport is Adobe Photoshop, and my mode of transport is Luminar 4. This time, luggage wasn’t a problem, nor was choosing what to wear. I made the entire trip in my pyjamas during lockdown 2020.

I gathered together images from previous holidays, fired up Photoshop and Luminar, settled into my desk chair with a coffee, and took off!

Arctic Circle
Polar expedition Imaginary Travel - Lockdown 2020
Polar Expedition with Photoshop

First stop was the Arctic circle – I had signed on to repatriate three lost polar bears. The boatswain took one look at my pyjamas and handed me a puffy jacket. Then, while he steered, I took photos for posterity.

Leaving the bears safely on a genetically modified ice floe (guaranteed not to melt), we jumped on a plane and headed for Cairns. Queensland. The sunshine state. No lockdown 2020 in Qld. Currently locked tighter than a chastity belt against anyone from Victoria or NSW.

Sunny Cairns
cairns qld - the sunshine state
Cairns with Luminar 4

The sun was rising as we arrived and settled in. waving goodbye to Biggles as he flew away from our cuckoo nest. We spent a pleasant and warm few hours in Cairns – then hopped a hot air balloon and headed to New Zealand.

NZ land of the long white cloud Imaginary Travel - Lockdown 2020
Lindis Pass NZ in a hot air balloon and Luminar 4

Drifting across the Tasman, we hovered over Melbourne briefly (who would want to land there!?) and watched the space shuttle take off from Princes Pier.

princes pier melbourne
Luminar four on take-off at Princes Pier
Stonehenge, UK
stonehenge UK druids
Stonehenge during the druid confluence and Luminar 4

Our hot air balloon then dropped us at Stonehenge in the UK. We had heard a confluence of druids coming in on Samhain night to attempt a ritual, to drive out the virus. Unfortunately, it was unsuccessful, so the druids headed back to Avalon to report to the lady of the lake.

We bid adieu to our balloon pilot and boarded a flight for Norway. The northern lights were illuminating the skies as we flew over the fjords.

northen lights over norway

We landed briefly to stretch our legs and had a short visit with Rudolf. He was on holiday from the North Pole – he figures Christmas is cancelled this year, so he was backpacking around Europe.

in norway with rudolf and friends
Kvaloyvagen fjord, Norway with Rudolf and friends

To be Continued.……..

Tromso to London

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.

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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. 

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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.

sunset approaching London
Flying over London
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. 

The start of those notorious stairs

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.

An English garden – at our hotel – complete with morning squirrels running along the fence
that’s something I don’t see every day
Glenlyn Hotel

Tromso and the northern lights

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, rain, go away

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.

Tirpitz resting place

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.

Ersfjordbotn Fjord
Ersfjordbotn Fjord

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

fishing huts
Red door with cross on lock to keep evil spirits out
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. 

northern lights

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.

Interesting Manhole covers in Norway
The cable car path
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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!

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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.

Flying out of Tromso
Flying out of Tromso
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! 

© Bevlea Ross