What an amazing couple of days. We woke early after a great rest, had a feed, then waited for our guide to pick us up. He arrived about 9.20am and it was still dark (& snowing) as we climbed aboard the mini van. After a bit of driving around Kiruna and collecting more people, we made our way about 20 miles into the wilderness. There we helped to unload the huskies and tie them onto a dedicated wire. Then for the next 20 mins we got to play with the dogs who loved the attention, bouncing around like puppies & howling for some love. On to business now. We were given the briefing on how to ride the dog sleds. Nothing much to it apart from using the brakes and not letting go of the sleds. Apparently the dogs love pulling the sleds but love it even more when no body is on the sled as it's a lot less work. Lazy puppies! As the boss started to hook the dogs up the noise was crazy, the barking & howling like nothing I have heard before. The huskies were excited and so were we. Finally we were off with me driving & Jac keeping the sled warm. I think we got the lazy dogs though because I had to keep running along pushing the sled as our team was falling behind. After a while we swapped and Jac had control. We were on the sleds for about an hour and a half until everyone had a turn. Then we swapped the canine power for some motor action as we loaded onto snowmobiles for the hours journey to the camp. The temp was about -7 degs and coupled with the snowstorm, and lack of goggles, it made riding hard. That was no deterrent though as it was still a lot of fun. After swapping riders a few times we made it to a river, and as it hadn't frozen over yet we had to abandon the snow bikes, and board the rubber boats for a bit of hard work. The river was flowing hard so we had to battle the current but eventually made it to the other side. From there we grabbed the luggage & bags of supplies & hauled them up the hill to the camp. By this stage it was 2.45pm & completely dark. Very strange as it was only a couple of hours of twilight we had experienced that had constituted the day time. We met our host Johanas who was preparing our lunch but told us we had to cut 11 boxes of firewood for our huts and sauna before we could eat. Well there were 14 of us. 11 Asians, Jac, me and a Dutchman. You can guess who did most of the work. So an 1.5 hours later we piled into the kitchen for a moose stew which tasted fantastic after such a hard day. The camp is secluded in the middle of nowhere with a few huts and cabins. The central part though is the kitchen/dining hall. The walls were covered by bear & wolf pelts as well as stuffed animals. All authentic. After lunch we had to cart water up from the river to fill the tanks. The water is so amazingly fresh, the freshest you could ever taste. We had made friends with another young married couple, Maarten & Pauline, and spent the afternoon playing cards. During this time we also started the fire in the Sauna and monitored it during the evening in anticipation for some heat and a good cleansing later. In the evening we had a nice feed of reindeer before a few of us headed to the sauna. We spent time in 90 degs before jumping in the snow then back in the sauna which was pretty invigorating. We stayed up until midnight to see the northern lights but unfortunately it was a little overcast so no luck. It did eventually clear up but it was just not our turn. So off to bed to rest tired bodies before more action after a good sleep. Yesterday we were up at 8am but you wouldn't know it as it was dark. We had a simple breakfast then tried a bit of cross country skiing and tobogganing as well as wilderness exploring. It did get a little light although you never see the sun rise above the horizon which is a unique experience. It was pretty chilly so we did retire back inside for some more cards. Then we lit the BBQ and cooked some pork sausages to combine with mashed spuds for lunch followed by the packing of our things. We departed our camp about 3pm for the trek back to Kiruna in the darkness. It took about an hour of which Jac & I rode most of the way on the snowmobiles. Then we loaded into the van and got dropped at the train station, via the bottle shop, together with most of the people on our tour. About half an hour later we boarded the train. It was just a normal train for the first 2 hours so we had a few drinks, had a feed & played some more cards. After a couple of hours we transferred onto a sleeper train in which Jac & I had our own cabin. The cabin was tiny but all we needed. The best part was that a shower was next to us. After 2 days in the wilderness it may have been the best shower we have ever had. Then we settled in for a quiet relaxing sleep as we had another 16 hours to travel. We woke up today refreshed and after grabbing a bit of food for brekky and another shower we relaxed in the cab watching the beauty of Sweden roll by. Eventually we arrived back in Stockholm about 1.30pm. On the platform we said our goodbyes to the group before our small hike to our hotel. After a short rest we wandered down to the old town for a look. This is by far the most beautiful part of Stockholm and we can see why the city is high on the list of Europes most beautiful cities. After a few hours of wandering the temperature started to plunge so we made our way back to the hotel. And that is where we are right now. So what did we think of the experience? Well I loved it, Jac not so much. She enjoyed the experience but can't handle the coldness which really took some of the shine off. Lucky it wasn't the minus 20 degs they had this time last year. But in the end it was amazing. No northern lights but dog sledding, snowmobiling & camping in one of the last true wildernesses in the world. Now that's one of those experiences in life that we will remember forever.