by Ian Cochrane | Feb 16, 2014 | Europe
Four metre waves batter our ferry on the fiercest piece of water in the world. We’re 100km west of the Norwegian mainland and this is the Maelstrom, first mentioned by the Greeks 3000 years ago and immortalised in the iconic writings of Edgar Allen Poe and Jules...
by Ian Cochrane | Sep 14, 2013 | Europe
“Puffin dogs?” Hege shakes her head. “You know, there are none on the island at this point in time?” I’m speechless with disappointment. “Yah,” she adds, “but there were hundreds here last week.” It seems we’ve just missed the Norwegian Lundehund Club 50 Year...
by Ian Cochrane | May 25, 2013 | Americas, Europe, Oceania, Utopia
A face stares out from my PC screen: a suited-up man about 30yrs old, the boyish face round, the hairline receding. I see a clean face, but for the sparing outline of a beard. I see a thin mouth, the eyes narrowed and slightly turned, the face of a man who killed...
by Ian Cochrane | May 20, 2013 | Europe
The narrow road is a roughed-out, potholed track gouged from ragged Norwegian mountains. Winding alongside a grey Arctic Ocean, it’s graced with the occasional passing bay and kept in place against northern tempests by discarded mountain boulders. Turning a last...
by Ian Cochrane | Nov 26, 2012 | Europe
We had passed by here before, tall and ornate, diamond timber-panelling on grand double gates, always shut; the name in sweeping letters across the arched pediment above. This time – en-route to Nidaros cathedral – I pay little attention, until my girlfriend stops....
