They say nothing tests a relationship like going away together. Two personalities – in our case, one big one, different likes and dislikes, different expectations – all mixed together like a béarnaise sauce – and the hope it won’t separate and curdle. Throw in a foreign landscape and language and you have to make sure you keep on mixing!

The Husband and I have been away together on several overseas adventures, including the USA where we were put to the test driving on the right hand side of the road for the first time. This in itself is challenging as you really do have to dump your driving ego at the door and suck it up when the navigator tells you one of two irritating yet exceptionally important things:

1. You are drifting back to your natural driving side.

2. You are too close to the gutter.

Now, no one likes a backseat driver – me in particular and I have cracked the shits on a number of occasions (Miss 14 and Miss 12 can attest to this) when the Husband interferes with my driving under the guise of what is, by his definition, helping me. I absolutely hate it – I cannot express in words that will emphasize the gravity of my hatred toward back seat, or in our case, front seat drivers.

However, throw in driving a manual car in Finnish Lapland, on the unnatural side of the road, snowy and icy roads and a mind bending temperature of -38 degrees and I can tell you unequivocally this will make or break your marriage – particularly when the Husband is unaware of the two hour drive ahead after two flights from Stockholm to get to the ludicrously remote log cabin I have booked for five nights. In my defence:

1. -38 is not normal for Finnish Lapland – the average minimum temperature for this time of the year is generally -18 to -20.

2. We both drive manual cars at home and have driven on the unnatural side of the road before.

3. We always stay in unique and far flung accommodation and this looked incredible for what we wanted – no ambient light, self catered for breakfast, snackies and the Husband’s beer.

Did I mention it was -38 degrees?

Our questions to the rental car company about a vehicle functioning normally in -38 degrees were met with the Finnish version of “she’ll be right mate” so we walked out the door to find our black Kia Rio only to be met by a smack in the face of polar air. WOW – scarf went straight over the mouth so as not to breathe it into the lungs and freeze them over!

The car started first crank and the Husband shifted through the gears, turned on the lights, steering wheel warmer, heater and seat warmer and we were off. A couple of laps around the car park then it was time to boldly go where no sane Far North Queensland couple have gone before.

A mere three minutes later the windows have fogged/iced over and visibility has been reduced to a veil of white. In one of those moments you dread to find your silly, tourist self in, we are waving cars past us at the intersection whilst we work out how to set the demist systems to permanent like normal Finnish drivers. A few terse, yet calm words and we are off again to attempt to find the supermarket in nearby Ivalo to stock up on some breakfast items. Parked in what I do believe was the disabled parking space (at this point I didn’t have the desire to begin a conversation in any way related to driving) we headed into the K-Market for a crack at Finnish shopping. There was beer. This made the Husband happy. A loaf of bread, cereal, danish, milk, juice, butter, jam, honey, bananas, coffee, tea and hot chocolate later and we are back on the straight road to polar nowhere – mind the reindeer.

The Husband has since commented it was the most stressful drive of his life, and I have to admit it was no picnic for me as the passenger either – for those who know me well, I don’t do passenger as a general rule – too much of a control freak. However beanies off to him as he did a sterling job of the two hour drive which to him felt like five hours and a never ending road of white, then blue then black. The relief for both of us was palpable on arrival at our gorgeous log cabin and we opted to toast and jam it for dinner rather than attempt to go anywhere else for the night!!!

The man upstairs was with us on this one as 30 minutes after arrival, on what was a perfectly clear night sky, Lady Aurora came out. The Husband got all his camera gear going and we got, what we thought were some beautiful shots of it. How naïve we were.

About an hour later I popped outside and walked around the side of the cabin, as I had seen in the cabin owners photos on line, a shot of the Aurora over the cabin. It was there I was presented with what I can only describe as one of the most magnificent natural phenomena I think I will ever see in my lifetime. The Aurora was lighting up the sky, from the horizon over the river, over our cabin and onwards in multiple streaks of green. The Husband dragged the camera gear out into the snow and captured what he believes are some of his best photographs. About fifteen minutes in, the sky above us lit up and began to ‘dance’ across the night – green, blue, white and a streak of pink – moving around the sky in what I can only describe as a pirouetting ballet of colour changing light. Prior to this the Aurora had been predominantly still or moving ever so slowly, however this show was something entirely different – the sky moved at a rapid pace, forming different shapes with different colours – sparkling in the sky. I had tears in my eyes – it was the adult emotional equivalent of a child at Christmas – and I don’t ‘move’ easily. I will never forget that beauty, or the feeling inside of seeing it with my own eyes. At that moment, we felt like the luckiest people on the planet, even if we had to stand in -36 degrees to see it!

My phone photos:

The Husband’s SLR effort:

Then as quickly as she appeared, she vanished. I popped out every 15 minutes for the next two hours, however it was in vain – Lady Aurora had mysteriously vanished as mysteriously as she had appeared, and if the weather and aurora app forecast was anything to go by, this may have been the only time we would see her (other than when I woke up at 4.30am to pee and saw her faintly taunting me out the window).

The second night was shrouded in 100% cloud cover, and although one can see the Aurora when cloudy, not 100% cloudy! The sky did clear a little during the day, so it was a wait and see!

The sunset began about 2pm (NOTA TYPO!) so I took the SLR out for a spin – the Husband prefers to fly Dronie for the aerial shots, however I still love stills, and as great as the camera is on my phone, it doesn’t compare to the SLR! If the clear sky and beautiful sunset was anything to go by hopefully Lady Aurora was coming out to play in the evening!

And of course I had to make a snow angel …

And drink a beer by the river …

Speaking of playing, we wanted to venture even further into Lapland, so took off (much to the Husband’s distain – he had to drive about an hour to get to the departure point for the tour) to have a crack at snowmobiling, sledding and ice fishing. Our guide Sami was only a recent arrival to Lapland, having decided Helsinki, with a population of 648,000 people was too busy and crowded so a move to Lapland where there are roughly only two inhabitants per square kilometre was far more appealing to him. Interestingly, the cold temperatures simply do not seem to bother anyone in the Nordic region – as my Swedish guide in Stockholm had commented, “there is no bad weather, only bad clothing choices!” He seems to be on the money, as despite the polar temperatures, we haven’t been really cold. Save a couple of times where the Husband was shooting photos without gloves (until he realised he can control the camera from his phone in front of the fire) and some tingly toes on the snowmobile trip (of which I have now purchased special heat pads to put in my shoes), the Nordic guys have it absolutely correct – wear the right clothing and you will be fine. To be honest, if two Far North Queenslander’s can manage it, I reckon anybody can!

Note: Husband is all excited and has just sat down next to me to inform me he has mastered the art of flying Dronie from inside the cabin – boy is stoked.

Anyway, I was pretty keen to see the “real” Finnish Lapland and Sami, from Alma Arktica showed us just that. We did have to don thermo suits, furry hats and boots which were reminiscent of Mr Stay Puffed and it was rather challenging manoeuvring in and out of the sled behind Sami’s snowmobile – visualise a trout flopping around and you will get the picture – essentially, it is near impossible to bend over in so much clothing – just flop.

The scenery was spectacular – the absolutely polar (pardon the pun) opposite of the blue of the Great Barrier Reef, the golden sands of Four Mile Beach and the green of the Daintree Rainforest that we see all the time. There is no sound, nothing, absolutely nada – pure peace and quiet. A frozen landscape of which you would think nothing could survive, however when Sami built a fire for us in the snow, as it melted around the rim of the glowing logs, little patches of green began to emerge – living ground cover under the thick blanket of snow, just waiting for spring to come and reveal it once again to the sun.

Amidst the sea of peaceful tranquillity and white landscape, a snowmobile appeared from the distance with a gentleman carrying a little reddish brown fox – how he knew where he was going I will never know – but he stopped by the fire, unceremoniously throwing down the fox. Now I am not one for hunting for fur, so I was keen to find out about this dead fox business. As it turns out, the gent was a hunter, specifically targeting this species of red fox in Lapland as it was the predator of the stunning Arctic White Fox, a gorgeous small fox that was mercilessly hunted in the 1920’s for it’s pelt. The red fox had been for many years, controlled by its predator, the grey wolf, however, this wolf, over the years, has been hunted to near extinction. Adding to this, global warming is reducing the Arctic Fox habitat and opening it up to other species who prefer warmer climates – essentially muscling in on the Arctic Foxes habitat of which it never had to share before. Although the world population of Arctic foxes is not endangered, two sub species are – one of which has only around 100 adults left alive in the wilds of Fennoscandia, which incorporates part of Finland. Sami believed the hunters to be great men, who were helping to cull red fox numbers. So our hunter friend, bagged up his fox in a garbage bag, opened the “boot” of his snowmobile and, grinning ear to ear, proudly showed us a second bagged red fox before bidding us farewell to find another one. Another example of global warming – but I don’t suppose the Government in Australia really give a shit about the Arctic Fox, even though they are contributing to climate change and the reduction of habitat with their energy policies.

After fox hunters departure, the inevitable conversation had to be had – the Husband, having drunk too much coffee, needed to pee. Well guess what? It’s done how you think it’s done – unzip the thermo suit, whip it out and go for it. The Husband then took great juvenile delight in taking a photo of his achievement which had melted a hole in the snow – a true power pee.

Having returned to the fire triumphant, naturally the conversation turned to how much more difficult this process would be for women, until Sami trumped me with a dire warning on doing a number two in the snow – beware of the hood on your suit! Apparently many of his friends have suffered this fate and had the unpleasant task of dealing with a poopy hood. Queenslanders beware ant nests and stinging trees, Finns beware of the hood.

More hot chocolate (this is becoming a habit bordering on obsession – particularly as I discovered the conveniently packaged single serve instant sachets at the K-Market), Finnish soup – of which I had no idea what was in it, but it was delicious and hot – and it was time for me to catch a fish. Again, having seen something on television doesn’t compare to seeing it in real life – Sami was happy for the “exercise” required to bore through the snow and ice into the lake, however I honestly thought he was having me on when he handed me the rod. It was teeny tiny with a sinker and fly however he assured me it could handle catching an Arctic Trout, of which he advised were delicious. Unlike the Aurora, success evaded me and compounded my inability to catch fish. They were definitely down there – I saw them taunting my fly, however none of them felt the need to come out onto the ice at the end of my line, so our fate was sealed and we were going to have to dine out.

Our toes were beginning to freeze so, flopping back into the sled we took off for home, then braved the roads back to our cabin via the Alko (bottle shop – how aptly named) and headed out to the only restaurant in town – Deantu – for a feast of reindeer and mushroom soup, Arctic trout (at least someone is catching them), roasted elk with veggies and reindeer pasta. Living like Finns!