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| View from the cabin |
It was a lovely -16 degrees, so I decided to take my customary snow photo in my rugby shirt, shorts and flip-flops:
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| Rugby Photo |
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| We started well with Tomas having a toboggan crash |
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| Not much luck sliding down the road |
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| But another good crash |
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| Starting up the hill |
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| Forest to the side of the road |
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| Another crash from Tom |
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| Near the top |
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| Trail-breaking |
Once we crossed we came to an area with pretty deep snow, but some trees that were set up perfectly to frame a family photo:
and Tomas gatecrashed Kris and my romantic photo:
and may as well join in:
Which then caused everyone else to join back in:
By now it was starting to get cold and dark so we headed back:
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| Weary travelers heading off into the sunset (at 3pm) |
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| Much easier to slide |
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| Mountains at the top of the hill |
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| A small cloud hovering over our cabin |
At 4pm it was quite dark and we decided to try our luck with the Lights. Kris had read the visitors book and a couple from Perth, Australia had recommended heading up the hill behind the cabin to see the lights - the hill that we'd just climbed.
This time we took the car and set up the camera.
And, on Christmas Eve, after 2 years of trying in 3 different countries, Norway finally came through for us and we saw the Northern Lights.
We didn't get an amazing show of green flashes, what we saw was mostly grey to faint green but they came out amazing on the camera. We started seeing some bands of grey with hints of green around the edges, but as the time went on the green became more developed. The photos below show a lot more green that we could see with the naked eye:
The lights slowed down after about half an hour, so we headed back down to the cabin and used the BBQ hut to cook up some sausages for dinner:
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| Starting the grill |
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| The windows were all iced up. |
Later that night, Alana noticed a thin band of grey outside the window. It was 8pm and time to race back up the hill to see if we could see more Northern Lights:
This time we could see the faint colours dancing and even a little bit of red.
Once the show slowed down we headed back to the cabin and the kids went to bed to wait for Santa.
The kids were up pretty early on the 25th ready to open their presents from Santa.
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| Waiting to open their presents and looking as awake as we felt |
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| Santa came |
We got some great shots outside the cabin once the kids were settled down with their new toys:
Kristine kept herself occupied making an odd sculpture using frozen balloons. She peeled the rubber off and then glued then together with water:
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| Sculpture |
And that night, Santa really delivered with the Northern Light Show:
(for any camera buffs out there, the photos were taken with a Cannon EOS5, manual shutter with remote control, tripod and ISO set to 800 for the first two days and 1600 for this day. Average exposure time about 25sec)
For our last full day (26th) we did some more tobogganing and then started packing:
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| Tom kept up his toboggan crashing trend |
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| Cam and I had a snowball fight |
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| Cheeky |
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| Another crash |
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| Sliding |
That night we had a very weak showing of the Lights, but got our last view:
The next day we were out early, taking the first ferry back over to the mainland and then driving into Trosmø. We had a direct flight back to Copenhagen.
Once we landed, we loaded our car and then checked out the lego store in Copenhagen for Christmas Lego. Then we headed back across the Øresund Bridge.
The Bridge has four towers in the middle - these were used as Advent candles. On our drive over there were 3 lit and on our return there were four. We didn't get a very good photo:
