Being up this far north, the landscape is quite rugged and rocky. So you can imagine our shock on our drive back through Norway we discovered a tiny adorable perfect little beach. The weather was lovely and the sun was out so we went for a little walk and the boys went for a swim too. It was the most picturesque place we saw in all of Norway, and was obviously a popular place with the locals too.
On the Sunday, my birthday, we popped over to a place on the island called Borg, where they were holding a Viking festival, complete with tons of people dressed in traditional costumes,Viking music and stories, and we even got to go on a Viking boat and row it out to sea! That was much harder than we thought, even with lots of us. The commander of the boat actually looked Viking!
So up this far north, it really doesn't get very dark at night. We are actually past the time in the year where the Sun doesn't set at all, but at the moment it is just barely below the horizon, and it still isn't very dark. In fact, it's actually really hard to sleep when the sky doesn't actually get dark. We never are usually outside at midnight in Kiruna, so we took the oppourtunity 
after our unsuccessful fishing trip and fabulous BBQ to take a drive to follow the Sun at midnight. For some reason there was a beacon off on a stretch of land that Alain and Alex wanted to explore. And they came back with a beautiful bunch of wildflowers for me and sang me Happy Birthday at midnight, it was so nice! It hasn't really felt like my birthday lately, more that the days all rush into one, it was just so nice they remembered!
As we began to get hungry, we decided to try and find a perfect spot for fishing and a BBQ - after all we had just spent a fortune on food in Norway. We drove around for quite some time, untill we found a little school, which, apart from being run down, was the perfect spot, it 
had its own fire pit AND access to the water, and it was (we hoped) public land. At least there was noone about if it wasn't. And best of all, there was a ship playground! Which was awesome! And so we set up the barbeques, and attempted the Norwegian instructions, and then I attempted to BBQ. The only reason for this was because the boys decided to try and fish, and this apparently resulted 
in them needing to get INTO the water. It was ok, I only dropped Nadeem's food five times into the ash (he still ate it!) And we had a great time trying to convince Alex not to steal the neighbour's boat. In all, it was a really nice evening, especially because it was still light at 11pm, which unless you have experienced it, is just plain strange and messes with your head!
Having arranged a cabin for extremely cheap (only 800 NOK) before we left Sortland, I was a b it anxious about what I should expect. And it was LOVELY! The whole thing was pine, wall to wall, and had several bedrooms, a massive lounge and kitchen area, and thankfully a bathroom. And it was in possibly the prettiest place we had seen so far. Totally deserted, apart from the other cabins there, and right across the road from a beautiful lake. After moving in, I took some photos before we went out so the boys could try their hand at fishing :/
We got into Svolvear quite late in the afternoon, and as per Swedish tradition, everything was shut. Apart from a market stall with a little Swedish lady selling Reindeer pellets for uber cheap and the supermarket. Alain fell in love with the Reindeer and Alex with the shrimp at extremely low prices at the supermarket. The shrimp was the only thing cheap we ever found in Norway, this sign lies!
After the Ferry delay, we were keen to make it on our way and set off for Svolvear, the next biggest town on the island, hoping to do some sighseeing, and maybe find some food before driving down to our cabin. We stopped about every 20 minutes on this leg of the journey, everything was beautiful here. The mountains appeared much bigger here and the weather was fabulous.
As we drove down to our cabin, we needed to take a ferry from a place called to Melbu to Fiskebol on the Lofoten Island. When we arrived, we queued up to get onto the ferry only to find that we couldn't make it on the 2pm ferry 
(we missed it by one car!) so we had an hour to explore the cute little town of Melbu. The boys managed to pick up some cheap fishing equipment too, even though the salesman must have thought them crazy tourists!
are really beautiful. All the roads along the way were along the Fjords, all winding and up and down the mountains. From time to time we found little harbourside villages, and we went out and climbed along the rocks. There was only one single road the entire way, and we had a iPod system so we were able to jam along to tunes the entire way. I may have bad music taste, but at least I enjoyed it!
Late Friday we arrived in Sortland after looooots of driving. We made it to our little blue youth hostel and all stayed up playing Norwegian Trivial Pursuit!
After crashing for the night, the next morning we went out to explore the town and the harbour. We went out for breakfast at our faourite store COOP and then we decided to split into 2 groups, one to go home and the other to continue on over to the Lofoten Islands. We organised a cabin for the night and set off.
After we crossed the border into Norway, the scenery was absolutely gorgeous. About 20 
minutes after the border we came across a MASSIVE troll at a service stop. He's huge! So of course we took our photo with him. The weather was a little cloudy, but we were still able to stop lots and take in the scenery, especially this cool bridge near Narvik.
On Friday we rented two cars and 10 of us piled in and set off for Norway for the weekend. The aim was to get to Sortland in Norway for the evening and decide where to go from there.
It was a long drive so we stopped lots along the way. We had heard of the famous Gate to Lappland, located before the Swedish-Norwegian border, defined by really sharp mountains. It's very famous around here.We then drove through Obisko National Park,a lovely place for hiking and walking. It was really beautiful.
