Spitzbergen

Tromso morning was fantastic with a clear sky and almost full moon. Took loads of pictures near the airport. Then a wonderful flight up to Svalbard. As we rose into the sky the sky became brighter but we never saw the sun. The sky turned the most beautiful red and gradually disappeared as we proceeded North. Longyearbyen airport is pretty small and we were on a flight with loads of students coming up to the university so there were huge amounts of baggage with very few suitcase, but lots of ski packages and rucksacks.

A bus was waiting to take us into town (it just waits for the one flight) and arrived at Base Camp hotel. Just settled in now and a quick visit to the museum. Looking forward to dog sledding tomorrow. Just talking to one of the guides earlier and they opened the ice cave today so we might end up at the bottom of a glacier tomorrow as well as the dog-sledding. Very exciting.

Before dinner Katrin and I also went for a 4 mile run around Longyearbyen (it is not a big place!). After heading South up the valley, Katrin decided that I was running too fast and decided to cross the valley floor and the frozen river to the road on the other side. I decided (perhaps foolishly in hindsight) to carry on up the road to the end by the Huset restaurant. It was completely silent by this stage with no noise except for my shoes in the snow and I could see in the darkness all of the various shadows coming off rocks on the snowy hillside - each one suggesting that a polar bear might at any stage decide to come down. Of course, none did, but it was quite surreal all the same running in the silence and grandeur of the snowy mountains around me. When I made it round to the other side and met Katrin again, I think we were both glad to have some company whilst running round the rest of the town where we saw some of the older graves and mining equipment.