June 11 - Svalbard
June 11 - Svalbard
Well that was it, our last few hours on the Ultramarine, finishing off what was a great journey travelling around the island of Spitsbergen in Svalbard. Its been a fantastic trip, we’ve seen some magnificent wildlife and scenery, we’ve learnt heaps, and in addition we’ve met some lovely people, we’ve had a ball.
Due to a bit of of a stuff up somewhere along the line, we, and along with a few ex passengers, had to spend an additional day and night in Longyearbyen. No complaints from us as additional tours and meals were all provided and it’s always interesting seeing somewhere new.
Interesting way to take the dogs for a walk!
Longyearbyen itself, I have to say, is not the least ‘pictureskew!’, in fact it’s pretty ugly. There’s no such thing as attractive housing and the whole place has a multi-coloured ‘army barracks’ feel about it. Considering it has 4 months of night-time as well, I don’t think I’ll be moving here quite yet! 😊
Bottom R: caravan skidoos
Overlooking town, and not really adding to the town’s attractiveness, is one of 7 local coal mines. These are of the horizontal type as, because they’ve all been dug in perma-frost (land that constantly under 0°C for 2 or more years), digging vertically is just too much of a challenge. We visited one, and, surprise surprise, it was cold! 🥶 Very interesting but cold!! 🥶 😊
Our last visit of the day was to check out the Svalbard Global Seed Vault a secure backup facility for the world's crop diversity. By storing duplicates of seeds this provides security of the world's food supply against the loss of seeds in case of natural disasters, disease, accident, war, etc. All contents housed at the facility are stored at -18°C, too cold for me 😊, but unfortunately it’s not open to the public ☹️.
Out to dinner with the rest of the group tonight and then off to Oslo tomorrow.
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