We breakfasted at the hotel and then gathered in the foyer to make our way back to the train station so we could catch the train to the airport.
Once at the airport we checked in - Mark and Alicea had their fingerprints taken to use as boarding cards, the rest of us had "old fashioned" paper ones, not sure why - and we made our way through security to the gate, where the fingers worked and most of the paper didn't in the automatic barriers there.
The flight was pretty much on time and we were soon on our way to Evenes airport, inside the arctic circle.
It was about 3pm and still light when we left Oslo. From the window of the plane you could see a dark band on the horizon that got bigger as we flew closer to it. By the time we landed at around 3.45pm it was as dark as night!
We picked up our bags and then had a 45 minute wait for the car to arrive. Mark had booked a nine seater minibus that fitted us and our luggage perfectly.
Soon we were on our way to the Tourist Centre at Tysfjord where we were staying for the next few days.
As none of us had eaten anything since breakfast we stopped at a restaurant only to find it just closing. At 5.15pm!
We had a ferry to catch at 8pm about an hour's drive away so a decision was taken to drive to the nearest town (about 20 mins away) to find an eatery there. This we did and found pizza place and we made it to the ferry in perfect time.
The ferry journey was about an hour during which we played cards as the ferry rocked back and forth as it carried us across the fjord.
Once on the other side it was a five minute drive to the tourist centre.
The centre is really nice (I'm not sure about the proliferation of stuffed animals around the place) and the room is warm and comfy. The bathroom has underfloor heating, which is great.
After booking in and dropping everything in our rooms we all met in the bar for a drink. We then decided to retire to Steve's room to crack open the duty free. On the way, due to a collision between Rob and myself near the huge stuffed polar bear next to the entrance, I managed to drop my glass which smashed into a thousand pieces. After it was cleared up we met in Steve's room where we played cards (Anna is the current sh@thead) and drank until retiring for bed.
