Polar Park

Sivert the bull moose

We all had a great sleep again.  Didn’t have to move too quickly as the Polar Park didn’t open until 10.00.  We had breakfast, did our chores, emptied the chemical toilet (found the disposal area for it) and filled up with water and headed the 3km to the park.  We got there just as it opened.  We paid £68 for the three of us to enter and then started the route round.  The park was very green - and the enclosures were massive, full of trees, huge lumps of rock, streams etc.  The park was there for the animals first and people second which is how it should be really.  Certainly if you were disabled, you would find it very difficult to get around as the paths were extremely steep and lumpy bumpy.  This could make finding some of the animals hard to spot, but we were lucky today.

Ulrich the musk ox

The animal we really wanted to see was a moose.  The first animal we saw…a moose!  Yay.  There were 3 of them: mother, father and daughter.  The father, Sivert was a very handsome specimen: great antlers, and a long goofy snout.  They are really tall and have small spindly legs, how they support their weight is beyond me!  They are known as the king of the forest.  During the summer they climb up the mountains to enjoy the fresh vegetation where they are nice and safe.  That is why we haven’t seen any.  They come down for the winter as it is so cold up the mountains and hard to find vegetation.  There are about a million moose in Europe (Scandinavia, Finland and Poland, east of the Urals, which is the same number as you can find in North America - which surprised me)  Anyway they were by the fence and some of the fence was open meaning you could stroke them and have a word with them which was lovely.  We stayed for a while.  We were very happy bunnies.

Next stop was the bears: they have two bears - salt and pepper who live together, they are brother and sister.  The sister (salt) is albino and pepper looks after her which is really quite unusual in the bear kingdom.  Salt is almost blind because of her albinoism so pepper makes the dens and allows her to use them.  She has a very good sense of hearing and smell so she can find food no problems.  Once again, they were in tip top condition, looked very happy and content.  There were 4 more bears in another enclosure   They were proper teddy bear bears, with thick thick fur and lovely little ears and huge paws.  They very much looked like they should be hugged.  I’m sure they would be lovely to hug, but maybe the last thing you would hug?

Storm the lynx

After the bears, we went in search for the lynxes and wolves and wolverine, but with no success - they were not to be found.  We then headed to see the Muskox.  Now this is an animal I don’t think I was aware of prior to coming here.  They have both sheep and cattle in their genes and their wool is the warmest wool in the world, selling for £2,000 per kilo!!!  I wonder who buys it and what it is made in to?  The male Muskox must be worth a lot of money as he had a good number of kilos of wool on him.  They are called Muskox because when the male is on heat he gives off a scent that smells of Musk.  We got a whiff of it and it wasn’t too unpleasant.  They were introduced to Norway from Greenland in the 1930s and tend to live in the central belt.  Anyway they were magnificent beasts - huge things, snorting and growling.  The male was massive and a bit shaggy, he showed us his prowess by rubbing up against a tree and knocking a fence post over which was leant up by his enclosure.  He had a lady friend and 3 calves.  He kept stepping over and on them!  We were all taken by him.

Male wolf

Next stop was the reindeer.  These were loose in the park - but when we went to see them they were hiding in a forested area.  We weren’t too fussed by that though as we have seen so many of them already in the wild.  As we left the area they were in, they did come into the open and quite close to us - but to be honest, with their long antlers and doziness, I didn’t really want to get too close to them.  Did you know that female reindeer are the only deer to have antlers?  Next stop was the red deer - didn’t hold too much appeal for us as we saw plenty in Scotland.  

By now it was after 12pm so we returned to the van for lunch and were back in the park for 1pm where there was a carnivore tour.  It took place in English (yay - we were the only ones to respond to her question on which language to take the tour in)  The lady was brilliant - she imparted loads of information about the animals - she obviously loved her job and the animals.  She had a bucket of horse meat which brought the carnivores out of their hiding places.  This way we got to see the lynxes (although all related - they all looked quite different, the mum was caught in the wild and had very defined spots, her children didn’t - they think because they were born in captivity).  They have huge paws so they can run on the snow, not through it.  They have short tails to keep as much body heat in as possible during the winter and are generally very lazy - sounds like cats to us!  She then took us to meet a lone male wolf (they are getting him a mate from Sweden)  Did you know that wolves howl when they are happy as well as a call to hunt and to confuse potential prey.

Next were the bears who all came out.  Apparently yesterday the keeper doing the tour had a bucket of whale meat as the afternoon treat.  Not good - apparently the lynxes and bears refuse to eat whale - so they have to mix it with lamb, but that doesn’t always work!  Who’d have thought it - but I guess whale wouldn’t be a natural food stuff in the forests where the lynx and bears hang out.

Brown bear

Lastly she took us to the moose - she showed us some leaves that the moose love in the park, so we picked some and took them over - apparently the moose are made for them - they call it moose chocolate.  We all got a chance to feed them, we got quite close up and personal as the moose chomped on them.  A lovely experience.

That was the tour over, but before we left we had to go and see Ulrich the Muskox again.  We went and were once again enthralled by him and his entourage.  Some of the calves were stood up and they were bundles of fluff.  We said goodbye and paid one more visit to Sivert Moose and his ladies, we had him to ourselves this time which was good.  Think Matt must have taken about 50 photos just of them!

Happy boy and moose!

We returned to the shop and cafe and had an ice cream - I forgot to mention that it was actually quite warm today - so much so that we dumped our jumpers in the van at lunchtime and just walked around in our T-shirts.  Considering the average summer temperature here is 12 degrees, we did quite well as it was 18 today!  We went for a quick look in the shop…lots of soft toys…Matt bought himself a Muskox which he has named Ulrich!  What is it about this family and soft toys.  I wonder if we will be able to fit all the new toys in our luggage without having to buy a new bag?!

We left the park around 4 and headed to Narvik.  We found ourselves a supermarket to stock up on essentials (bread, cucumber and toothpaste!) and then we found ourselves a rough camp.  Now, we could have got a toll bridge to Narvik, but we figured that it would be nicer to camp out of the town centre, so detoured to drive round a fjord instead.  Mistake…the toll to cross the bridge was 15Kr, as we headed around the fjord we came across a tunnel - a toll tunnel, cost us Kr99!  There was no warning anywhere that the non-bridge road would be a toll road.  We haven’t had to pay any tolls for the dozens of tunnels we have driven through so far.  We were unable to turn around, the toll is automatic via cameras, so staying in a rough camp has cost us!  Poo!  Anyway, we have found ourselves a rough camp at the end of a fjord with mountains all around.  It is very still so the water is beautiful, however it is very very hazy so it isn’t quite as scenic as it could be.  Hoping it might clear in the morning for some good pictures.  Tom was out immediately to do some stone throwing whilst Matt and I had our end of day beer and cheesy wiggles.  Always a good end of day / beginning of evening routine!

Howlllllllll