Longyearbyen - Day13

Today we had our last zodiac trip, this time to Alkhornet. We landed at a beach and had a steepish climb up to the tundra with Kristine from Norway. They had sighted, when doing their scoping for bears, a herd of reindeer over the headland so that’s where we headed. We counted around 20, males, females and young. They were well spread out over the area. Most had already cast their velvet so their antlers were white not red. It was a spectacular setting and there was plenty moss and food for the animals.

On our return we got info about the disembarkation procedure. Then we got zodiacs to Longyearbyen, landing at a small jetty. Buses took us into town (bears could be that far out). The Greenpeace Rainbow Warrior was moored nearby. It’s a small town of 2100 people. (Svalbard has a total of 2530.). We went to the tourist info for a fridge magnet which cost £7, my dearest ever unless Greenland was more. The info place told us where to go to see the colourful houses which I have blipped.

On our way back we met 4 young women returning from the pride march. (The most northerly pride festival in the world). They wanted their photo taken with us. Then we wandered down to where rows of skidoos were parked. They had special containers on the side for the gun.

We went to the museum which had more or less all the info Ian the historian had given us, plus stuffed polar bear, reindeer etc. Then we went to the art gallery above the co-op but it was expensive and looking at the artist’s catalogue outside, didn’t look interesting. We noticed people getting on the bus back so went too - we’d had from
3 and the bus back was to be 6 but everything was closed at 5.

People have to carry a firearm if out of Longyearbyen because of bears. The town has the Arctic world archive where you can store data for Data £35,000. We could see the entrance to the Global seed vault from the ship. I think it’s in an old mine.

After dinner we had the movie made by the photographer which was very well done and funny. He’d obviously gone with the fast walkers (Chargers!) as some pix were from high up.

The ship sailed 1936 miles from Reykjavik to Longyearbyn via Greenland.