Burning Desire For FIRE

Alas! All good things must come to an end, and so it was with our cruise to Greenland. I can’t believe how lucky I was, first to have a quad cabin with only 1 other person to share with, and secondly, to have that person be such an easy person to get along with.

After an earlyish breakfast, we jumped on the bus that would take us 6 hours down the road to Reykjavik.

I pretty much slept and read for the whole drive. I spotted this though, outside the one rest stop we had:

Iceland is WAY ahead of us when it comes to electric cars. Just look at all those charging stations!

By 2:30 we were back in Reykjavik and we said goodbye to the lovely people we met on the cruise. Morgan and I are sticking together for one more day, sharing a room in a hotel next to the airport.

We took a couple of public buses to get here. The cost? $31 AUD. This is 1/10th the cost of the taxi I took when I arrived here.

A word to the wise: Take the bus when you arrive in Iceland. Your wallet will thank you!

Goodbye Iceland! Thanks to Morgan, I feel like I’ve really seen Iceland properly.

And now here I am in Copenhagen. I’ve got the key to my hotel room, I’ve been out for a walk, exploring, and now I’m lolling around, drinking a Yellowtail Shiraz and planning on finishing another book.

Tomorrow I have the day to myself until I meet the tour guide for the Scandinavia trip at 6PM.

This holiday is going so fast!

Dad joke of the day:

Thus morning’s lecture is about the Greenland Shark.

When she was talking about how the Icelandic people having to ferment shark meet for almost 6 months to get all the ammonia out of the flesh, she said, “A passenger who tried the fermented shark meat said that it tasted like eating a urine-soaked mattress.”

Yum…

I took this at breakfast. The dining room is on the 4th level, so you can imagine how big the waves are.

Watch the video till the end.

When you see the crew taking videos of the swell, you know it must be huge!

When we were on the Antarctica cruise, Liga and I, (especially Liga) spent a lot of time napping on the front couch in the lounge. I took a short nap on that couch after breakfast and sent this shot to Liga.

I went to a lecture about the other tours Oceanside offers. This slide shows the number of passengers on each ship, as opposed to the number of people on a ‘normal’ cruise ship.

I much prefer the expedition ships’ tiny numbers.

They offer two free drinks vouchers if you complete a survey, so naturally I claimed them. I’m heading into my very-limited-drinking part of this holiday, so I may as well make the most of my last night.

Tonight is our last night. Tomorrow, Morgan and I take a bus to Reykjavik and then onwards.

Dad joke of the day:

Here is a gin and tonic from last night, with ice taken from a chunk of ice that was floating in the fjord. This ice is really old.

Blue and purple are storms. This is the map they showed us to explain why our last destination in Greenland has been changed.

“ There are 60knot winds in the place we were planning to go. Those winds can pick up a zodiac and flip it. I reckon we’re better going here … (pointing to a green spot) where the winds are 4 knots.”

So that’s what we did. This is the view from the zodiac as we headed towards shore. The air was still, it had stopped raining and we had a lovely little walk as our goodbye to Greenland.

There was a huge iceberg. I guess I won’t be seeing any of these for a while… although maybe I’ll see some in Norway???

More tundra.

I’m sad this is my last day on Greenland.

Still, I’ve heard interesting stories about Svalbard, where the ship parks in pack ice and polar bears come right up to the ship….

It’s a beautiful place.

In the afternoon, they handed out boozy hot chocolates as a celebratory “yay, we’ve been to Greenland “ thing. It was raining, so I ducked out, grabbed my hot chocolate ( yes to brandy, no to cream) and went back inside. I should have brought my coat.

This MASSIVE iceberg was floating past as I walked indoors. I took this shot from the 5th floor window of the lounge, and If you look at the berg, I’m probably halfway up. It’s huge.

I bought a seasickness patch earlier today and on the advice of the doctor, I already have it on. They last for 72 hours, so she said to just rip it off once we reach Iceland. I have never been seasick and I don’t intend to start now, if I can avoid it!

The daily recap was special tonight, as it was Captain’s Cocktails. Natalie and I had a bubbly each, when a very nice crew member wandered by and asked if we wanted another.

The farewell drinks are tonight, because, as Chris just said in his speech, “ these drinks might not work so well tomorrow!”

I’m feeling very glad I have the patch.

Well. The weather tomorrow looks just peachy.

Dad joke of the day:

Here’s the view from my porthole this morning. It was chilly and lightly rainy, when I came down the stairs to get into the zodiac and saw this:

Lovely!

We were heading to a landing spot with the basalt lava rocks that I saw in Ireland and again on the black beach in Iceland.

I tried to get a decent shot but I was on the wrong side of the zodiac.

This was what we had to clamber all over while getting to the top of the steep cliff. A couple of men slipped and fell, so you’d better believe that I was testing each footfall before I put my weight on them!

Look at the fresh snow on the mountains! At least, I’m reliably informed that it’s fresh snow. How would I know?

The aim was to get over to the top of the basalt cliff to get some photos. Mission accomplished.

Woo hoo!!! One of the guides took this for me. You can see the size of the iceberg next to the ship.

See the size and length of the stones?

When we were putt-putting across from the ship at 5 knots/hr, it was cold and I thought that I wouldn’t be here for long. But once I was on the top of the cliff, standing and gazing out across the fjord, things were different.

Look at that glacier, with the levels of sediment and fresh snow. You’d swear someone organised it as an art installation or something.

I remembered standing , looking out across a bay in Antarctica and feeling the same feeling of peace. There, of course, we could hear the penguins calling, but I had the same urge to simply stand and observe the sheer beauty of the water and ice.

I started talking to Pilar, a woman from Chile, who informed me that I have a doppelgänger- her best friend.

As a joke, I said, “She must be a very good looking woman!” and I felt a bit embarrassed when she seriously replied, “Yes, she is.”

You have to be careful when joking with people whose first language isn’t English.

Our afternoon excursion was a zodiac cruise for 3 or 4 hours. Last week bears were sighted where we were scheduled to land, so in the interests of safety, we were staying on the water.

We were warned to dress VERY warmly, because it was 4C, rainy and we’d be sitting in a zodiac for over 3 hours. Do I put on every layer I had… all 8 of them. It was good that I did.

We headed for the glacier. We were back in the 5 knots/hr speed limit because of the narwhals, so it took nearly half an hour to get to the glacier. Lots of beautiful icebergs around, though.

We hung a right. There were 5 waterfalls, and a small smudge of white near the water’s edge.

On the first night of the cruise, we were taught that polar bear sightings are always small pale dots on the horizon. I was thinking, there’s no way that’s a bear! It’s too small!

I was correct. It wasn’t A polar bear. It was three.

We crept closer in the zodiacs. For around 30 minutes, they stayed together, sleeping. I had lots of photos of this, but they’re not all that interesting. I love this one where, at the end, you see the water coming off her coat.

In Greenland, if you’re on land and you see a bear, the law is instant evacuation of the area. But because we were in zodiacs, we could hang around.

Sasha, our guide in our zodiac, has lived for years up in the north and is very familiar with polar bears. He said that these cubs would be around 7 months old.

They’ll live with their mother for another year before she’ll chase them away.

When they were born, they were as big as a lemming.

She’s fairly skinny now, but Sasha said in a week or so, when the pack ice starts to form, she’ll be able to walk out and start hunting seals and she’ll put on weight.

He said he’s never seen a mother bear with two cubs like this. “Of course, this happened on the day I forgot my camera,” he said sadly.

What a magnificent thing to see. I know that I booked this trip mainly to see the Northern Lights, but in a contest between polar bears and the Lights, the polar bears are always going to win. I’m so very happy.

Poor Morgan. He chose to stay behind and get some work done. He missed the bears entirely.

We swung by the glacier on the way back.

It was funny. No matter how long we drove to get back to the ship, the glacier never seemed to get smaller.

The interesting thing was that in the time that we were gone from the ship, the ice floating loosely in the fjord had dramatically increased. We had to slow right down and take care, in case the propeller was damaged by running over too large chunks of ice.

People were getting cold. My 8 layers were holding fast, but my hands were starting to feel the chill. As we rounded the corner of the ship to reach the shell doors to disembark, I felt the first shiver run across my back. Perfect timing!

Everyone was very happy about the day’s events. What a wonderful thing to have seen!

Honestly, you wouldn’t be dead for quids, would you?

Tomorrow is our last landing in Greenland before we head back through what is apparently going to be a raging storm back to Iceland.

Viking Girl, if you’re reading this and you still want to meet up in Copenhagen, can you email me at lisaisateacher2@gmail.com ? I can’t access the blog email.

Dad joke of the day:

This morning’s short hike was really enjoyable. It was Goldilocks weather… not too hot, not too cold. We were ferried to a rocky little beach, with a hill we climbed to see the view behind.

The medium hikers are in the background, heading off for their 3 hour hike. we stopped halfway up, so the guide could give us some info about the permafrost.

Permafrost is 2m down, underneath our feet. It covers 25% of the Northern Hemisphere. The reason the ground feels so spongy underfoot is because it’s so hard that there’s nowhere for the water to go.

Active permafrost thaws and freezes during the year. This upper layer is so soggy it feels like a sponge. Sometimes it’s like quicksand. We were warned to stick to the vegetation wherever possible and to move quickly when we were walking on rocks or clay.

As the upper layer freezes and thaws, stones get pushed up to the surface, by 1mm a year. This is a slope, so they move downhill in what they call “streaking.” You can see in the photo that it looks like stripes.

I’m walking here by myself. They’ve created a really large perimeter around the lake and we’ve all spread out. Just walking on our own as you can see. This is what I see when I look to the right.

This is what I see when I look straight ahead. You can see the damned cloud cover, which looks all misty and lovely but is stopping the Northern Lights from showing themselves.

And this is what I see when I look to the left. It looks like a little glacier. It’s totally quiet. I’m speaking into my notes in a very hushed tone because I don’t want to disturb anyone else. All you can hear is very low pushing sound of the wind,  there’s no rain. All I can hear is the crunch of my muck boots on the dirt.

Sound travels here. I can hear Mandarin and German floating on the wind.

I came across this wonderful rock. The colours are so saturated it almost seems impossible that they’re natural. A German couple was walking by and they were going to miss it, so I called out to them and they came over to see.

I thought I’d do a quick circuit of the lake and then go back because there seems to be nothing here, but it’s so calm and peaceful. I find myself just aimlessly wandering, prolonging the experience before I go back to the ship.

This is beautiful. It’s almost how I imagine it must look like when the first snow falls. The guides say that there is new snow on the high mountains surrounding us. Winter is on its way.

I found these bones, which I guess proves that there are animals here. If you’re looking for wildlife in Greenland, it seems that September isn’t the time to see much. There are hardly any birds, even.

After an hour, I went back to the ship. It was a quiet walk, full of autumn colours and there was room to process my thoughts and simply be in the space.

After lunch I had a lovely nap with the ship rocking me to sleep, because we were heading towards our next stop, the little village of Ittoqqortoormiit.

This is the view from the zodiac. The buildings here were sent from Denmark and each colour means a different thing.

I suppose it would also make it easier in a blizzard to see where the buildings were, though during winter, the houses are sometimes completely covered by snow.

The sea freezes and they are snowed in for at least 8 months each year.

Puppies! The adult dogs are tied up, like the sledding dogs we saw last year in Juneau, but the pups are allowed to run free.

Here’s the church.

It’s Danish Lutheran. There was a man handing out printed info pages in English, much to the bemusement of the Taiwanese passengers.

One of the Taiwanese women was nice enough to offer to take my picture. “You solo traveller?”

They look like houses kids would draw, don’t they? The roads were pretty rough, and we saw the people getting around on quads. I only saw 2 cars while we were there.

There was fog all around the town.

I noticed this woman’s hand-knitted headband and asked if I could take her picture. She was sitting in the playground with some friends, while children crawled on the play equipment behind them.

Then, excitement! Morgan came down the hill and pointed out 2 Arctic hares. Finally! Wildlife!

They were quite unafraid. I found out later that the people here no longer eat the Arctic hares, though of course they did so in the past.

I stayed so long looking at the hares that I almost forgot about the dog feeding down at the bridge at 6:30.

omg

I started power walking downhill, through the winding streets as quickly as I could.

Look at the polar bear pants on the boy. How warm would they be?

To my disappointment, the dogs were fed pellets of dog food. I was expecting them to be given raw meat.

Dogs always know when it’s dinner time.

Their kennels look incredibly basic, but I remember in Juneau they said that the dogs overheat if they’re brought inside.

I wandered over to join Morgan, who was talking to a young woman called Batheba. Honestly, the Greenland government should pay her a wage. She was so open and friendly and we had a great time talking to her, finding out more about this place.

An interesting thing happened when one of the Taiwanese women gave her a pack of freeze dried peanuts. Batheba didn’t know what they were.

That was pretty surprising, right? Peanuts are everywhere. She tried them and then shared them around with us all, so I don’t know that she really liked them.

She was telling us how, when the sea freezes, you have to be careful on the ice because polar bears appear so silently, and there’s no surviving an attack.

A few months ago, a friend of hers was sitting on the ice and a polar bear cub walked right by her. She kept so still. As you would. She said that she thinks it was able to smell the dog food and not her.

Today was a very good day. We have only 2 more excursion days left in this leg of the trip before we head back to Iceland.

Dad joke of the day:

Last night was an absolute blast! It was an Arctic barbecue on the deck, followed by dancing.

This may have happened…

… followed shortly after by this:

It’s amazing what some fun tracks and mulled wine will do.

The morning was dull, with light rain. I chose to do the short hike again, which is basically code for “stick within the perimeter and go wherever you want.”

This suits me very well. I can enjoy the colour of the seaweed at my leisure.

This landing spot had a house and shed on it. The house was built in 1946 by a Dutch man with a wife from Greenland. They were intending to live here, but the story goes that after a year, she felt too lonely so they moved to a town.

He did a good job as it’s still standing. See the little greenhouse at the front? I could feel the plans they had from that thing alone. Hunters and trappers use the house now.

In such a rocky landscape, there are so many little pictures. It was still raining, but there was little wind. A small group climbed to the top of a rocky outcrop, where there was a cairn.

One of the guides told us about Svalbard, the place where you can never die. You are literally not allowed to be buried there.

Back in the day, when whalers died, the red of them would dig a grave and bury them. But winters are very cold, so as the ground contracted, the coffins were pushed up to the surface, with the very well preserved corpses still in them! Yikes.

Zoom in on the hiker in the pale blue jacket in the bottom right of the photo. This will give you an idea of how high the cliffs are.

The shed. It’s pretty much gutted on the inside. I can understand why the wife wanted some company. It would be pretty bleak to have to live here all the time.

Look! Wildlife! So far the long hikers have seen a lemming and an arctic hare. Clearly, you don’t come to Greenland for the wildlife pictures.

But then something very exciting happened. I was waiting on the beach for a zodiac pickup, having just missed one by the skin of my teeth. As I was waiting, I sat on a rocky outcrop and was staring out to sea.

Suddenly, I heard a roar of thunder. As I watched, a whole section of this massive iceberg broke off and fell into the sea. I think I was the only one who was looking in the right direction.

I was absolutely thrilled. This is the third time I’ve seen this. Once in Antarctica, once in Alaska and now here in Greenland.

Juan, one of the guides, said that he saw this iceberg last season. It’s anchored to the bottom of the sea, and “Do you see the height of it on the left? It’s twice the length of that, under the water. I saw it when I was on the cliff.”

You can see that it’s much bigger than our ship.

I went for a nap after lunch , and boy, was it a good one! I was so comfy and relaxed that I didn’t want to move, so the announcement that the wind had picked up and that activities on shore were cancelled was very good news for me! I rolled over and grabbed another hour of snooze time.

Natalie came back and said, “ You’re not missing out on anything, unless you want to hear lots of people speaking Mandarin very loudly!”

At least half the passengers are a contingent from Taiwan. I wish they spoke English because I want to go to Taiwan next year and it would be good to get some ideas.

We had a very interesting lecture about the Inuit culture.

 No roads in Greenland.

They use sleighs and snowmobiles. The ferry only operates from April to December, and only from the west, where most of the cities are. There are small planes and helicopters as well.

We’ve been asked not to shop in the supermarket at the town we’re visiting, because we’ll be taking food from them. We’re on the east side, which is very sparsely populated.

Pragmatic. If animals were scarce and the communities were hungry, they’d sacrifice the baby girls and the old people. The old people would quietly walk away and freeze to death once they were no longer useful.

This was interesting. The hunters used to catch a seal, carefully gut it while keeping the skin intact, and then inflate it. They’d attach this ‘balloon’ to a harpoon, which would keep a wounded seal or whale from getting away from them because it couldn’t dive.

Women would sometimes leave their husbands to live for a time in another community, have babies, then come back home. This stopped inbreeding. The church from Denmark wasn’t happy about this, but it was a very practical way to keep genetic diversity in such a small population.

If you did something wrong, you would be asked to leave. This would mean death. This happens in Australia, too.

This iceberg was HUGE. Easily the biggest we’ve yet seen. The ship had to change course to get around it.

 No roads in Greenland.

They use sleighs and snowmobiles. The ferry only operates from April to December, and only from the west, where most of the cities are.

We’ve been asked not to shop in the supermarket at the town we’re visiting, because we’ll be taking food from them. We’re on the east side, which is very sparsely populated.

Pragmatic. If animals were scarce and the communities were hungry, they’d sacrifice the baby girls and the old people.

Women would sometimes leave their husbands to live for a time in another community, have babies, then come back home. This stopped inbreeding.

If you did something wrong, you would be asked to leave. This would mean death.

Dad joke of the day:

It’s a good breakfast when you can sip your excellent coffee and watch icebergs float by the window.

Soon after breakfast, we were getting ready for a zodiac excursion around the icebergs’ graveyard.

I didn’t have the best start to the day. I was in a rush to get ready for the zodiac, so I put on my fleece jacket, didn’t zip it up ( big mistake) and the put my waterproof jacket over the top.

When I went to zip it up, I intelligently matched one jacket’s half of the zip to the other’s. They jammed together. I was in trouble. Of course, you can’t get on a zodiac without being weather-proof.

Morgan was an absolute star. It took a few minutes of him wrestling with the jammed zips, but he managed to get them free without breaking anything. I owe that man a drink.

Then, once that was dealt with, I couldn’t find my room key. Every time you leave the ship, you surrender your room key so they can see who’s out and who has come back.

I tore apart my backpack and then went back to my room and did the same.

“Last call for the zodiacs” came over the loudspeaker. Natalie, who was going kayaking after the zodiacs, ran out to tell them I was coming, then she ran back to say they’d take me without the room key.

Bloody hell! Thank goodness!

I was the last one on board. Here’s the view as we set off.

See those dots at the top of the ridge? Musk Ox.

We saw this old, very compressed iceberg. The more compacted ice is in a glacier, the clearer it becomes, as air is removed from it.

At one end, under the golf ball section, you can see the movement of the waves as it changes colour. Amazing.

It’s incredible to think that 90% of these huge icebergs are under water.

Just like in Antarctica, we were served hot chocolate with brandy. It was so good, especially because soon after this, the weather took a turn.

You can see where the iceberg is by the blue line underneath the water.

Same iceberg, but look at the Organ pipes, or flutes. Fresh water from the iceberg moves up towards the top of the sea if there are any gaps.This iceberg has been underwater at some stage.

Two different kinds of ice in the one chunk.

Compressed air bubbles.

A duck!!!! Natalie saw ducklings as well, when she was kayaking, but they went closer to the shore than we did.

Here I am in Greenland, my left hand warm, and my right hand gloveless to be able to take pictures. The weather was getting worse by this stage.

The stripe!

This was the last photo I took. I needed to get my hand into its glove, and water was splashing over us every now and then. I was toasty warm everywhere else but my right hand.

I said I’d do the Polar Plunge this afternoon, but I’m rethinking it. It was bad enough in Antarctica with sunny skies. This is going to be a different beast altogether…

After lunch, we went out again. The weather was better, I was wearing my bathers under my clothes, so I decided to complete the set of possible Polar Plunges.

I’m so very pleased that I did it. It was easier this time to get in quick, because it was on sand instead of rocks. But yeah, once you go under and then stand up, you realise, Fuck it’s cold!

Tonight we’re having a barbecue out on the deck. In Antarctica it was warm and sunny, beautiful barbecue weather, even with icebergs floating by. Here, we definitely won’t be in t shirts and shorts!

But it’ll be fun, nonetheless.

Dad joke of the day:

This is the scene outside the ship this morning. Icebergs mean we’re now in Greenland.

The storm disappeared once the ship reached the fjord in the middle of the night. I woke up at around 3 and realised that the ship had stopped rolling. I was a little disappointed, to be honest. I liked the feeling of being rocked to sleep.

Not a bad view to walk out and see after breakfast. More people are emerging from their cabins, and after lunch today, we hit the zodiacs and go ashore.

I’m writing this part of the post while I’m standing on the stern, watching the icebergs float by. 

It’s so beautiful and so calm.

I was just about to go inside when I saw the blue stripes on this iceberg.

After lunch it was out on the zodiacs for the first time since Antarctica 2022. The water we’re on is part of a Narwhal sanctuary, so we could only go at 5km/hr.

We were going to hike on Bear Island. It’s aptly named, as polar bears are known to live here. Every winter, the sea between the islands freezes over, so the animals can wander wherever they like.
The crew organised long, medium and short hikes. At first, being a lazy person, I was going to do the short hike, but in the end I went on the medium hike.
It turned out to be perilously close to a long hike, but it was a nice way to get to know Greenland. Each hike had a rifle at the beginning and end of each group, just in case.

”This is the tallest forest you’ll see today,” said KJ, our guide for the day.

I don’t normally take pictures of flowers, but these took my fancy.

After an hour and a half, we stopped for a rest. These mountains look like a dragon’s backbone, don’t they?

We sat without talking, simply listening to the Arctic silence.

I spent it gazing at this magnificent iceberg.

When we did the silence in Antarctica, all I heard was water and ice. Here, it was water and wind.

The lichen and moss on the rocks are the first things to grow. Plants come later.

This was no easy hike. We were walking through streams, over rocks, stepping into peat beds that squelched underneath our feet… but we saw a lot.

This is a very beautiful, if harsh, place.

During dinner, there was an announcement to go out on deck and take pictures of the sunset.

I love love love this one.

I’m so glad I left my dessert and went out on deck. It was truly stunning.

Dad joke of the day:

Today was a sailing day with huge waves and rotten weather. Half of the passengers were miserably waiting it out in their cabins. It was either the seasickness patch I bought the night before, or my natural abilities as a sailor, but I felt no queasiness at all.

It was probably the patch. Either way, no complaints from me!

Someone from the Vietnam WhatsApp group asked if Wanda was still with me, so I sent this photo. Proof of life.

And we think Australia has a lot of people living at the edges! Looks like Greenlanders have no option.

This is the largest island in the world, with the inner ice ending way below sea level. There’s so much of it that if it all melts, every sea will rise by 6 metres.

I’m now part of the Crossing the Arctic Circle club.

Natalie, my cabin mate, gave me a birthday present. How nice is that?

We’ll be about 1,000 kms from the North Pole. The ship will be directly level with the red line, but further east in the fjord.

This video was taken after dinner, when the ship changed direction and cut across the storm, causing many people to hastily leave dinner.

Ghostly …

Meanwhile, this was happening.

Morgan was so nice and bought a bottle of champagne to celebrate the glory that is my birthday.

All in all, it was a lovely day. I had a 2 hour nap, read half a book, celebrated with new friends and saw tumultuous waves.

If the weather’s good, tomorrow we go ashore for some hiking.

Dad joke of the day:

Corinna, Baptiste and James left in the wee hours to catch their planes back to reality. I’ll be seeing James in a month on the last leg of this trip, when I visit Liga in Latvia, but I don’t know when I’ll see the other two.

Maybe a trip to France is on the cards??

Today was a 6 hour bus ride to meet the ship to Greenland.

Here’s the Polarsteps map of the Icelandic leg.

Trees are sparse here. Morgan says that there’s a saying in Iceland. “If you’re lost in the forest, stand up!”

These are all taken from the bus window. I spent most of the bus ride dozing. Morgan was happy because he got a lot of work done.

What a fantastic omen for the trip!

We arrived over an hour early at the dock.

Who would have ever thought that I’d be travelling on the Hondius again?

Another rainbow! This trip is looking better and better!

And here it is. I paid for a quad cabin and got upgraded to a twin.

omg

I’m sharing with a Canadian woman called Natalie. She seems lovely.

Morgan made us laugh. I texted him who I was staying with and his phone autocorrected always to almost.

“Everyone called Natalie are almost nice.” 🤣🤣🤣🤣

Dad joke of the day: