Day 10: Ice Hotel (Sweden) –> Narvik (Norway)
Today we head west crossing over into Norway to Narvik. Unfortunately, we didn't see the northern lights last night but there is a solid chance we might still tonight. Narvik is an excellent place to view them and tends to be less busy than other more Aurora focused areas around this region.
We awake in our warm and cozy cabin, where my co-driver enjoyed a small bottle of wine after we came back from chasing the lights last night.
We head over across the road to the hotels main restaurant – for what turns out to be one of our best breakfast's of the trip.
Before packing up to head for the relatively short drive to Norway today. The hotel here lends you "snow suits" which are very handy when standing around outside taking photographs with the temperatures well below -20c.
Snow suits for the cold weather
Packing up the car in a now very practiced routine; everything has its place by this stage in the trip and it doesn't take us more than a few minutes each morning to finish.
Dropping off the snow suits at reception.
As it is such a beautiful and crisp morning, we decide to head down to the river for a walk along its frozen surface.
It is almost hard to believe that this will all be flowing water in a few months time.
It is so cool to check out the GPS location of where these shots were taken and see us not standing on solid ground. We are well away from the shoreline here.
We head back to our car, which starts much quicker and easier with the relatively mild oil temperatures of the morning – at least compared to what we've had over the past few days.
Driving past our previous hotel in Kiruna as we make our way to Narvik.
Grabbing some 98 octane fuel at the Circle K here in town.
Before heading along the same E10 road we took to capture the lights on Friday.
Its actually really scenic here and we're kind seeing it for the first time in proper daylight.
Eventually reaching the border between Sweden and Norway. Where – of course – we get stopped due to our "unusual" Irish number plate. We had a lovely friendly chat with the Norwegian border officers – where they confirmed they had never seen or heard of an Irish registered vehicle passing through this border checkpoint!
Even though they were Norwegian, they run both the Swedish and Norwegian border checks and procedures – as part of what they termed "Border co-operation policing".
It is worth remembering that we are leaving the European Union on entering Norway so this is also a customs check.
Crossing over the border into Norway
Once inside Norway, the roads became a little less "plowed" compared to Sweden, but still very well maintained. It is great to be back in familiar Norway and our first time in both a 911 and a non-EV vehicle.
It isn't a long drive after the border until we start to reach Narvik, our destination for today. We know we're near when we see the Hålogaland Bridge in the distance.
We pull into the car-park attached to our hotel – the Scandic Narvik – which is mostly closed off due to construction within the car park itself. This car park has a full Tesla supercharger site embedded inside it – and we've topped up our Taycan here in the past.
We head up to our room and notice some "free" open-space parking across the road. We're planning on heading out to try and capture the northern lights later and decide we'll park there on our return – rather than the paid car parking.
Due to the construction, it is actually difficult to exit the car park as a pedestrian (especially with luggage) and this will be much easier to load the car in the morning.
After grabbing some food at the local Peppes Pizza – we head out into the cold evening to a scenic area outside the town that we think will be good if the aurora does show.
But unfortunately, it is much too cloudy for any chance to see them and after an hour or two of waiting around in the cold for the skies to clear, we decide to head back to Narvik.
We are still very happy to have seen and captured the lights so strongly in Kiruna on Saturday night.
We park up in the space across the road from the hotel.
It is interesting to see how "non white" our Crayon car appears against the snow in this region.
Stats
| Location | Litres | €1.610 | Total € | Fuel Type | Octane |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Kiruna, Sweden | 45.24 | €1.570 | €71.03 | Circle K Miles Plus | 98 |
Today we did 195 km over 3:48 hours, with an average speed of 52 km/h, consuming 9.2 litres/100 km.
