Flew here in three hours from Oslo. We knew there would be 24 hr daylight but we weren’t expecting bright sunshine, with the sun high in the sky, when we arrived at 3am!

We have rented a small cabin on the coast edge of Longyearbyen town, really neat little place ideally located for the town. Seems huge compared to Connie the camper.

About 2600 people call this town home, 78 deg north, well inside the artic circle with minus 30 deg C winters and 4 months of complete darkness! However, we’re here in their summer, 10 deg C and 24 hr daylight.

Few hours sleep then wandered into town, all the buildings are prefabs on piles driven into the permafrost. The buildings are traditional wooden buildings painted in bright colours so the town looks quite bright. There’s just the one Co-op store, rather expensive as everything is imported. Only things cheaper than Norway are alcohol and fuel as there’s less tax on them here. We walked to the edge of town, as any further you have to take an armed guard to protect you against a polar bear attack. The town is full of students from across the globe, scientists & tourists. All students undertake rifle shooting training during their first week, and several of them act as guides in their spare time. The rifle should be used to scare the bears - they can only shoot to kill in self defence (which is thankfully very rare - in fact several of the guides had never seen a bear!). It’s amazing that all conversations are held in English (as are all studies!) - a reminder of how lucky we are!!

Booked some trips into the surrounding wilderness for the few days we’re here.

First organised trip is a visit to an abandoned coal mine. Very interesting visit, the mine is still as it was the day they stopped mining in 1998. Equipment and tools all around. We went deep into the mine and learnt about the work and methods. Only small seams of coal and slow work compared to modern big mines. While there we were lucky to see an Arctic fox - looking a bit scruffy (but very cute) as it was losing its gorgeous white winter coat. Also visited the excellent museums and photo gallery in town. Town very busy as a cruise ship had disgorged 3000 passengers at the dock. Fortunately they only stay one day. The bigger cruise ships are stopped from visiting most of the Svalbard archipelago as they only allow ships that burn light oil that is easier to treat if spilt. Also a good ruse to make sure the local tour companies get work.

Monday brought more good weather, 8 degrees and sunny (24 hours of it!) aboard an old ice breaker to take a look at an abandoned Russian coal mining town Pyramiden. Long boat trip past snow capped mountains & glaciers and we saw sea bird colonies, glaciers, beluga whales and two polar bears on the way! We were very lucky.

The next day had us trekking up the 500m high mountain behind the town with another tourist, Dimitry from Greece, and Maria, our young Swedish guide who was armed with a loaded rifle.. It was quite a climb up through the loose banks of stone making up the moraine onto the mountain plateau (Vanda wasn’t keen to go to the very edge!) And we came down some of the glacier on our bottoms, which was fun & much easier than sinking in deep snow up to our knees! It was amazing to see how the meltwater created streams & rivers that changed the terrain so dramatically - where we could walk in the morning, was now a river! A tough but enjoyable walk.

A boat trip to the walrus colony was the last highlight of our stay. A 2.5 hour trip on a speedboat to then get in a zodiac and go onto a beach to see the walrus colony of about 50 males close up, was awesome. They fart a lot so it was pretty smelly! Even though they are huge and lumber on the land, they are quick movers in the water, which can be a bit scary when they’re coming towards you & they’re bigger than the boat you’re on.. A final treat was seeing a pod of beluga whales playing in the water & a minke whale come and investigate our boat (once we’d turned the engine off). We’ve had a truly amazing time.