Four days of Arctic Wilderness Exploration. Three days of zodiac adventures, island landings and explorations. This is real Arctic wilderness. While expensive to visit, it is still accessible. We saw varying wildlife and bird life but unfortunately no polar bears. The ice was melting much faster this year we were told and the bears were not visible.

We did see Arctic Fox, Walrus, Seal, Reindeer,Eider Ducks and many varieties of seabirds. .

We did see seemingly barren tundra landscapes, that once traversed by foot, provided amazing flora sightings including the most delicate of alpine flowers.

We did see incredible snow covered mountains, glaciers and glorious iceberg formations.

For the most part we were able to experience this without too much rain, sleet and fog. One glorious afternoon when zodiac cruises were scheduled the sun came out, making the icebergs, glaciers and mountains so much prettier and photogenic.

Sharing the adventure with 100 or so other people does have downfalls and some of these become more and more apparent as the days continue on. For instance the Zodiac procedures are very clear. We are in an allocated group, so everyone is not getting changed at the same time in the "mud room" . This room is where we keep our wet weather gear and boots and from where we go out onto a platform with steps to board the zodiacs. As the days progress, many people do not follow the instructions set down. During the time in the zodiacs, the skipper must be requested if it is safe to stand up to take photos and then only one person at a time. One would consider it fair and polite to only take a few quick shots then give someone else a turn, but many don't. In the last few days of this two week trip, we are most aware that we are sharing the adventure with others!

The upside to this though, is we made some excellent friendships. The ship's Doctor, Suzi and her husband Garry from NZ, Liz from NSW and Pam from WA to name a few.

Finally on the morning 13th June, we arrived into Longyearbyen the furthest town north that you can live and had for a long time been on our bucket list.It has a real frontier feel to it. Motorized sleds and dog sleds are the main form of transport. With signs warning not to "park your dogs" in front of shops. There seems an impermanence to the place, sort of makeshift, but also reaching out for the tourist dollar.

Acting on recommendations from Dr Suzi that this would be the cheapest place to buy alcohol in Norway, we bought a couple of bottles to take with us to our next city, Stavanger, where we would stay with a friend. Little did we know that our yen to save some money on our wine put in place a whole series of events that led to a travel catastrophe! More about that next story.

It was time for goodbyes and as we headed to the airport by bus we got a brief glimpse of one of the things Longyearbyen is famous for - the world seed bank. This is a high security, high tech facility that cannot be visited by travellers but it was good to have some idea where it was having read about it and seen a documentary.

Now for some independent Norway adventures.