Settling in and our first hikes

Jamie now!

We've been in Longyearbyen for about 10 days now and we've got up to a lot in that time! The first weekend was spent exploring the town: finding the UNIS building (not too hard, it's the biggest one in town and right in the middle); finding the shop (moderate difficulty) and marvelling at the hundreds of snow scooters sat on pallets waiting for the snow to return.

The UNIS building

Longyearbyen from above

We also walked out along the east along the shore (the far side of town in the last picture) as far the sign warning of polar bears and did the tourist thing in front of the signs, we didn't venture any further at this point as we were not equipped with flare gun or rifle for safety.

Lucy came up and met us in Kendal's barrack in Nybyen and supplied us with a smattering of good advice and funny stories, the two sometimes overlapping! We all settled into our new homes pretty easily as everyone is very friendly which bodes well for the long winter, although my kitchen was a veritable Mary Celeste as almost all the other residents were away on field trips, their courses having started a week or two before ours. There is lots to get involved with and do - I've been kayaking and Kendal's been swimming already. Daniel also made lots of friends by baking very chocolate-y (and delicious) brownies.

Reindeer lying right outside my window one evening

Most of the week was spent doing the safety course as Kendal has already described and getting formalities like access cards organised, on Thursday evening however we did manage to successfully apply to borrow a rifle for the coming week which we picked up on Friday. That evening there was the icebreaker party (rifle by now securely locked away) which involved, besides the obvious meeting people, silly sports (although they caught our, urm, tactics with chewing gum for the "ping pong and plastic spoon" race) and trying to find the other 3 people with the same playing card as you (handed out randomly at the beginning), although since two of us had the same one it was not too tricky!

At the crack of 10 o'clock the next morning we set out on our first proper hike, up and along one of the ridges above the town, on a still, crystal clear day with wall to wall sunshine enough to forget that we were at 78 degrees north. At the top, like it seems most hills around here, there is a cairn containing a book to sign, which is pretty cool. The views were amazing and hiking across the barren rocky plateau in the company of reindeer and ptarmigan was quite something. We followed a valley full of fossils down off the plateau just up the valley from Nybyen, emerging just below the bottom of a glacier and then variously got back to the barracks either wading across the river or taking the bridge in order to preserve dry feet and boots.

 We had the rifle until Thursday so we went for another trip after class was finished on Tuesday, the joy of lectures finishing at 11 am! We headed east out of town, past the bear sign we had stopped at the first weekend, stopping for the obligatory group shot, headed up the steep mountain next to the reservoir, making our way up a sharp ridge beside a steep sided valley strewn with mining debris. As we got higher the hill the ground got steeper, the path less secure and rocks looser, making keeping an eye on where you were standing and important and the occasional bit of holding on prudent! Most of the group got to the first outcrop but a couple of us pushed on around up to the higher ones, although I was the only one to make it up to the cairn to record out trip for posterity; the views made it very much worthwhile however!

That pretty much covers what we've been up to so far, and we've had some lectures too of course. Finally I'll leave you with this picture of us waiting outside the shop for people on the way back from Tuesday's hike, the rifle (not loaded and bolt out) is perfectly fine on your shoulder and you see them all the time around town, although the shops and bank do have no guns indoors rules!