Day 3 - Tuesday 14 March 2006

Souluvombi - Maze - 30 kms

Judy and Rie are on dog duty this morning so they have be up at 6am. I get up with them and help with the ‘shit picking’ which involves shovelling the doggy turds into a large scoop and tipping it over the bank at the side of the road. I take a few photos of David Wilson, Chairman of Friends of SPRI, doing the same.


Our Chairman s**t picking 

These photos could come in useful in the future! After breakfast and a visit to the long drop loo, it is time to pack my sledge and push it up the hill to the dog lines. I confidently put the harnesses on my dogs and hitch them to my sledge. I stand around looking very smug and then Per Thore comes up, looks at me and says "You have done Everything………(right?) WRONG! The harnesses are inside out and on the wrong dogs and the dogs are in the wrong order. START AGAIN!"

By now most of the teams are ready and the dogs are excited. It is not easy to completely re-do my dogs. They are jumping up and down and running around and the ice anchor is not holding very well. Carl comes and helps me and eventually I get it all sorted out. I feel a complete idiot. Even Jane who thinks she is useless at doing the dogs, has done her team correctly.

Then suddenly pandemonium breaks out! Per Thore has already warned us that we will travel down the hill and take a sharp left hand bend. He is on his sledge and about to pull out his ice anchor. All our dogs are leaping in the air, tangling up their traces and barking excitedly. The anchor comes up. I reach down to pull mine out and the sledge shoots forward at a ferocious speed. I put all my weight on the brake as the bend comes into view. Dave the cameraman is on the bend as I crash into him. I screech ‘sorry’ as my dogs leap forward after Per Thore leaving poor Dave trying to regain his composure. The path is now weaving through woodland and I soon discover that my earlier confidence has disappeared as I land face first in a snowdrift. Of course I let go of the sledge and my darling doggies rush off up the track till they are stopped by one command from Per Thore. The whole line has halted behind me and I have to walk the path of shame to recover my sledge and dogs under the icy stare of our Leader. It is not long afterwards that I repeat this embarrassing episode and I silently vow to concentrate from now on. Trying to balance on two thin runners which keep getting iced up and on a sledge which tips sideways at the merest little bump in the path is not an easy task. I watch Per Thore and try to copy him though my moves are very exaggurated in comparison. I find that standing on one runner and leaning out sideways seems to work in a rather precarious way.

We leave the treeline and enter the high country. It is very bleak up here and a blizzard is blowing. There are more crosses dotted around and the stick remains of teepees left by the Sami reindeer herders. I am completely covered up and glad of my goggles and neck warmer. The dogs don't seem to mind the weather though I find it is a battle to keep them on the track. We come down into sparse woodland again and stop for lunch. I really want to spend a penny but there is nothing to hide behind. The birch trees are very spindly and won't give cover. I step over a bank at the side of the track and immediately go down into a snowdrift. Perfect! My own private loo.


Look away boys, I'm having a pee. 

After eating a frozen cheese sandwich, we continue up the track and I have the luck to spot a beautiful big white Arctic Hare crossing out path and bounding into the woods.

We pass through the small village of Maze and I spot some reindeer and Icelandic ponies in an enclosure. We reach a large frozen lake and sitting above it is a wooden summer house, our rest stop for this evening. It is a beautiful spot.The sky is pink and there is a full moon. I put my dogs on the line and unpack my sledge. I start to walk up the very steep,icy slope to the house and as I am nearly at the top, I slip and end up ceremoniously at the bottom again. This could take some time. The house is really cosy but there is no running water and no electricity and a chemical loo out the back. However there are stoves in every room so we should be very warm. The girls are given the front bedroom with a balcony and the boys have a back bedroom and various settees in the living room and kitchen. I go back down to lake with Rie and Jake and Per Thore hands Jake a huge corkscrew saying 'OK fetch water' I am learning that Norwegians are very economical with their words.


Rie and Jake drilling for water 

Well this is a new one on me. We have to drill three holes in the frozen lake and collect water in buckets for a) us b) the sauna c) the dogs. Each hole is marked by twigs so we don't get them mixed up. While all this is going on, Alastair is lighting the stove in the sauna next to the lake. The girls have been given first shift so we change into our swimming costumes and have a bit of a steamy chillout. Emma dares us all to do the Viking Challenge which involves running out and diving into the snow. So we put on our Arctic boots, take a deep breath and make a dash for the lake. The snow though is not so deep as we thought and there are a few bruised noses. When we go back to the sauna, the fire has gone out and we have to ask poor Alastair if he can come in and help. He doesn't seem to mind though as he spends what seems like ages trying to relight it as we sit around waiting half naked.

I am on supper duty tonight which in my case involves standing in the kitchen for 30 minutes pleading with a huge pan of water to start boiling. I am not very good at cooking and decide to do dog duties from now on.

The spaghetti is gratefully received mainly due to it being almost an hour late. We have our nightly briefing which is much more positive than yesterday and by 10pm I am in bed fast asleep...........ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ