SENJA at 69° NORTH

LOFOTEN’S LITTLE SISTER

ARRIVING

Senja, Norways second biggest island lies about 350km above the Polar Circle at 69° north. We arrive around 22:30, at Bardufoss airport, which suitingly is called Snowman Airport, once again a place hardly anybody knows,  just the way we like it ! To be honest I didn’t know it existed until I needed a flight to Senja. We get the car, definitely a 4WD, at the SIXT desk. Okay, that’s new, the guy stays inside and we get the car key: your car is outside, deep frozen… with the motor running and the heating at 28°, to defrost I guess. We still can’t open the hatch, so we dump everything on the back seat and head for the hotel. It is minus 18 degrees or so.

HUSØY

Welcome to the polar circle

Welcome to the polar circle

After breakfast, and scraping ice off the car for about half an hour we leave for Senja. The drive itself is already an adventure, the weather is sunny and we drive through snowy forests, past cute red cabins, see beautiful mountain peaks gleaming white against a blue and sunny sky. This is great.

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5 DAYS IN VENICE – CITY OF LOVE

But only if you are ready for at least

15’000 steps a day

Venice is an absolutely magical city. Beautiful old buildings, cultural highlights around every corner, the huge Grand Canal winding through it like a big fat snake, framed with majestic palaces, the overly richly decorated Palazzo Ducale, the Markus square, gondola floating through quiet little waterways, basilica and towers (most of them tilting slightly) around every bend of the canal, and be prepared… tons of tourists ! There are great little restaurants away from the main tourist hub, with sensational pastas and seafood dishes and for the shopping queens there are shops everywhere selling anything from Dolce&Cabana, Prada and Chanel to second hand, there’s something for every girls heart ! And if you are a photographer like we are, this city is simply heaven !

The famous Rialto bridge built in 1588

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SAILING THE SEYCHELLLES

THE FUNKY SAILORS ARE BACK ON THE BOAT !

Our katamaran anchored in Baie Ternay, Mahe

DAY 1 : The Marina

Trip starts in the Eden Island Marina.  We will be sailing a Moorings 4000 katamaran, pretty big I tell you ! The guys get the briefing, the girls go shopping. Takes about 2 hours, the guys were already slightly worried we took off with their credit cards. Got everything from the list, cost a small fortune, and just a few minor mistakes, coke zero instead of normal coke and one other bad one, will tell you later. Thank God for the guys with the golf carts who helped us get everything to the boat.

Our very BIG boat

and lots of food and drinks

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BEST OF BOTSWANA – a pangolin photo tour

CHOBE- OKAVANGO DELTA- KALAHARI

and meerkats and a helicopter

PART 1: THE CHOBE RIVER

ATTEMPTS TO TURN ME INTO A BIRDER

Around noon the plane lands in Kasane on Botswana’s northern border, Zim & Zam are mere miles away. As we approach the land below us is very green, great rivers and lots of flooded land, they must have had lots of rain here. As there are only about 30 people on the plane the arrival procedure is fast. On we go to the Pangolin Chobe Hotel, which is a famous photo hotel. Great photo pro’s there to assist and guide us, and big lenses for us to try out. Our trip is called the Best of Botswana Photo Safari, check it out here:  https://www.pangolinphoto.com/safaris/11-day-best-of-botswana-safari

The Pangolin Chobe Hotel

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CHASING AURORAS AND SUNNY MOMENTS

The ultimate Lofoten experience

A photo tour with Christian Hoiberg

Auroras or northern lights are hard to find. You preferably need to be way up north, better even to be above the polar circle, in a dark night without much light pollution, (meaning far away from everybody and everything). Then an aurora of 5+ on a scale of 10. Plus you need clear skies, which is probably the biggest problem.

Our first night here, and already an aurora

So we went to the Lofoten, way up in the north of Norway, in February. The trip was postponed twice because of covid, but when Norway opened up on Feb 12th 2022 and we were offered the  option to go on very short notice we said: yes please ! If this trip was meant to be, the good Lord could have given us a bit nicer weather though. We counted it all together, the sunny and not totally clouded times and we came to about 2 hrs in a whole week. We were told later that is pretty much the normal thing here, we were lucky. To be honest I’ve never had such lousy weather and in spite of that, such a fabulous  time !

Red cabins and cloudy skies, as always

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