What better way to experience the Northern Lights than from the seat of a snowmobile? With this as the pitch, it did not take much convincing to have me up at Midnight and ready for our next adventure.
Havila offered an excursion in which we would disembark the ship in Mehamn, meetup with our guides and then travel by snowmobile to Kjøllefjord where we would rejoin our ship. While it is not the cheapest of adventures (about $420 USD per person) it was certainly one that was worth the experience.
We began by taking a short trip from the docks in Mehamn and the comfort of our ship to the "Garage" where our hosts stored the snowmobiles for our excursion. We were then given a full snowmobile suit and assigned our machines for the ride. I will say one of the mistakes we personally made in this trip was wearing all of our own heavy winter clothing. At almost every excursion (that was going to be outside for any length of time) we were given full "snow" suits to ensure we were comfortable. Not only did we both end up very hot during some excursions, but we also found it difficult to wear their bulky snow suits overtop of our bulky snow suits and still have any real movement, lol. I felt like running around singing "Fat Man in a Little Coat" as I was so confined under all the layers. Anyway... Once we were dressed for 220 degrees below zero, we were given a quick ten minute lecture on how to drive the snowmobiles and we set off on our adventure!
The major selling point of Snowmobiling in Norway at Midnight was the hopes of seeing the Northern Lights in their full glory. Unfortunately, the night we went was slightly overcast and we did not really get to see them. To our surprise though, we had looked at the pictures from a couple that was also on the snowmobile trip and they had really nice shots of the Northern Lights way off in the distance. We learned during this trip that on faint visibility nights the lights show up far better in pictures than they do with just your eyes :( The total ride was about 2 hours with a 20 minute break in the middle for pictures and some hot beverages. The break was amazing! We just sat in the middle of nowhere with nothing as far as the eye could see - just snow and the night sky - AMAZING!
Once our break was over, we got back on our machines and worked our way towards Kjøllefjord where we would be able to reboard our ship. While we did not get to experience the Northern Lights during the ride it was still high on our "Glad We Did" list. I personally found the surreal break in such a remote and desolate area absolutely amazing - almost eerie and made the experience worth every penny!
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