Category: travel

Advent Day 16 and we’re going Ferrol

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December 16, 2024

10:08 pm

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Hello everyone,

Still in the struggle but seeing what we can do to work through it … What’s behind door 16 ?

Picture. We're looking at the advent scene with the collection of models scattered throughout. The addition today is a mostly white spaceship shaped in a diamond shape. There are windows in front, we can't see the engines at the back.

Yep. Still in that state of exhaustion, although I think I did actually get some sleep last night. Soreness is still in there though, looking forwards to the winter break.

Ferrol ? Time for more cruise …

Friday saw us docked up in Al Ferrol, on the Northern coast of Spain. I might have to bang out fairly quickly and do simpler alt-text because my right arm is not particularly happy with me today.

Picture. We're looking out over a port and in the distance, low buildings of a coastal city. More ships are in the background. The sea part of the harbour is to the right of picture. The sky is cloudy.

Very pleasant chill city. One thing I did notice there were the wind turbines … and there was a lot more of that on the way out of the city. It’s missing on the alt text but there are is a big array of very long blades, all stacked up with each other. Beside those, are the box sections of the actual generators and there are what I think are the bits that link the generators to the blades. There were huge stacks of these all around the port, as well as that not so little collection there.

To the port ! I had a little wander but didn’t really know what I was seeing but … I was drawn inevitably to their naval museum.

Picture. We're looking out over a stone paved courtyard with buildings to the left. In the centre of the courtyard to the left is a big ship's propeller. In the distance is the various levels of a ship's mast, covered with protrusions and aerials and antennas, with a big plate of a radar in the middle.

Complete with scalped aircraft carrier. Not something you see every day. If you’re in the area, I’d thoroughly recommend going to see the Naval Museum there. It starts through the Spanish Navy ships in the age of sail, goes through the early 20th century warships and goes right through to a model of their latest destroyer.

Picture. We're looking at a model of a navy ship in a glass display case. The ship is grey, with a black stripe at the waterline and red below. The bow is to the right and going backwards, there is a naval gun, missile silo, then the Bridge with the main sensors and radios mast behind. Aft of that are engine exhausts and a flat flight deck is at the back.

The pennant number in the middle there is F105 and tells us that this is a model of the Spanish Navy ship Cristóbal Colón. More at the wiki. She was commissioned in 2012. Part of me automatically critiques the design of these ships (see various comments ref ship nerd) but it looks like that ship could do a seriously good job as part of a fleet. Good to see these on our side.

Picture. We're looking at a couple of older navy ships in display cases. The one nearest has a black upper hull below cream superstructure. There are 3 funnels, 2 masts and a gun up front in a round white turret.

Oops. Lost a bit there as I was rudely interrupted by needing to log in again. Not sure why Bluehost is doing that every two days at the moment. I should probably log in around lunchtime sometime so the timer is set different.

Anyway ! Two early century navy ships, where the engines were taking up quite a bit of the ship and they were limited to just a small number of not too effective guns.

Picture. We're looking down an alleyway between two sets of two story buildings. Large ship anchors are stood up on each side.

They must have done well though, look at all the trophy anchors in the collection ! This was also the port that serenaded us on the way out with the bagpipe band. That was a lovely way to prepare for the day’s sailaway from a pretty coastal city.

Picture. We're looking out over fairly calm but rippled water towards a hill, where buildings of the city are there on a couple of levels. It looks like the buildings are climbing upwards to the right and then curling round to the left.

Good to see all that greenery in there around the buildings. This sailaway saw me starting to watch on the Promenade deck …

Picture. We're looking out over water that is just being disturbed by the wake of a pilot boat showing us the way to the open sea. The sun is up in the top left and is reflecting off the water. There is a narrow gap between far hills on the left and closer hills to the right.

We were heading off down that channel there. Here’s our pilot boat.

Picture. We're looking out over the water again, towards the gap to the sea over on the left with hills on the right. There is a little boat in the centre, leading the way out to sea for us. Their wake is making waves in the water.

Must have been pushing it a bit with the wake that they’re generating there.

Picture. We're looking back down the channel of sea that we came down. The surface of the water is disturbed by our wake. We can see a narrow break between hills to the left and right. Beyond the break, we can just see the cranes and buildings of the city.

This is where I found myself up on the Foredeck part of the ship (wasn’t open much) and as the ship turned, we had a chance to see back the way we’d come. Good place to be, nice and chill which was what I was needing at that point.

Oh ! This was where I was attempting to get pictures of a cooperative flag as well :-D. This is about as good as it got …

Picture. We're looking out over the back of the ship, with sun loungers arranged on the deck. At the back of the ship, there is a flagpole flying a flag which is 3 quarters red, with a white cross. In the upper left is the blue and yellow emblem of the Fred Olsen line.

That’ll do :-).

Time to hit post though and ration out what remains of my typing time. Have a good evening everyone, see you tomorrow.

Advent day 14 and I have left it late for a port visit

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December 14, 2024

11:51 pm

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Hello everyone,

I may have got a bit distracted by doing some more Euro Truck Sim 2 and left it a little late :-D. What’s behind door number 14 ?

Picture. We're looking at our advent collection, with the dwagon on the right. The new model is a small square grey fighter craft with short wings at the back.

Apparently the latest one is a Mandalorian Fighter spaceship. See earlier comments about not having seen any of the latest Star Wars output on the telly :-D. I’ve been missing a few other things as well, like the various new Star Trek (to be honest I was put off that a little by Picard season 1) and I’d like to see For All Mankind at some point.

Port visit ?

Thursday saw us come in to …

Picture. We're looking at a sign, with Gijon written in a fancy script in red letters, held up by a rectangular red frame. In the background is a marina with calm water and an array of boats.

Gijon ! This was about the point where I was starting to call the trip Dwagon On Tour and I picked up from ideas from not quite sure where else to sneak the little fellow into pictures wherever I could.

Slightly awkward start because there was unexpected traffic slowing down the buses that were taking us from the ship to the city centre (some ports don’t allow people to wander around in them) but it was really good getting ashore for a wander after being a bit wobbly during the Bay of Biscay crossing the day before.

First order of business was to find somewhere with a good vantage point. Gijon is built on the north coast of Spain, so because the world is how it is, it has coastal fortifications to defend it. Definite wake up call for my level of unfitness to leg it up to the top of that hill :-D. But I did get my first good picture of the outsides of Borealis.

Picture. We're looking out over a slightly choppy watered stretch of water towards the port on the other side. Our white upper, blue lower ship is visible behind the port buildings. There is a hill behind, with sphere buildings dotted around at the top.

Wonder what those spheres were on top of the hill.

Picture. It's a bit of a grey day but we can clearly see a castle gatehouse style building opposite with sandy coloured brick. Two large square towers flank a 5 arched gateway below a 2 storey building joining the towers. To the right, a statue of a fellow holding up a cross. Far right, a modern grey tower building with blue windows. There is a road in front of us.

This saw our first taste of the architecture style as well, with those old castle style roofed buildings there in the older style, with the modern look creeping in there to the right too. And a statued person giving a greeting. I think that’s a greeting.

Also the England in New Zealand test match cricket just swapped over to England batting and I’m struggling to shift my “yay he’s out!” over to “yay our guy just hit a boundary”.

Picture. We're looking at buildings in an L forming two sides of a paved square. There are arches below and two storeys of windows above. The arches are sandy, the buildings above are red.
You could have a game of cricket in that space

They do like their open areas with the pedestrians well isolated from the traffic. Possibly because the Spanish drivers didn’t seem too averse to adding a little blood red to their car paint, although I don’t think they’re quite as bad as Bristol drivers who will back up to make sure after running you over.

I like my city, honest. (No I don’t 😀 )

I was still feeling a little delicate so I didn’t stay out that long but it was good finding the marina again after having a little walk through the city shopping area.

Picture. We're looking out over a very crowded marina at all of the boats. Motorboats are closer, with a large cluster of masts at the back and left. In front, a sea wall with the red dwagon on it.

There we go. Little Red Dwagon enjoying me enjoying see all the boats. It was a good city for boats. And it was a lot more sheltered in that marina than it was outside …

Picture. We're looking out over the area of the city where it meets the sea. Tall buildings are crammed in beyond a short dark wall holding the sea back. We can see white waves battering the wall.

Bit wild and I wouldn’t have been wanting to be leaning over that wall without a raincoat :-D.

I also hadn’t eaten anything for almost all of the day before so it was good to get back on board for a bit to eat. I hadn’t been actually sick with my sea sickness, just wanting to completely avoid food so that I could stay fairly horizontal and eating isn’t exactly compatible with that.

Back to the port ? It would have been good to explore for a little bit longer but …

Picture. It's dark night time and we're looking out over the water towards the bright white lights of the port. Alongside, we can see a red tanker being loaded by a yellow crane.

Back to the ship and preparing for a night time departure. And incidentally, a first really good chance to play with my new 50mm large aperture lens … the one I bought for looking at stars, where it’s been continual cloud since !

Picture. It's dark, we're looking out over the water towards the port. However close in there is a long breakwater made of stone and brick.

It was doing super well at picking out the detail too. I could barely see any of that breakwater there with Mk1 Eyeball.

(looks at time) I better hit post ! More tomorrow.

Have a lovely day everyone.

Advent day 11 and we’re shipping

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December 11, 2024

10:37 pm

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Hello everyone, door number 11 ?

Picture. It's our advent scene, with the models scattered behind a grey and red ship on top of a dice. The ship is in the shape of a double triangle wedge with a tower at the back. Our red dwagon is to the left.

Today’s model on top of the d20 there is a Venator class Star Destroyer. It’s the ship that made a debut in the Episode 2 movie, Attack of the Clones and it was the precursor ship for the iconic Imperial Star Destroyers from the original movies. The basic shape is of a triangular wedge, with further triangular sections at the back before the engines come in. The actual ship has two control towers, although the tiny model can only add one.

It’s a pretty good shape for a space battleship, as having the triangle like that means that all of the guns on the sides can be pointed forwards for lots of firepower. The Venator’s thing was to be a fighter carrier as well, so that red stripe in the middle covers a huge hangar.

With today’s model being a big ship, I thought I’d go back to the cruise :-). And bring out the ship pictures ! I saw a few on the cruise this year and some last year too, from grey ships to cargo ships to ferries and cruise ships. First up …

Picture. We're in a port terminal, in the foreground is a pair of escalators and our little red dwagon perched on a dividing wall. In the distance, the blue and white with red funnels cruise ship Borealis.

Yep, gotta be Borealis. This was from the final port, where we stopped in at Lisbon and another moment spotting a place where I could set up a good picture. I like this one (Although Ellardy could have done with more light there ! Maybe need to grab a friend with a torch next time)

Picture. We're looking across a grassy area of the port towards a huge cruise ship. She's somewhat white but with the sides broken up by an absolute wall of glass cabin windows.

Sharing the port with us was the big P&O cruise ship Iona. Whereas Borealis is 231m long and 65,000 tonne, Iona is 344m long and 184,000 tonnes. That’s a similar step up to the difference between Borealis and last year’s ship, MS Maud at 136m long and 16,000 tonnes. Maud (now Midnatsol again) is a small and very cozy ship where you could happily wander through the decks and chill out. Borealis is a bit bigger again and it was still lovely to wander through her decks and go outside on the Promenade areas and generally chill out either inside or outside. And we were looked after very well by excellent crews on both ships.

Would Iona be a similar experience ? I’ll just have to check that out at a later date :-D. One thing I want to try and avoid is being on a party boat and Iona is listed on the P&O site as being Family Friendly. Could be a bit too young a catchment. Will have to do more research ahead of the next cruise. I’d happily go on Hurtigruten (either ferry or Expedition) and Fred Olsen’s ships again but I’m wanting to go to varied places and see what it’s like on the various ships. (That’s a couple of recommendations by the way!)

Going back a year …

Picture. We're looking across open water towards a ship encased in a dock. They're working on her with assorted bits of scaffolding and cranes. The ship is large and grey, can't make out much except for an A530 on the stern.

That’s HNoMS Maud, taken from cruise ship MS Maud. She’s a fleet tanker in the Norwegian Navy auxiliary fleet and is very similar to Britain’s Tide class tankers. It was a fun spot seeing that ship from across the harbour in Stavanger. You can pick up exactly what ship this one is by that A530 on the stern, that’s the pennant number. Like …

Picture. It's night and we're looking at the side of a grey military ship. The front is to the left and a little back from there is a squared off block with the masts on top. Behind here is a long flat deck going perhaps three quarters of the length. We can see lights reflecting off the rippled sea water.

That’s the US Navy ship USS Oak Hill, you can just about pick out the pennant number on the front there. She’s LSD-51, a landing ship dock where landing craft (holding troops and tanks and trucks) go into an open area at the back of the ship. We have some of these as well, similar ships called the Bay Class LSDA (Landing Ship Dock Auxiliary). Oak Hill docked up a little bit of time after we did and was still there when we sailed away.

It was fun seeing the smaller ships around as well. In Norway, the ports would typically have a collection of offshore support vessels looking to supply the oil rigs. They weren’t in Spain and Portugal but we did see …

Picture. We're looking across a harbour towards a blue ship with a thick white band down the middle. She has a tall superstructure up front, with a low more open area aft with a single funnel and multiple cranes.

That’s the research ship Odon de Buen (name’s up front). Definitely wondering what that ship would be up to. I think she’s either running underwater vehicles on tethers for survey work or could have been doing seabed cable laying. Maybe she’s looking for oil to open up a new gold rush for Portugal or Spain.

Picture. We're looking at a navy war ship that's behind a train car with metal rails on it.

That’s the Portugese frigate F333 NRP Bartolomeu Dias, which started out life as HNLMS Van Nes in the Dutch Navy before being sold to Portugal. That’s about the best angle I could get there, although I could have maybe gone to the top of the nearby bridge … maybe next time :-D.

I think I need to hit the lifeboat in search of snacks soon, a couple more ?

Picture. we're looking down at a small boat around 15m long, speeding through the water with a wake from the front and the engines. The boat is black hulled, with a green deck. The wheelhouse is white with "Pilotos" in white text on dark blue. The roof is light red with masts on top. There is a man in dark trousers and red jacket on the back part of the deck.

Can’t forget the pilots. The big ships wouldn’t get into port without incident as regularly as they do without the Pilots and the Tugboats to help them in and out again without bumping into things.

Picture. We're looking out over a marina in the harbour. Up close, our little red dwagon on a wall. Behind in the water, there are several masted sailing ships moored up.

Time to grab an excuse to mention someone 🙂 I have a Curlylocksgamer stream on in the background for the desktop and am enjoying listening in to chill pirate vibes as she’s playing Sea Of Thieves. I’ve met Curly twice at the two Creator North meet ups, she’s fun, good to watch. Struggles with disability issues though, so it’s been wonderful to see her being able to have fun with us on the streams again lately. Lovely lady.

Picture. It's dark, we're looking across a port towards vehicles and containers and lorries on the dockside beside a moored ferry. The ferry is blue below the main deck and white above. The word Condor is on the side. We can see the city lights in the background.

That’s the smaller of the two ferries that was in Portsmouth when we got back home, the bigger one is off to the left of picture. The other one was a Brittany Ferries roll on roll off ship. And on the other side …

Picture. It's night time again and we're looking out over calm water at a couple of grey navy ships. The one in front is another with superstructure at the back and a low open area forwards. Behind we can just about see another grey ship. The calm water is reflecting the ships.

We could see into the Navy Yard over there … with Wave Knight (another older fleet tanker) in front of one of the Type 45 Destroyers (dunno which one) behind getting some work done. Always good to see the ships.

Time to hit post I think, it’s been fun doing the cruise posts a little bit differently to last year. I’ll talk about the ports at some point as well :-D.

Advent day 8 and a sail away

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December 8, 2024

10:55 pm

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Hello everyone, what’s behind door number 8 ?

Picture. We're looking at our advent scene, with the addition of a brown vehicle with a pair of orange sails.

Sail barge today, from Return of the Jedi. I have to admit to a bit of an oops I’m late because I opened up Little Big Workshop again yesterday and yep, that’s where my weekend went. It’s a good little game :-).

I’m a little short on ideas, which could be part of “just came out of game” brain :-D. How about some sail aways to go with the sail barge ? One thing I noticed about Borealis was how smooth she was when getting moving. There was barely any sign that we were on the way. I’d look towards shore and see that we were on the way.

Picture. We're looking out over the water, towards a series of thin towers or cranes on the horizon. The water is dark and rippled by the wind. Upper left, we have the sun, with the reflection on the water. The sky is blue with some thin clouds.

Let’s start with the first day. We actually sailed at night but were treated to a lovely sunset over Southampton before we all got moving.

Picture. It's very dark, we can just see water in the lower part, with sky up above. In the centre, we see cranes and tall buildings brilliantly lit by various colour, mostly white, lights. There is the beam of a searchlight in the centre.

Thursday saw us visiting Gijon, with another night time exit and me playing with the new 50mm large aperture lens I acquired before the cruise. It was doing really well picking up lots of detail out of the darkness there. We couldn’t see very much with Mk1 Eyeball (well used, bit down on new performance), so the camera was bringing out a lot more. I was amusing myself at some points by attempting to capture the beam of light houses.

Picture. We're looking downwards towards a small group of pipers on the dockside. One is hidden but there are 5 pipers and drummers in black and white outfits visible (plus one hidden) being led by a lady in a mostly black dress outfit with red trim.

Some sailaways have a bit of a difference too, like at Ferrol where we were treated to bagpipe music from the locals. That’s one thing about cruises, the local people are usually quite happy with the tourists coming through. Definitely enjoyed listening in to the pipers.

Picture. We're looking out to sea over the foredeck of the ship. We can see a couple of benches right up forward before the bowsprit mast. To the right, the breakwater extends in front of us with a selection of cranes. The sea is a little rippled, there is a small sailboat ahead. It's day time and the sky is mostly hidden in cloud.

Saturday saw us visiting Porto, with me finding the outside observation area on Deck 6 for this port exit. Good view.

Picture. It's dark. We're looking out over a slightly rippled sea. Centre stage, we see another cruise ship sailing away. She is wonderfully lit over all areas, with a row of lights going over the masts from bow to stern. We see her from the side, she's heading left. The lights reflect off the sea.

Monday had us visiting Malaga on the southern coast of Spain. I think this one was taken from the inside of the ship (there are window reflections) but there were some lovely lights at play with the night time sail away this time. Another pretty cruise ship there, sailing away first before our departure.

Picture. It's dark again, we're looking out over the rippled surface of the sea towards a long, low container ship. She has a flat deck and a tall wheelhouse aft. The deck is being loaded with assorted containers by a lit up crane to the left. Orange and which lights reflect off the water.

Not as pretty a ship but I’m really happy I captured all the pretty lights like that. Ships like this are the workhorses of the world, they get our stuff from where it’s made to where the trucks can take over and deliver it to our doors (or shops, I prefer shops).

Picture. We're looking out over the water towards the outer areas of Cadiz, just visible on the horizon there. The sea is calm but rippled again, with traces of blue sky interrupted by thin white clouds over the central area of the sky.

This is us heading away from Tuesday’s port, Cadiz. One thing about the sailaways is the feeling as you’re heading away. I’ll be outside in the open decks areas and we were blessed with sunny, clear, calm conditions on all of the port exit days. The open sea air is lovely to bask in plus … that view.

Picture. We're looking towards a city on a hill. The buildings give that clean meditteranean architecture feel. We can see a large building to the right with a domed turret which is catching and reflecting the sun.

Last couple for today. This is Lisbon, brilliantly lit by the evening sun on our way out of the city.

Lisbon was a particularly pretty sail away, with us heading under one of the large bridges there and seeing features like a few sea castles on the way out. The local sailors are usually out as well and the sailboats kept us company for a while.

Picture. We're looking out over the sea again towards a round castle in the middle of the sea with a small tower poking up above. There are rocks surrounding the castle and a small white sailed boat is in front.

Sea castle ! And a little sailboat there as well. I think this was the day when I was watching some very feisty clouds occasionally berating the sea with thunder and lightning.

I think it’s the sense of “where to next ?” with the sailaways as well. I think they’re magic and it’s one reason I went back to doing a cruise again this year. Wonder what it would be like on a river cruise ?

Will have to see where I go next year. But before I lose myself in checking out offers, I need to do my chapter and a bit tonight … Still in Aftershocks by Marko Kloos, I’ll finish that tonight and wonder how the author will develop the story in the next one.

Nite all, have a lovely rest of evening and a good day tomorrow.

Advent Day 6 Y Wing when you can ship ?

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December 6, 2024

9:20 pm

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,

Hello everyone,

What’s behind door number 6 ?

Picture. Our advent collection is growing, it's the snow scene again, with the red dwagon to the left. The Tie Fighter is in front of the dwagon and the XWing is centre right. The droid and Leia are at the back and the walker is heading off to the right. Centre front is a white with yellow highlights space fighter with two long engines flanking a pilots area.

Today’s little model is an Alliance Y Wing. It’s a fighter bomber ship, not too good at either role :-D. But still a mainstay of the fighter fleet. Am I doing better than yesterday ? Maybe a bit. I should be better after a quiet weekend hiding from the storm that’s going to come through tonight.

Is now a good time to talk about ships ? Let’s go.

Picture. We're looking into a ship cabin. In front is a wooden topped table with our little red dwagon sitting on top looking at us. Behind are a pair of single beds, light green below and white blankets on top. At the back is a square porthole looking ashore flanked by striped curtains.

Let’s start with the cabin, I had a single grade cabin although as you can see there it is made up with two single beds there. Cozy ! And excellently turned out by the lovely MT who was looking after my cabin. To the left was a desk top with UK and Euro plug sockets. I also had a kettle and mugs in there, a couple of chairs, plenty of cupboard space, a fridge, safe and a shower bathroom behind the shot there. Really good place to disappear in to for the almost fortnight. (Excuse the untidiness I’m adding in there with my coat)

Time for a wander …

Picture. It's dark out, with the side of the ship being defined by a guard rail to the left. To the right is a row of portholes and doors, with that being the inside of the ship. We're looking straight ahead down a well lit external deck, disappearing into the distance.

My cabin was on deck 2, quite low down. Heading up a deck we had the Promenade deck. Borealis is 231m long, with the outer part of the Promenade deck covering most of that length of the ship and allowing you to walk (or some were running it) all the way around, outside of a little area that goes up to the Foredeck. There were some unlit parts of the Promenade deck as well which were my go to place for looking at the stars.

Picture. We're looking out over an exposed front end of the ship. There is a guardrail showing the extent of where we could go, with a small mast at the pointy end up front. Above, we see a little bit of blue sky with lots of wispy white cloud.

There we are, I didn’t get the chance to go up to the Foredeck much, it wasn’t open much over the fortnight. (Bit exposed there) That’s from when we were departing from Ferrol on the Friday, I’ve been timeskipping a little bit over the pictures.

Picture. We're looking at a very ornate column with a statue on top. The column has three clocks arranged vertically. Behind is a staircase curling around. Lots of wood, very polished, very well lit.

Heading up a deck and 4 and 5 decks were the main decks. That big statue and clock there was from the main atrium pretty much at the centre of the ship. Up front, we had the Neptune Lounge which was a big theatre hall place where the shows would take place. Back aft was the main restaurant, split over two decks. In the middle, mainly on 5 deck, were boutiques, ship shop (very ship shape), bar lounge and a few cozy places like the Bookmark cafe which became a go to chill out for a while place.

Picture. We're looking down at a coffee table, which has a mug of hot chocolate to the right, a huge piece of swiss roll cake to the left and a hungry looking little red dwagon hungrily looking at the cake.

They had cake.

I didn’t spend too much time on 6 and 7 deck, as these were mostly more decks for cabins, with 7 deck being where the Bridge of the ship was. 6 Deck was called the Highland deck and had a little observation area up front, where I found myself sitting for a while a few times. Nice peaceful spot, although it was a bit exposed with the wind.

Have I got something of 8 deck ?

Picture. We're looking down from above into a swimming pool area. The pool is in the centre of the deck, with deck chairs surrounding it on three sides. The pool is lit up in light green, with blue purple spots illuminating a bar area to the left.

There we are. 8 Deck was the Lido deck, with the pool there in the middle. This was one of the casual restaurant and bar areas, with the buffet restaurant where I’d have breakfast and two other bars sharing this deck. The Lido deck had gorgeous fish and chips. We could look out the back of the ship here from The View bar …

Picture. Our little red dwagon has found the ideal spot to watch a sunset. They were perched on a sunbed, with the rail of the ship behind them. Behind that is the sea, with the orange looking sky dominated by the setting sun.

There were beautiful sunsets and wonderful views out to sea. 9 Deck was almost completely open, with a little bar area up front. My favourite way of going to and from the main dining room was to go outside up to 9 Deck and then walk aft and go down from there. (There was a crew only area that blocked off the direct route on 4 Deck).

Picture. We're outside the ship, looking towards the front bit. Ahead of us is a light colour wooden deck. Left is the guard rail. To the right is a white painted cover. Ahead of the ship, angry looking cloud about to cover the sun up above.

That’s another view from 9 Deck, this time with the Lido Deck roof closed up. This is from the first Wednesday with a taste of what was to come there with the cloud … We were headed in to that, it was a bit rough :-D.

So there we are ! That was a little tour through Borealis. She’s a 231m long 65,000 tonne ship. Beautifully turned out, with a superb crew who looked after us fantastically well and made this a wonderful place to be for the 11 days of the cruise.

Time to sign off now … Tashnarr is streaming again ! Need to pay attention :-). Have a lovely evening everyone.

Back from cruise, advent day 1 !

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December 1, 2024

9:07 pm

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Hello everyone,

It’s been a while again, I did mostly intend to do some posts while I was at sea but it didn’t quite work out that way. A lot of that is down to where my own headspace was (it’s improved now) when I disappeared. Some of it down to enjoying the cruise as well. Sometimes you really do need that time away from the world to get centred again and do a little reset.

Advent ? Here we are :

Picture. We're looking at the top of a box, with a snowscene. There are numbered doors on the box, it's an advent calendar. A small grey space fighter is lower left, being looked at by a red plush dwagon.

There we are, I’ll hopefully find something suitable for you every day. Like I’m not going to drop 12 days of cruise all at once :-D. Little X Wing there for day 1, with little Ellardy there for scale. The cruise turned into a bit of a Dwagon On Tour with the pictures. The little fella wasn’t in all of the pictures but was definitely in a lot of them. Let’s see …

Picture. We're on the outside deck of a ship, looking at the little red dwagon looking at us. It's night time and in the distance behind, disappearing into blur, is the rail defining the edge of the deck and the blurry lights of the city we are departing.

This time around, it was the Mystery Cruise with Fred Olsen, going from Southampton to Portsmouth and 6 ports in between. We’d find out where we were docking up when we arrived (although there were niceties with international shipping conventions that meant we could find out early). There was much speculation as to where we were going … Some thought we might head East to south Scandinavia (my theory). Others were looking south.

We headed south in the end, although that did lead to a couple of uncomfortable crossings of the Bay of Biscay. It’s not a forgiving place for shipping :-D. So I spent the first day and a bit being quite uncomfortable from a combination of not having my sea legs and my own metabolism and psychology ganging up on me. (I unconsciously don’t do a number 2 unless I trust the place and it takes a couple of days to get that unconscious trust – it’s silly and I don’t know why it’s in my head!)

Picture. Our little red dwagon is perched on top of a pole, looking off to the right. In the background, our huge cruise ship is docked up alongside. She is blue at the base, with a thin red line separating upper decks in white. There are red funnels on top and yellow lifeboats half way up.

That’s us in our second port of Ferrol in Northern Spain. This’ll be a quicker kinda intro overview for the cruise. I’ll go into each port separately in later ports.

The whole thing about cruising is that the ship will go from port to port, where you’ll see new things at each place. And then you can retreat back and be extremely well looked after when you’re back on board. And we were very well looked after by Fred’s people.

There’s a certain etiquette that each cruise line will go by. Hurtigruten were very casual. Fred’s ship was a bit more formal than that but still somewhere you could happily relax as a casual person that doesn’t really do formal stuff. Other cruise lines are more formal, like I won’t include Cunard on my samplings of the different cruise lines because I think they’re Too formal.

I have to admit that I was rethinking my life choices on the first Wednesday, when I had the bloating and the sea sickness from crossing the Bay of Biscay. But managed to reset my head (and body) during the first port visit on the Thursday.

So – cruise as a whole : really enjoyed it. Wanting to go back on a cruise as soon as I can get away with it. Probably not with Fred’s people just yet … however I would happily recommend them to people looking at a good company to go on any holiday with. (I’m just wanting to sample everyone’s offers but there is a tempting August 2026 solar eclipse cruise …)

The excellent customer service started when preparing for the cruise, I think I commented before that it was making me happy seeing the details steadily come in through the post. And that continued on board with my cabin being looked after by the lovely MT (hello MT !) and our dining table in the main restaurant was being looked after by a chap from India who, true to form for me, was a lovely guy and super polite. They’d be asking me about what I was seeing and I think they were being as invested in the adventures of the Little Red Dwagon as everyone else who was seeing me suddenly bounce off somewhere to set up a picture.

It was a genuinely fun time.

I won’t go into it too much more here outside of a little : people can look really fine on the outside when they are definitely NOT fine. I needed a chance to get out of the world for a little while and the cruise let me do just that. Whereas a hotel trip can be … good while you’re cozy, there’s still the travel involved. A cruise handles all the travel for you, plus the crew are wonderful people. It makes for a lovely time and, as it was last year, just what I needed.

Picture. It's a sunny day with clouds in the sky. We're looking out over a beach. Our little red dwagon is sitting on the wall separating beach from the city areas. In the distance, we can see a ferry and our cruise ship with the two funnels.

We were looked after incredibly well. Food was great, I could always have something compatible with my curious requirements. (I’m find with fish but have trouble with steak these days) And I really enjoyed being able to wander around the decks, including doing circuits of the Promenade deck looking out to the sea and the view we were getting from the open part of the upper deck.

I think that’s it for me for this post, have a lovely evening everyone. I’ll be aiming to do an advent post every day, so more cruising posts interspersed with other things like gaming, reading and the music. I haven’t got a theme in mind this year, I did that a few times over previous years and I think it burned me out on the blog posting a fair bit. Maybe doing 3 themes in a post every day was a bit much.

Still, time’s turning, hope you all have a good holiday season and you get the chance to be able to look after yourself :-).

Cruise last, cruise next ?

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November 8, 2024

8:44 pm

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Hello everyone,

I’m on leave again ! Not sure if I mentioned it (probably did but memory is goldfish) but I’m disappearing out of the world again for a little while. I’ll hopefully be able to post while I’m out there but I did think I should probably finish up posting what happened on the last cruise before the next one starts.

Picture. We're looking at a little red dragon figure sitting in a Norwegian Viking style longboat. There are 5 shields on the side of the boat with Norway flags, the red and white striped sail is full and there is a Norway flag at the top of the mast.

This next one came about from a fairly random asking of the Google for “cruise November 2024”. I’ll post more about that later. Gotta wrap up the last one first ! I left it last time with the visit to Rødøya Island on the middle Monday, after a magical trip to the top of Norway where we saw the huskies and got the selfies with the aurora. If you click on the “travel” label then that will be the easiest way of taking you to the Northern Lights cruise posts.

Tuesday saw us visiting the little coastal community of Bessaker, we might have tripled the population for the day. Charming place, absolutely lovely people, very tasty noms there, coziness and a very friendly representative of the natives :

Picture. We're looking downwards at a road. A large dark curly haired poodle is looking back at us from down the road. There are three people there, two in the red Hurtigruten coats, one in normal cold gear.

They also have a wall of trolls there. I didn’t manage to bring back any goodies though because I’d been forgetting to put my wallet in my coat (oops). They have a big staircase up to a view point as well here which I have to admit to chickening out on because my back started turning even more to glass around this kind of time. (Spoiler, it’s still glass)

Next up on the Wednesday was Loen, which has a cable car lift up to the top of the mountain. We were being menaced by multiple storm systems in the North Sea and North Atlantic around this time, so the weather wasn’t great …

Picture. We're looking at a fog bound scene. To the left is the fences for the mountain top facility. There is a cleared path on the left and a snow covered side of the mountain to the right. We can just about make out an orange wind sock in the centre.

Yep. We in the clouds.

There was also a bit of excitement caused by a power failure, so we were a little delayed going up the mountain. However, there was consolation in a hot chocolate and a delicious cookie in the shop at the top of the mountain with a lovely lady behind the counter with a charming sidekick.

Picture. We're looking down at the bits and bobs on a shop counter. On top of a black box, we can see a black rubber vampire duck with bat wings and fangs

Best shop mascot ever.

Thursday saw us sheltering from the storms in Hardangerfjord, with a quiet chilled out day that included the expedition team taking us for a rigid inflatable boat ride up and down the fjord. I didn’t get many pictures to share but it was going being out and about there. There is one picture that I’ll save to close out the post on.

The Friday was a trip to Stavanger, which became the oil capital of Norway. The geology of the North Sea meant that Norway got a big prize in terms of being able to control the oil reserves off the coast and Stavanger was the city that sprung up to feed the exploitation industry. The petroleum museum is well worth a visit, although I do regret being a bit too low on batteries that day to seek out the more tourist areas.

Picture. We're looking at a building by the dockside to the left. The building has a magnificent mural painted on it. On the right, an astronaut holding painted letters spelling out "Stavanger Houston".

The Saturday was a sea day as we made our way back across the North Sea to England, with us arriving back in Tilbury a day later than scheduled on the Sunday. It was an incredible trip, a good one to have as my first cruise holiday. It’ll be interesting to see what the contrast is for the next cruise. The ship I’ll be on is more a purpose built cruise holiday ship that’s more than 3 times the size of MS Maud (now back in service after the incident in Dec 2024 and renamed back to Midnatsol).

We were really well looked after on Maud. A small cruise ship but very cozy, relaxed and it was a fantastic holiday. I’d thoroughly recommend the cruising. On a normal hotel holiday, you’re based around the same place and explore under your own power. On a cruise holiday, there will be stuff to be enjoying on the ship and the ship will be moving from port to port (usually while you’re sleeping) giving you a new place to explore.

Picture. It's the morning before sun up. We're looking out from the ship towards the shore. On the left, the bulwarks of the ship and a Norway flag hanging down from a pole. In the distance, the town of Loen in the gap between hills to the left and right. It's a very cloudy sky.

This was the port entry to Loen on the Wednesday morning. The Loen visit was another where the tender boats were required to get us to shore. This was a very well practiced, well grooved and above all safe exercise for guests not particularly used to being at sea.

Last one for this series before signing off :

Picture. We're looking out from the windows of the ship towards the V of the Hardangerfjord closing towards a bridge at the end. To the left are hills, with more terrain at the end. We can see 3 boats full with people with red jackets. The boats are moving away from us, down the fjord.

There we go. It was a great experience, actually economical and affordable too and I’d thoroughly recommend looking at cruises as a way to experience something different. You are a bit at the mercy of the weather. 15 minutes later, the fog had come in and you couldn’t see the terrain at the end of the fjord there.

See you all next time, hopefully it won’t take me nearly a year to finish off the next series !

Mountains, bugs, plans

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October 25, 2024

10:48 pm

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Hello everyone,

It’s been a little while ! I needed to go under the covers for a little while to attempt to rest up and recuperate. I’m reasonably sure I had another round of covid … But first, thumbnail ?

Picture. We're looking at a black train with the wheelhouse to the left, the train is pointing to the right. We can see the train's engine. The train is parked at a platform on our side of the train.

Wales trip may have involved a train.

I was being very aware while writing the last post that I was increasingly struggling for brain power as the post was going on and it was a bit of a squeeze getting it out. I didn’t get hit badly physically by the bugs this time, I just got very heavy brain fog from it. It will have been picked up from the Creator North event, with a cluster of people reporting getting bugs not long after. (Wonderful event, have enjoyed the two so far) Some got hit pretty hard and were pretty much bedridden. Whereas I head off to North Wales feeling just mildly off. And then the weekend came and being able to turn off after Wales meant that I very definitely switched off for the weekend. (And had very crunchy upper body too).

It felt like I was working off only less then half the usual amount of brain power and even there, only had brain batteries for like half a day. It hit work quite a bit, although that’s part rationing out what you apply the brain cells to. Some stuff needs doing but doesn’t need that deep thought ? Not quite sure how to say that without saying that I may have been slacking. Sometimes stuff needs the deep thought, sometimes it’s just stuff that can be done on near automatic. Both types of work are needed to get everything done.

Yeah, that affected me for far longer than it should have done. I could still function physically (as far as I can these days) but everything mentally was a big effort. So I stayed away a little bit and also just stayed to familiar games that I didn’t need to learn.

Snowdon ?

Picture. We're looking out of a window at a set of train tracks going into the distance. On the windowshelf in front are three more little train models. We can see the platforms to the left and right.

I’ve been up Snowdon before, a little over ten years ago. We took one of the walking trails that time. I’m not close to that level of fitness these days, plus I fancied looking at the train ride this time. Link there to the Snowdon Mountain Railway, which is 1 hour up, half an hour there, 1 hour back. A leisurely train ride.

Picture. We're looking out of a train window, over a deep valley cut into the hills. We can see a road winding its way through the valley from lower left to middle right.

And a wonderful view out of the side windows (pardon the reflection!)

Picture. We're looking out from the top of Mount Snowdon at the countryside rolling out in front of us. There are several small lakes visible as the valleys connect. The sky is full of thin white cloud, some of which is faintly obscuring the distant view.

And a great view at the summit. I have to admit to struggling a bit at this point. Perhaps the bugs were affecting my lungs a little bit. I didn’t go all the way up to the summit as I was feeling a bit off, light headed and unsteady at the 1085m up that is the Snowdon Mountain Railway station, cafe and shop. Half the pictures are looking at the sky thinking that the clouds were the valleys !

Picture. Another view from the top of Snowdon. We're looking out over the craggy stone path at the rolling countryside of North Wales. It's good weather again, with wispy thin cloud in the sky, covering the landscape in increasing mist.

More view ? Spot the hair between the lens and the camera sensor ! That’s something I’m learning about the mirrorless fancy camera, because you can change the lenses dust and obstructions can get in. Will bear that in mind in future :-D.

Picture. We're looking downwards out of the train window towards a trail cutting its way through the hillside. There is a small building halfway up. The ground is tinged with the green of parched grass that needs a bit of water to waken it up.

There’s people on that there trail … Well worth going up there. Maybe could do with a bit more time up there before the call comes to come back again ? There is a canteen cafe down at the bottom of the hill though.

Picture. We're looking at the railway as it curves to the right. A train is side on to us, ascending the mountain. There is a stony walking trail to the top left, with a small collection of people scattered around it.

Also train, with assorted people dotted around above, descending. It’s a single track railway with a few passing points, which dictates the schedule with trains needing to pause to allow the up train to pass the down train.

What goes up has to come down some time though, so it was back down to Llanberis (home of this railway) and back home again. I could feel the bugs getting in (hope I didn’t pass them on to too many people, I know some people got the bugs from me) and I had 200 miles to go home. It should have taken 4 hours plus a stop or two. It took 7 hours on the road as a couple of incidents on the M6 motorway led to standstill traffic. I did trust the satnav this time, which got me in range of those incident points. I’d gone a different way, more cross country, on the way up. I like to vary the routes I go on.

Mentioning that … there has been some gaming going on in the last month :

Well and truly fell off the Little Big Workshop wheel again with a series of completed runs on that. I’ve been doing challenge runs and making up challenge runs for that. It’s a lovely cute little factory building game where I can set up things for the delightful little idiots (their AI can be a bit flawed and awkward) to assemble to sell.

Star Wars Outlaws took a bit longer than intended (2 months of Ubi+ renting) to finish. I’d thoroughly recommend this one, I really enjoyed running around that world for a while. It has a sizeable Tatooine area around Mos Eisley and other areas of the first films. It’s actually set between Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi and there are a couple of cameos in there from the films.

I’ve also gone back to the two Truck Simulator games this week, with a restart in Euro Truck Sim 2 (to get explorer achievements0 and continuing American Truck Sim. They’re good ones to turn the brain off to again and I’ve been needing to ration the rational thought. Need a new controller though, my one is failing.

I had a look at Shapez 2 and Production Line (car building game) but brain was giving me the nope on those.

There’s also been a bit of reading, maybe more about that in a later post. Highlight of the books was Deep Black by Miles Cameron, continuing on from the very well done space thriller Artifact Space. He’s made a wonderful universe there. Also Thornhedge by T Kingfisher, a very sweet short tale with a twist on Rapunzel and other maiden in the tower stories.

I better hit post there again. Apologies for it being a while again, I wasn’t feeling too well and it took a while to shake it this time. It has been good looking at the pictures again.

I have something special lined up next month too, it’s a … mystery. But it brings me back to last year as well, I need to finish off the cruise posts !

A meet up, 2 castles, 1 mountain, several trains and no boats

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September 24, 2024

7:28 pm

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Hello everyone,

It’s been a little while again. Things were getting a little bit draining for a while, although that’s probably a bit down to me not having any time off since June. That’s maybe a bit too long for me. (And I might need another break to recover from the last one!)

Picture. We're looking at a small white saucer, on which is a tasty looking brownie, with a dwagon next door sporting an apron with the words "Feed Me". In front, a ribbon with "Creator North 2024" on it.

First up, heading up the motorway to Sheffield and Creator North for the Saturday. This is an event (linky) run by a little group of wonderful people, that’s LookItsTilly, Maddog, Billietrixx and the always lovely Tashnarr. I’m not going to write too much about this one this year apart from saying that I really enjoyed the day, including being adopted by Ninja Space Unicorn’s people, seeing MiyukiPanda’s new game coming along and having a lovely natter with the other people there.

It did come right at the end of my energy though, with my last break before this one being back in June. Still, it was awesome seeing everyone and because I do act as a bit of a mirror to the people around me, happy people meant I was happy too. Good to see everyone. And a mention for the lovely Curlylocksgamer too, who had been struggling lately but it’s been too to firstly see her back streaming again and second to see her pop up at Creator North and have a great time there.

After a travel day and a chill out day, I was off on the move again …

Picture. We're on the pedestrian part of a bridge, looking across a road (with several cars) towards a castle. There are 5 turrets on the castle, with battlements. The sky is a clear blue with occasional wispy cloud.

I’d abandoned thoughts of something more ambitious like an Isle of Man trip (the ferry crossing timings were NOT working out) and spotted a North Wales trip on GreatLittleBreaks. After one trip with them, I’d go back for more and check out what other options they have. The booking process was easy and there were no issues with anything that was set up. I think it was good value, although it does seem set up for at least 2 guests with a big solo supplement.

Not so much with the hotel … The Sheffield hotel was great, with an older style layout. The Conwy hotel, not so much. The people there were great and the food (fish and chips on first night) tasty but the room was set up with one of those open plan layouts, where the bathroom section isn’t really split off from the rest of the room. I.e. attack of trendy. So that would be … a shower cubicle that has frosted glass to the rest of the room and no full length door to keep the steam behind. Oh and there was a puddle outside the frosted glass short door after the shower too.

Not so good.

Picture. We're looking out over a river / harbour from an elevated position. The town is to the bottom left, with more buildings just about visible on the far side. There is a series of boats tied up alongside and at anchor in the bay. The sky is overcast.

Lovely town though and a great castle visit too.

(gotta note I’m fading a bit as I type and should probably put the dinner on!)

That’s Conwy and the castle was a good little visit. They’ve put a lot of restoration work in to Conwy Castle, with the spiral turret staircases being in very good order. A lot of these castles tend to have worn down steps which can get a bit dangerous, however Conwy’s gives good confidence that you’d be able to get up and down these stairs easily if you’re able to do so. (It’s a little sad that this is an able bodied thing, no wheelchair access, use of cane would be very awkward). And that picture was taken from one of the turrets. The castle is mostly ruined with no internal buildings but most of the towers are in good condition and you can walk around the ramparts.

Worth a visit, great castle. Although I’m still on the hunt for a castle that could be visited by some of the streamer friends who depend on walkers and wheelchairs. They love the pictures I post into discords and it’d be good to find them a castle they are able to fully enjoy if they find themselves visiting the UK.

Picture. We're looking across the shell of the inside of the castle, from the ramparts. In the foreground, is an archway bridge, behind that is a tower with 2 spires. The other side of the river banks are in the distance. Overcast skies again.

Great castle though. And I enjoyed a gentle wander through the town too. But I think I picked up bugs at Creator North and while I was thoroughly ignoring them, I crashed out hard when I got back to the hotel. (Enjoying reading and listening to streams via the hotel wifi). At least, on the second evening, the place across the artificial lagoon wasn’t in party mode (very loud music).

Picture. We're looking out over an artificial lagoon towards hills in the distance and a very yellow Moon. This is light enhanced by the phone, so it's a milky white sky and far brighter than the almost full dark of the day.

Nice place though, peaceful. That’s actually the Moon there. No stargazing on this trip because we had peak moonlight but it was nice walking most of the way around that artificial lagoon on the first evening. That picture is what came out of the phone on the day, it did a lot of light enhancing as the actual conditions were almost full dark with a very bright super moon.

Castle 2 ?

Picture. More castle, we're looking over the top of a series of cars towards the imposing tall walls of a castle citadel, below clear blue skies.

I’d booked a ticket for Snowdon Mountain Railway (might actually leave that for another post, am fading!) for 1500 on the return day, which gave me a morning/early afternoon to play with after checking out of the hotel. I’d been given the idea to visit Caernarfon castle, which was another really good recommendation.

One bit of a surprise is how good the condition of Caernarfon and Conwy Castle is. Whereas the south Wales castles are typically intentionally destroyed and demolished, the two castles I visited in the North were still mostly intact. Part of that is due to Caernarfon Castle still being in active use, it was used for the ?inauguration? ceremony for Prince Charles becoming the Prince of Wales way back when. (Is King now).

Picture. We're inside the castle, looking out over a beautifully mown grassy interior. We can see the castle walls to the left and right, with an intact tower to the left and a somewhat crumbled gate house to the right. Clear blue skies with wispy clouds and the distant towers have a pair of flags flying.

There we are, quite a bit there still, including a very fortified gatehouse (ramp to enter but broken lift). I was definitely feeling impending illness at this point and needed to reserve energy for Snowdon and the drive home so I wasn’t pushing myself at all around this castle but … Well worth a visit again. I think the towers were open and there’s a few good displays in there as well.

I think I will save Snowdon for another post (need to put food on and Pain is happening) but … a couple of great castles to visit, lovely people looking after everyone in the hotel (shame about the attack of trendy with the room design) and I needed to get away for a few days as the temptation is to just stay home, stay in, play games, listen to music.

About that …. I did pick up bugs up in Sheffield. I could feel them starting to take effect on the Tuesday driving up, plus I was hearing reports that other people there were being affected by the bugs too. I also hurt the shoulder again on the Saturday afternoon, one of those where I turn to face someone but leave the arm behind, which is where it gets crunchy. I didn’t feel it on the day (never do) but it’s been very crunchy for the last couple of days. I’ll do that, I’ll keep myself going while I need to (albeit limited at the moment) and then collapse when I don’t need to maintain that level.

Like now ! Time to put the dinner on and look at hopefully posting the Snowdon pics later this week.

Later everyone, before I go though :

Picture. We're looking at a cracked white egg, on a white sheet. Emerging from the egg is a small red dwagon. They're looking up at us with wide, adorable eyes.

There we go, totally adorable new profile pic and one of the bits of loot taken away from North Wales last week.

Island excursions

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December 12, 2023

10:36 pm

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Hello everyone,

Apologies, been quiet for a while … I managed to pick up bugs that affected me all last week and instead of knocking the bad vibes post off quickly (last post was a grumble and not great vibes), it’s taken a bit of time to summon the finger tapping. Back to cruise stuff !

Picture. Photograph. We're looking at a sandy beach, in shadow. The calm sea is to the left, in the background is rock with a square mountain top in the background. The mountain is half in shadow, half lit orange by the morning sun. On the beach, we see a boat coming to shore with a small number of people on board. More people in red jackets are off on the high part of the beach to the right.

The middle Monday of the cruise saw us heading off to explore Rødøya island, as we headed back down south again. (Rødøya is going to be a stretch for the old copy/paste so I’m going to call it Red Island from now on !)

Red Island is one of the landmarks going up the Norwegian coast. We went from the ship to the shore in the Zodiac boats as there is no dock or jetty here :

Picture. Photograph. We're on a boat, looking backwards. The black plastic of the engine is lower middle and there is a square metal frame with rounded corners above. Within the frame, we see our ship. The lower part is black, with "Hurtigruten Expeditions" in writing at the back (left). There is a red band and the upper part with portholes and windows is in white. We can see a black funnel and assorted radio antennae on top of the ship.

There’s our ship, MS Maud, resting at anchor while we were off having a wander around the island. We got ashore in the small Zodiac boats and I was really impressed with the systems in place to get the guests transferred ashore. In the picture, you’ll see some platforms coming out from the middle of the ship at the waterline. These are tender pits. The boats are driven up alongside the tender pits and you literally step straight from ship to boat, with very little hassle or difficulty.

It’s a system that seems extremely well practiced, it’s secure and safe, with assistance from the crew all the way. Very impressive, especially when you consider that the average age going on the boats is 60+, probably 65+ and I’d include myself in the groups that have some mobility issues. (Getting older)

When we got to shore, it was a similar operation :

Picture. Photograph. We're looking at one of the Zodiac boats. It has black rubber sides and a grey plinth and coxswain at the back with a 12 on it. The metal frame is at the back to the left, the front of the boat is to the right with netting. 7 people in red jackets are on board. 1 is being assisted off the boat by one of two ladies wearing yellow and black waterproof outfits.

Yep, steps ! We went from ship to boat by stepping over the side of the boat, for shore side we went over the bow. The two ladies in yellow and black you see there are Maeva and Holly of the Expeditions team, who were absolute legends tirelessly pulling the boats in and making sure everyone got to the dry bit of the island.

While we were all off taking in the scenery, Holly and Maeva were non stop on the boats pulling them in and helping everyone off. We had some amazing people looking after us on the cruise and these two were brilliant throughout.

Picture. Photograph. We're looking at a small snow covered hill, in shadow. The mountain is to the left, half lit by morning sun. Standing above us in traditional tunic is the blond haired Magnus, mid exultation of his latest story about trolls.
Norwegian man tells stories

That’s Magnus, telling us about the mountain. It’s actually one of the trolls, who was too busy arguing to see the sun come up … and now the troll is one of the navigation landmarks on the coast. Magnus was great, he’d tell us about the myths and legends and totally true stories about Norwegian history.

It’s a rich country for culture and they’ll surprise you. They’ve been a subject nation to one of Denmark, Sweden or Finland for so much of their history but now, with North Sea oil bolstering them, they’re fully independent. The country doesn’t actually need the oil for energy, they have ample hydroelectric power from the landscape. They’ve been very smart in turning the proceeds into a rainy day bank and it’s made sure they can stand on their own. And they’re also extremely humble with it too, they haven’t been changed by the oil wealth.

I’d thoroughly recommend visiting, it’s a lovely country and the people are very welcoming.

Picture. Photograph. We're looking at a snow covered hillside that's about 10 feet away. There is a hollow in the rocks, with a small but cozy looking camp fire waiting to grow. Beside, looking proud of the fire, is Peter the Norwegian standing tall with an arm resting on the rocks.
Norwegian man makes fire

And that’s Peter, who was really fun to listen to when he was telling us about his country. Very proud fellow, lovely guy, with a great humility. It was a pleasure to be around Peter, Magnus, Holly and Maeva and the others in the team, Geraldine the photographer, Fran the antarctic scientist, Emile the organiser and all of the others who were a bit more background but who made sure everything went incredibly smoothly.

Picture. Photograph. We're looking out over a rippled sea towards the rocks of the island. The sun can just be seen on the horizon, it's about to disappear below. There is a long ray of sun reflection on the sea.

After a little wander, it was time to head off again as the sun was setting. It was about this time in the cruise that we were starting to get warnings of very heavy weather coming through with multiple storm systems starting to gather together to have a fight where we were looking to pass through the North Sea on our way home.

(I can feel my shoulder getting a bit sore again so just Red Island today)

Red Island was a lovely little interlude on the trip, away from civilisation. I had big feelings of trepidation about going on the boat transfer but a big part of me was going “You will not get the opportunity to do this again for a long time, DO IT” and that part won. Just like booking the cruise in the first place, I’m very glad I let that part of me win over the overcautious side that likes to hide away a bit too much.

This was also when we came back across the Arctic Circle, pretty much exactly at sunset.

Picture. Photograph. We're looking through one of the ship windows to a slightly choppy sea with islands in the background. The sun is all but disappeared over the horizon to the left. There are a few wisps of cloud in the sky above. To the right is another ship, with lights blazing away.

There was a bit of a race to get there, with a German cruise ship steaming across a bit faster than us. Bit too much of a hurry, needs to chill out and enjoy the milkshakes some more :-D. We got to the landmark just as the sun was fully going down.

Picture. Photograph. We're looking at a small island in the sea with a plinth and a metal frame globe on top. The globe is lit from below and by the ship with white lights. In the background, the rocky outcropping of islands and above that, a red glow of a sunset.

Not a great picture but the best of the series. That’s the monument which marks the boundary of the Arctic Circle. We didn’t see it on the way up (passed in the night I think) but it was good to see it at dusk with the fading light.

And that’s where we’ll leave Norway for this post.

I mentioned bugs … I also fell up the stairs (oops). The bugs weren’t too serious but I stayed working from home with sniffles on Monday and by Tuesday, didn’t have much of a voice available. But they’re mostly gone now, pretty much all better. I’m feeling the aftermath of tripping up the stairs though. I basically missed the last step and almost faceplanted myself on the landing. Oh well.

I’ve been feeling the damage in my wrists and shoulder. They basically took the brunt of me going thud at the top of the stairs. Didn’t feel it much at the time (was about to sleep half the weekend to get rid of the bugs) but the wrist is a bit sore now. But it still works so I don’t think there’s any permanent damage.

Time to hit post, listen to Tashnarr learning guitar Rocksmith (linky) and head back into the latest book. It’s The Hollow Places by T Kingfisher, not too sure what to make of it so far but T Kingfisher (aka Ursula Vernon) does write lovely, very readable books that steadily draw you in with the characters, style and steadily unfolding story.

Laters 😀