PAULA IN NORWAY

GUEST TRAVELLER

SEARCH FOR THE NORTHERN LIGHTS

PAULA`S SEARCH FOR THE NORTHERN LIGHTS

Bairdstravel would like to thank Paula for letting us see her travel log from Norway .Paula is a fellow member of the great Travbuddy community.

PAULA DIARY FROM NORWAY

Just like not knowing what to expect with the daylight, I had no idea what to expect with the Northern Lights.

snowball fight!

All I could see was something that looked like a wispy bit of cloud that wasn't green, which I found rather confusing - as all the pictures I have seen of the Aurora they are green. Kjetil explained that it's because our eyes are constantly focusing and adjusting to the light so unless the lights are really bright you can't really tell what colour they are, however when you photo them you use a long exposure time therefore capturing their true colour. Kjetil is a professional photographer so he helped us set up our cameras and lent us tripods and then it was just a case of look up at the sky in amazement and keep pressing the button on the camera! It didn't take long for us to start getting cold, so in addition to everything we were already on, we put on a thermal boiler suit as well.

snowball fight!

.. by this point we made the Michelin Man look skinny!

The lights started off really dim, but then within 15 minutes they were really bright and really moving. There was a distinct arc across the sky from which the 'curtains' split off. We stayed at the first place for about 2 hours before moving off to another location so we could get some photos with different landscapes.

The lights stayed really bright and active until about 11pm when they started to dim down. Kjetil said that we were not going to leave though as they would come back and possibly be even better. Jude and I decided that this would be a good time to start playing in the snow (thus providing entertainment for everyone else!) We climbed to the top of a snow mound and slid down.

.. threw snowballs, made snow angels, lay down in the snow and watched shooting stars, and generally had fun! It worked though, by the time we had knackered ourselves out the lights had reappeared and were possibly better than before though in a completely different way. This time the arc across the sky was staggerigly bright and started splitting off into 3 - 4 curtains.

There literally are not words to describe how stunning it is... all I can do is suggest that you go and see them yourself (if you haven't already done so) because they are just amazing.

6.5 hours, -8°C, 140 photos and one lifetime dream later we packed up and left to go back to our hotels. The only problem I have now is deciding how many photos to publish on here...

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