Husky mushing in Swedish Lapland.

29.1.24

A good nights sleep at Davvi Arctic Star Karsuendo, Swedish Lapland and off to breakfast at 7.30am with a few photos along the way.

What a fab selection, a real treat to have bacon, sausage, mushrooms, scrambled egg, beans and hash browns.

I decided to try the porridge. Omg, I’d forgotten how good it is. It needed sugar on it. The welcome leaflet did say we should eat a lot. I went back for seconds.

Back to the room to chill before our 10.45am Husky trip.

It’s 2 degrees today, we can hear snow melting and dripping off the roof, and it’s almost gone from our window sill. There’s a howling gale though.

We might die.

It was soon time to get ready for our Husky safari.

Hmmm.. How many layers?

They tell you to be ready 15 minutes before leaving time. During those 15 minutes in reception you feel like death by hyperthermia is close.

2 minibuses full and a beautiful 25 minute drive.

We were so excited to see the dogs but Mr Norway, the driver of the other bus, draped in Norwegian flag attire, told us off for trying to sneak off to stroke them. 1 minute later our guide called us over.

We had a lesson on how to stop the sled and how to make it go to the left or right and some info about the dogs. They are mixed with various different breeds, including hunting dogs, even Pointers. (Our Maisy Pointer dog would be the one laying on a blanket snuggled with a human.)

When they get older and don’t want to run they are nurtured there until their last day.

There are currently 18 puppies, but sadly we didn’t get to see them.

The dogs were going crazy, they just wanted to get going.

Time to go!

Me on the reindeer coat seat and Carol as chief musher.

The first part was a steep downhill, great fun. The rest was flat, deep grooved channels, with occasional lumps and humps. At halfway we had the option of swapping over, but were both happy with the current format.

In total it was about 5km. We didn’t want it to end.

We had plenty of doggy cuddles afterwards, they seem to want to lick faces! (I can think of a few friends cringeing right now). Not us, the more affection the better. One got a bit hyper as I bent down to him and I ended up on the ground!

Back to the Davvi Arctic Star, time for lunch. Both struggling with weird hat hair.

I had chicken kiev, croquettes, coleslaw and went back and tried the mature cheddar cheese just so I could have some more coleslaw. I’m going to see if I can get their recipe. I couldn’t resist a piece of lemon cake.

Blogging and chill time after lunch. Lovely.

We went for dinner before the 6pm start time thinking we were really naughty but others on our 6.45pm trip were there too.

Delicious food again, lasagne, cheesecake, which sadly was a bit tasteless and a piece of lemon cake fell on my plate.

Temperature now is 0 degrees, feels like – 8. It’s very windy.

Time to bring out the balaclava and another body layer.

Mr Norway appeared and this time we were in his minibus. Before I’d had a chance to finish clambering into the back he shoved the seat in front, wedging my hand between the 2 parts. Ouch!!!

He was very apologetic to be fair. Fortunately nothing broken! I thought it was the snowmobile that was the dangerous activity.

We were all allocated our crash helmets and then given an overview of how to start, steer and stop, and learnt the various hand signals, including one where you flap your arms wildly if there’s a problem. They’ll be along asap, to administer first aid or whatever.

One of the instructors was towing all the under 15 year olds in a large sled. It looked very tempting.

Start engines, fist pump action upwards, that means we’re off.

I can’t even ride a push bike, I opted to be the passenger. There were 2 opportunities to swap drivers, but I was more than happy to stay in the back seat.

After a while I realised I was no longer clenching my bum cheeks, my knees were relaxed and I’d stopped gripping the side rail. I was even slightly disappointed we couldn’t have gone faster.

The session was cut short by 30 minutes from 2 hours because of strong gusts expected later. To be honest I think we probably did the planned route and they made the preparations shorter.

Went to the bar for a little while and chatted with 2 other couples, then bed time, we have an early start tomorrow.

What an amazing day, real once in a lifetime experiences. The huskies were my favourite thing though.

Even better than lemon cake.