Sunday 27th June 2010
(Saturday's blog still to come)
Today was to be a gentle activity day and so it was.
A 9 am pick up for a four hour Fauna and Flora trip around the coastal area. There were five of us on the trip plus the guide and a trainee guide.
Essentially we were driven to a series of coastal locations on both sides of Longyearbyen, where we had the chance to look for birds. In fact the trip turned out to be more about birds. There was a chance to get some pictures of the many small flowers around the areas we stopped at but this seemed somewhat incidental to the search for birds. That was a pity as the flowers were more easily photographed than the birds were.
Certainly we saw birds and some flew over our head but mostly they were a little distant to see clearly even with binoculars – well with mine anyhow. We saw Arctic Tern which I could recognize as being terns. We may have seen puffins and some others I did not recognize the names of.
When we stopped near the end of the road, the guide brought out a powerful telescope on a tripod and we were able to sight rows of birds on a nesting cliff side location.
It was here that we had coffee and a sweet bun. Sitting on the foreshore rocks which were piled up into a steep wall by wave action.
Towards the end of the trip we stopped beside a husky kennels and looked at the Elder Duck nesting and at some of the chicks. The ducks have worked out that this location which was also right beside the road, was so close to the dogs that the Aortic Fox and Polar Bears would stay away. They could nest in peace. So were so close to the log barrier that I could have reached over and touched them. A small stream flowing down from the mountain side was pounded to give the ducks a small swimming area. The Elder Duck is what the best down comes from for sleeping bags and jackets.
There was a White Aortic Gull flying around here as well.
From here we carried on along the road and past the fresh water lake which is used for the town's water supply. I was interested to find large areas still covered with ice. Further along the road was the only working coal mine in Longyearbyen and on a high hill top were a couple of large satellite bowls. These are there for research project into particle emissions from the sun. Apparently there are some interesting things happening in the sun's inner levels. At the other end of the road there were about eight large white domes which covered other dishes being used for research. In the hillside just under them but in now way connected, is the great World Seed Bank. Here there is a long tunnel bored deep into the mountain. Then there are secure chambers where they are attempting to collect samples of every known food seed and store them. They have about 500 of each seed in storage.
As far as wildlife went, we had an Aortic Fox's lair pointed out high up a mountain side. However the only animal life we saw were some reindeer. One a single animal chewing its way around someone's cottage. Down the hillside some more there were a couple of others doing the same.
We did stop at a polar bear warning sign and posed for photographs.
The guides were knowledgeable and gave lots of local detail. The were friendly. However, part of the interest of the tour was the composition of the group. One husband turned out to be a chemical engineer working in the oil industry. He was involved in risk analysis and his job was to make sure that the oil and gas kept flowing without any hindrance. He was an interesting person to chat to and very informative. Working for a major global oil company he has travelled a lot in his job and has spent time in several countries for his company. He is now located in Stavanger Norway and is involved in the flow of North Sea gas.
I got the guide to drop me off at the Svalbard Museum. This is an award winning establishment and has an interesting display set up on Svalbard and Spitsbergen. It covers the European exploration, the hunting and the mining. There is some information on the geological history. I liked the comment that someone had made that Svalbard today is like the world was at the end of the Ice Age. I hadn't thought of it like that but I did think a bit about that idea. Very interesting I thought.
They also had artifacts rescued from some of the early explorer's camp and base sites, as well as from whaling and hunting camps.
I did buy a CD here and a couple fridge magnets, but realise now as I pack, that I must have left them on the seat at the museum. Like every other museum and gallery in town, you have to take boots off and swop them for slippers. I think I left the small bag on the seat after my boots were back on and I had gone to the locker to reclaim my back pack and jacket. That was bit of a waste of money unfortunately.
During the two mile walk back up the valley to the guesthouse, I did stop to take some flower photos. Several pretty little bunches of flowers were growing in the gravel along the shoulder of the road. Incidentally "up the road" certainly applies here as there was a steady gradient upwards.
There are a group of guesthouses in an area called the new town -Nubian. Once these had been the mine workers hostel accommodation but now the act as tourist accommodation. As I approached the first and lowest building, I just happened to glace sideways and there just perhaps 20 metres away were a couple of grazing reindeer. Once I got over my surprise, I took the opportunity to take some photos and video – well not actually 'some' more like 'lots'. Quite soon others had joined my photo shoot, one young male with a very mighty looking long lens on his DSLR – a Canon I think. One deer wandered on up the road eating as it went while the other went down and across the road. I caught up with the deer heading in my direction and took more pictures of it eating the little flowers before I headed on to the guesthouse.
I was very pleased that I had decided to walk up the road as on two previous afternoons when I have seen a single deer on the road, I have been going past it in a bus or van and unable to stop. I heard today that there are an estimated 10,000 reindeer on the island group. That does seem a lot. Apparently some years shooting is allowed and you can apply for a lenience to shoot a single deer each. I imagine that it would be for a trophy as they do not appear to have anywhere like enough flesh to provide a meal.
Now after dinner it is the long wait for the airport express at 2:30 am. I am a bit afraid to sleep incase my alarm does not work and I miss the plane. I have three hours to go. So I am writing blogs and listening to Morning Report on Radio NZ via the Internet, but I have stopped as I am hearing the same news items for the fourth or fifth time.
I must confess with all the walking and climbing and standing on boat decks over the last five days that my legs do feel rather stiff and tired. It does take a little bit of effort when I get back to the bedroom, to get up from the chair and head off to make dinner. But there is often some one interesting to chat too. Last evening I spent time chatting to young mail from Ukraine although he has been studying in Stockholm. Tonight it was a 32 year old Dutch GP who has volunteered to do a voyage as the ship's doctor on a small expedition ship. There is another Dutch female doctor of a similar age who is here to do the same on a different ship. Sounds an interesting way to fill in a couple of weeks as although volunteers they do get their return airfares paid for.
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