Trip to Svalbard¶
I’ve been to Svalbard (Spitzbergen, to be precise) and made some pictures…
So, I’m back from my trip to Svalbard.
We left on Friday morning, taking the train to the airport and from there via Tromsø some hours of flight. In total about 3.5h, so not really necessary to mention and if you sleep a bit it feels even less.
When landing in Tromsø I realized that I haven’t been so far north ever in my life. I’ve finally crossed the polar circle and was on my way to the most north point of Norway that you can be: Svalbard or Spitzbergen.
Since Tromsø we’ve only seen Snow and Ice. Even the runway in Tromsø was more or less frozen.
When we thought landing in Norway during night is a bit special, then landing in Svalbard is even more interesting: The runway is more or less made of ice and surrounded by water. Mountains everywhere, completely covered by snow. Yeah. That’s Svalbard.
The average temperature there is currently between -10 and -20C, quite comfortable when the air is dry. The highlight of the second day was definitely the activity we could choose from. I’ve chosen a Snowscooter trip of six to seven hours from Longyearbyen to Tempelfjorden. This is a distance of about 60km one way. And of course you have to get the whole way back. So we were driving with about 20 Scooter in a long convoy through the tales between the incredible mountains. If you’re packed in appropriate clothing and well protected against the cold then it’s real fun! Driving ( or more or less gliding) with a top-speed of 100km/h on snow and Ice is more and impressing and the only thing I know which is better is to go by motorbike. But only because of the gearbox and the even higher speed. If you’ve done it once, then you know what I mean.
Apart from that: Going on a Snowscooter is that thing during the winter!
In the evenings we had nice dinners on different places. The parties after dinner lasted even longer, were pretty much crowded by the locals as well and together we had a great time.
It was a little bit sad to leave that wonderful island already on Sunday at lunch time, but it was supposed just to be a weekend trip and it had to ended one day.
So I’m heading backwards while writing these lines and have my head full of expressions and pictures which I gathered the last two days.
I’m pretty sure that I’ll return to that place one day and that this wasn’t the last time on a Snowscooter as well.
