25th June 2010
There are two activities which stand out today. The Airship Museum and a trip to find fossils.
To start with I set off walking down the valley towards the Airship Museum, which is on a back road to one side of the valley. In hindsight, I should have left the guesthouse perhaps an hour earlier, but I thought that there was enough time to do everything.
On the way down the road I stopped off to visit an interesting looking art gallery. I had assumed that there would be photographs on display but in reality, it was all painting of some sort or another. Most were abstracts of flying snow and white out landscapes. So I wouldn't say that it was the most gripping display. While the front area was free to view, i.e. the shop, to go into the permanent exhibitions a charge was imposed. You did get to view a 6 minute (approx) video on the area down through history. The film was the best thing. There were some historic maps of the island as well and this was interesting to me. Many were from the 17th century. The gallery appeared to be part of a building which contained a range of local artisits' studios or workshops or sales points. I didn't go to see what was upstairs though.
Next I went to the Svalbard Airship Museum. Round about a 2 km walk. While it would be unusual to find an airship museum anywhere, to find one in this remote and small township did seem very strange. The old building was not large and I wondered as I approached it just what it would contain. In fact, would the walk be worth it.
I was the only visitor although others turned up while I was there, including a whole bus load of German speaking tourists. Ah a cruise boat must be in. The owner was Italian and greeted me with interest. He had been to NZ but only to transit at Christchurch coming and going to the Italian research base in Antarctica. When chatted for a while.
Mostly the contents were photographic plus some video. There were not a lot of actual items from airships. All the very detailed captions were in English so I got an information over dose, in fact I had to finally give part of the exhibits a very quick walk past as I was running out of time. I found it all very interesting. And there was no mention of the crash of the Hindenburg.
But why airships here in Svalbard? Well simply because there were a number of attempts to fly airships of various sorts to the North Pole and they started from some place on Spitsbergen, usually to the north. Most did not make it or in some cases get very far at all. But one, the Nord, actually flew over the North Pole and continued on to Alaska. So with that in mind the museum really only featured those airships or information about the men who flew them in other exploits.
Now another longish walk across the valley to the shopping centre. I had hope to visit the Svalbard Museum but I could see that I would not have much time to visit it in detail. So perhaps on Sunday.
Then it was off to the Supermarket to stock up for the days ahead. I had arranged for my Fossil Hunting trip at 4 pm to pick me up from down town. That way I would not have to carry the groceries up the valley. Nor pay for a taxi. Clever I thought.
Well, that idea worked and at 4 along came the mini van to pick me up and then around to the Radisson Hotel to collect another six. The van took us up the road to a point just a few hundred metres beyond my guesthouse. Then we walked or more correctly mostly climbed, across the rubble covering the valley. This was a mixture of rounded river stones and less rounded moraine debris.
I had assumed from the trip description that we left the transport and made a short walk to the base of the moraine. But no – this was a 45 minute walk and then climb. Sometimes we were making our way across piles of stones and at other times there was a formed track and even an old mining road. We crossed a small stream by using a few rungs or a short ladder laid across from bank to bank. Every now and again there were small patches of tiny mountain flowers. We crossed a snow patch and then another and then a steep climb up through snow for a while. Generally the theme of the 'walk' was up and up. I did find this somewhat exhausting although I was going OK along the flat bits. The guide even took my jacket and stuffed it into her pack to help me cool down for the climb. That was nice of her.
We past an old abandoned mine shaft going into the side of the mountain and the foundations of the mine buildings located on top of a moraine mound. But finally we reached the highest part of the moraine piles and across the mass of stones was the ice of the glacier. The guide reached into her pack and brought out seven heavy rock hammers, the sort fossil hunters would use. Once the group started enthusiastically chipping away at the rocks lying around, the guide began to get the tea and coffee set out on a flat rock. I sat down near by on a large flat rock and began to look at smaller stones lying around. In no time I had found fossilized grass, but the real find for me was to find a couple of stones with the imprint of 50 to 60 million year old leaves imbedded into them. Although I continued to chip away at rocks I did consider that I had all that I needed to take home as souvenirs.
Then it was back down the way we had come. Now much easier. The husky that the guide had with her bounded around as much as its lead would allow. Then we got to the van, exchanged the rubber gum boots for our own footwear and I was driven the short distance to the guesthouse. I did feel tired and stiff, especially my left leg.
The guide of course showed no such exhaustion despite taking two groups up a day. But she was a tough young woman who had done military training in the Latvian Army, had done parachute jumps fully laden with equipment and had also injured herself jumping. She had some interesting stories to tell. But we did have confidence that if we should met a polar bear then she could use the flare pistol or as a last resort, the bear gun both of which she carried. The last bear in the area was less than a month ago and had wandered around the guesthouses at the top of the road, before being scared away by flare guns.
This doesn't happen very often.
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