With the main target of Polar Bear in mind we booked a 4 night cruise with Hurtigruten on the Nordstjernan. The package included flights and an overnight stay on Tuesday and Monday nights.
Our flight was 7.05am out, via a two hour stopover in Oslo, which was extended by a couple of hours so it was a very early start for David, Sean and myself, heading to Heathrow. We met up with Jake in Terminal 2, checked in our luggage, went through security, where they were trialling a new system, so we didn’t have to take our laptops out, and had a body scanner board to pass through. This flagged up my right foot so I had to go to one side and have a manual check, a scan and then place one foot after the other in a foot scanner, all of which were green.
We met up with Alan and Brenda, found somewhere for breakfast and then went to our gate for our flights. The flight to Oslo was fine and we had a cup of tea and a snack before our onward flight to Longyearbyen. The approach over the island was very arctic, with glaciers, sea ice and razor sharp ridges.
We landed and deplaned to some lovely views but the official making sure everyone got off the plane and into the airport safely got very cross with everyone taking photos of the airport and kept saying, ‘ Move on, it’s just an airport, you’ve been to other airports, you don’t need photos’ which everyone ignored.
We collected out luggage after the ‘obligatory’ picture with the Polar Bear on the luggage reclaim and made our way to the bus which took us, via half the hotels and cruisers in Longyearbyen to the Coal Miners Cabins. We checked in, sorted our stuff and had a quick look round before going for a very nice fish soup and bread supper.
After our meal we went for a longer walk than intended down to the town and along to the dog pens. I gave up half way and stayed by the river while the others walked on. As it was a longer walk than expected, David and Jake came back and we hailed a taxi to take us to the polar bear sign, heck out the dog pens, pick up the others and return to the Coal Miner’s Cabins. There were lots of Arctic Terns flying back and forth feeding chicks. There were also flocks of Barnacle Geese but their young were much bigger. The dog owners asked us not to go near the pens and said they didn’t like their dogs being photographed so we moved away.
It was hard to get to sleep as it was 24 hour daylight and the curtains weren’t that dark but the long day meant that I dropped off very
We settled in, trying to sort out how on earth we could fit ourselves into the tiny berths. Then we went up on deck for an introduction to our guides and our safety briefings,
As we sailed out of Adventfjorden we got our first look at the Arctic scenery. We passed evidence of past mining at Grummant and then sailed north across the Isfjord. We sailed past the Alkhornet cliffs which were quieter than expected but still had lots of birds in the distance. As we sailed across the fjord there were several sightings of Fin Whale dotted about. We headed to Ymerbukte for dinner, which was delicious, and then headed out of Isfjord towards the open sea and the north.
After dinner we stayed up on deck until about 11before turning in.
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