Spitzbergen, August 8 to September 6, 2015

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Saturday, 8 August, Fosslia to Strömsund

We were up at about 06:00 to finish off cleaning the cottage and shutting it up before setting off for Tromsø. We were a well oiled team. We had porridge for breakfast, cleared up the bedding, filled up the latrine hole, dismantled the water, put up the shutters, and locked everything up and were on the way for 09:00.

We started off south to get to Sweden via Brekken, where we had morning coffee. From there we followed our cycle route of 2014 in reverse passing through Funäsdalen. In Hede, where we had spent the night in 2014, we filled up with petrol and found a covered picnic table for lunch. It's as well we did, because the weather was cool and showery, and a shower caught us up before we had finished.

We continued through Vemdalen and Klövsjö, avoided the E45 by going along the west of Storsjön, and reached Östersund via the 2 short, free ferries, which we had found on the bicycle trip. By this time, time was getting on, and our goal for the day, the camp site run by some Dutch people in Hammerdal was still some 80 km or so away. So we decided not to stop in Östersund but to continue on to Lit for an afternoon break. We also intended to get cash out of a bancomat there. Alas there was no bancomat in Lit, and the same was the case in Hammerdal. Since we had almost no Swedish cash on us and it was a weekend, we were forced to go on to Strömsund.

As it turned out, the Strömsund camp site had a delightful 2-person hut for us on the lakeside for SEK 400, and the town had a bancomat, although it took some finding. The evening meal of pizza was also not too bad.

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Sunday, 9 August, Strömsund to Jokkmokk

This was simply a day of following the E45 until we had had enough. We had breakfast in the hut, intending to stop fairly soon for a morning coffee. Unfortunately we hadn't allowed for it being a Sunday when things in Sweden apparently take a long time to wake up. We had been on the road for over 2 hours, had already got beyond the point where we had joined the E45 from Umeå the previous year in Dorotea, had searched Vilhelmina for an open café to no avail, before we finally got lucky at the Vojmå camp site. This is on a beautiful fishing river near Storsele, some 25 km past Vilhelmina. They had some very nice cup-cakes to go with the coffee.

We had our picnic lunch at a covered picnic table by the railway station in Sorsele. It was a very cool lunch with a stiff breeze.

We eventually called it a day just north of the Arctic Circle in Jokkmokk after 500 km of effortless driving. The E45 was wide, smooth, and unbelievably traffic-free. The camp site was about 3km out of town, and the hut was again SEK 400, but this time it had it's own shower and toilet. It wasn't quite so idyllically situated, but it wasn't bad. We walked into town for a hamburger for me, and plaice and chips for Kari. My hamburger was very good, but Kari's plaice was somewhat on the crispy side. We walked back to the camp site in bright and warm evening sun.

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Monday, 10 August, Jokkmokk to Skibotn

From Jokkmokk, the end of the E45 at the Swedish/Finnish border in Karesuando was only 300 km away and, from there, it's only another 150 km to the Norwegian border. The border is a relative stone's throw from Tromsø. The aim was to have lunch and fill up with petrol on the Swedish side of the border to use up our Swedish cash, and then to cross into Finland to find a camp site for the night.

Filling up with petrol was OK, but there was unfortunately no decent restaurant on the Swedish side of the border. We therefore had lunch in Finland. Mine was rather disappointing, but Kari had a very nice piece of fried salmon.

There were only 2 Finnish camp sites before we reached the Norwegian border. The first was tiny, but looked very nice. Unfortunately it was booked out by fishermen. And the second was rather too commercial for my taste. We ended up driving into Norway and following the road all the way down to the fjord coast at Skibotn. The 4-person hut was quite OK for NOK 600

The day was lovely and sunny and again, the traffic was extremely light. The views of the mountains around the camp site were super.

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Tuesday, 11 August, Skibotn to Tromsø

Of course, having driven all the way to Skibotn on the previous day, it was only a short drive to Tromsø. On the way, we found a big supermarket, where we bought spaghetti and a bottled sauce as emergency reserves for our return from Svalbard. It was quite a culture shock to get used again to the traffic and low speeds with radar in Norway.

As first priority in Tromsø, we wanted to check out the parking arrangements at, and bus connections to and from the airport, so we went there first. The tunnels under the town are quite daunting at first. It appeared that it was going to cost some NOK 1300 to leave the car at the airport for 17 days. There's a possibility to leave the car for free at a surfers' beach near the airport, but that seemed rather too insecure for us.

Before heading into town to search for alternative parking as well as accommodation, we headed over the western bridge to the island of Kvaløya. First priority there was morning coffee, accompanied by a nice piece of apple cake and ice cream. We asked at the café about possible accommodation in the area, but the suggestion turned out to be in a higher price range than what we wanted. So we headed for the Tourist Office in town.

We had stayed at the camp site near the cathedral some 6 years ago, and were not too enthusiastic about it, so we decided to take a 3-person cabin with shower and toilet for NOK 700 per night at the Skittenelv camp site on the mainland some 25 km to the north. The chap at the Tourist Office also told us about long term parking in town near to the harbour, and told us where we should go to see about it. It turned out to be NOK 500 for the time we needed, so we paid up and got our parking pass.

After spending some time finding the precise parking lot that we had booked, we headed north to find the camp site. It was very pleasant and quiet, but the many notices at the site are rather officious and unfriendly. We bought some frozen food and eggs, which we cooked for our evening meal. It was a very pleasant sunny evening.

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Wednesday, 12 August, Skittenelv Camp Site and Tromsø

This was essentially a free day. It was cool and grey when we got up, so we took our time getting ourselves together. It was getting on for lunch time by the time that we got into town to enjoy the comfort of our prepaid parking space. Finding somewhere to eat was not, of course, all that easy. Prices seemed to be rather high in the nicer looking restaurants, and we didn't fancy the cheaper ones. We were looking for a restaurant offering a set menu for lunch.

Eventually we found a most unassuming place up on the second floor with a very modest staircase to get up to it. We couldn't really believe that we were going to find a restaurant at the top, but there it was. The meal turned out to be very good. Afterwards, we walked over the high bridge to the cathedral. Whilst there, we could see a huge rain shower approaching from the south. It reached us as we were crossing the bridge on the way back. Fortunately the heart of the storm missed us, but its arrival marked a change in the weather for the worse.

We went over to the airport again, this time to check-in for our flight, and we parked this time in the surfers' area. It was only about 16:00, but it seemed to be evening rush hour. The parking area was full of kite surfers' cars, but none of the surfers was on the water. To us, it seemed really quite windy out on the water, but apparently not windy enough for the surfers. They were there en masse to make a Tromsø publicity film, seemingly without success.

We bought a frozen meal for the evening at the camp site, where the weather was really not very good. The only compensations were the nice rainbows and dramatic lighting.

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Thursday, 13 August, Tromsø to Longyearbyen

It was raining as we packed our things for the flight to Svalbard. The idea was to park the car and then get Bus 42 to the airport from near the car park. For pensioners, the ticket only cost NOK 18 if bought in advance at the Tourist Office, compared with NOK 100 on the special airport bus. It worked perfectly.

We had a couple of hours to kill at the airport, but is was nice and quiet and comfortable. We met Ilona at the gate. She is helping Michal as a guide for part of the tour. She now lives on the Lofoten Islands, but formerly spent 5 years on Svalbard. She is a writer.

The flight was very nice. The chap in the window seat next to us was a truck driver at the Svea mine, not far from Longyearbyen (as the crow flies). He swapped seats with us, so we were able to enjoy the spectacular views as we approached Longyearbyen.

The airport bus to our hostel, Gjestehaus 102 in the Nybyen part of the town, was a bit of a hassle with the crowd that wanted to use it, but it worked out all right. Even better, the hostel was expecting us and had a double room waiting. We would have to change room the next day when the rest of our group was expected to arrive, but that was really a very minor consideration.

We spent the rest of the day wandering around the shanty town in beautiful sunny weather. We had a vegetarian Thai meal for supper. It's a good 20 minute walk from the hostel into town, and there are no busses, only taxis. We wandered back to the hostel via the church, which is also a little out of town.

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Friday, 14 August, Longyearbyen

There was midnight sun, and the sun was still shining at 06:00. But by the time we got up at about 08:00, it was foggy, and it stayed foggy all day. Breakfast in the hostel was very good. We wandered into town in due course and spent a long time looking around the museum, which was very interesting.

Despite the fact that Svalbard was discovered in the 16th century (1596), settlement really only started in earnest with mining in the early 20th century. Prior to that, there were whale oil camps and some fur hunting, but nothing permanent to speak of.

Michal, Davide, Massimo, Martha, and Andrzej turned up in the early afternoon. We joined them in the Svalbar bar over beers and something to eat. Afterwards, we strolled down to the shore, buying some cans of beer on the way.

We split up again later, Michal being very preoccupied because his 2 bags, including all our food for the trek, had not turned up at the airport with him. Again, we went to the Thai restaurant to eat. This time we returned to the hostel via the cemetery, where we were surprised to find a couple of recent graves, not just those from the Spanish flu of 1919, which we were expecting. We had a couple of cans of beer and a packet of crisps with us, which we consumed in the hostel's lounge.

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Saturday, 15 August, Longyearbyen

It was foggy again for most of the day.

The tour is really slow to get going, or Michal is simply not very organised, or we made a mistake by arriving a day early and hence having a lot of time to kill. It's hard to kill time in Longyearbyen because of the polar bear threat. One is not allowed to go outside the limits of the town without a gun, which is very, very restricting; even more so if, like us, one doesn't have a gun permit.

Today was a free day, which we had had yesterday, so we hadn't much to do until we got together at 17:00 to split up the dried food. Michel's bag with the food had turned up in the meantime. We had evening meal together at the Kroa restaurant sitting around their splendid round table. A former colleague of Michal called Tomasz (Tomek) joined us there. He will be our deputy guide on the trek. Jakob (Kuba), a Polish PhD student from PSI, also arrived in time to join us at the Kroa.

We left first, leaving Michal to go drinking with friends from the time when he was studying here.

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Sunday, 16 August, Longyearbyen

This was the day of the test hike, the test camp, and having a go at shooting. Michal's other bag turned up last night, so everything should be well with the world.

As is becoming increasing clear, this might well be 2 weeks of killing time. We didn't get started until after 11:00, waiting for a shop to open where we could get gas for the cookers. We then spent ages in town whilst Michal went off here and there to get a rifle as the necessary polar bear protection. Then, instead of continuing to hike out to the camp site near the airport, we took a taxi!

Now 4 of us are sitting around at the camp site, while the other 4 have gone into town to buy the ingredients for a fish soup. Michal's plan is to make this at Pyramiden tomorrow as a special treat for the few people that are stationed there. When they get back, we should be going up the hill on the other side of the airport to the shooting range to try the gun. Let's see if it really happens.

Surprisingly enough, it did happen, and the taxi, which brought them back from town with all their shopping, took us up to the range. That was very welcome, since it was quite a long way. Michal got to shoot quite a few shots. The rest of us had one shot each. The noise was terrific, the recoil too, but we never got to see if we had hit the target or not. We walked back down to the camp site afterwards, past the Global Seed Vault. It was a long walk on a gravel road.

The plans for the fish soup have apparently been dropped. There was no ice available in the supermarket to keep the fish cool in transit. We're taking some fresh vegetables as a present, instead. It appears that Michal has some sort of special relationship with the isolated residents of Pyramiden.

Each Sunday at the camp site, there is the possibility to earn a certificate for a naked bathe in the Arctic Ocean. Massimo was the only one of us to take up the challenge. The sun was really rather weak, the wind too cool and stiff, and the distance from the beach back to the warmth of the camp site's communal room somewhat too long for anyone else of us to be tempted.

There followed the first taste of lyopholised dried food. It was edible, not bad, even, but by the time that we've eaten the 20th, we might be thinking otherwise. As a last idea before turning in, we decided to rotate our tent to have its back to the wind. In hindsight, that was definitely one of Kari's better ideas!

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Monday, 17 August, Pyramiden and Trek to a Hut

We had to be ready to get a bus at 08:15 to the harbour and the boat to Pyramiden. As usual, Kari and I were the first up. We went into the camp site's kitchen to prepare our dried food breakfast. It was nice and warm in there – very welcome after a rather cool night in the tent.

The bus turned up, did a tour around the town picking up more passengers, and dropped us off next to our boat, the Polar Girl, for the trip to Pyramiden. There was no fog, but also no sun. Otherwise the weather was OK with good visibility. We had the free run of the boat, including the bridge, which was very nice. The changing views of the glaciers coming down to the sea, the many sea birds, and occasional commentary from the boat's guide made it a pleasant, 3 hour trip. We had a shower of rain at one point, causing us to move our bags under cover, but otherwise it was an uneventful trip. We saw puffins, little awks (small black birds) and plenty of fulmars.

On arriving at Pyramiden, a Russian mining town abandoned quite suddenly in 1998, we joined the other boat's passengers for a guided tour of the town. This caused a last minute decision about our bags. These had to be left unguarded at the head of the pier, not particularly to the liking of several of us, who had passports and money tucked away inside them. All we could do was cross our fingers and hope that the bags would be all right.

The tour was good but, having seen the videos from last year's tour, there was nothing really new. It is good, though, to see the abandoned buildings first hand, and to imagine how they were in their heyday. The town was apparently one of the communist regime's model communities, even to the extent of importing boat-loads of good earth and grass seed to create meadows and lawns. On seeing the things that have been left lying around, especially in the school, it looks as though the town was abandoned overnight.

We ended up at the hotel, one of the remaining inhabited buildings, there being only some 8 people who actually live here. There followed an interminable wait with unknown end, which made it really long. We did have a break to the tedium at one point, when we had a bowl of soup. The name of the soup sounded like "borsch", so I was expecting a beetroot soup. It turned out to be more like an oily goulash. After our initial reservations, it was very good with plenty of meat.

The waiting and uncertainty continued. There was a lot of fuss about staying in some hut or other, and problems because a new 'Russian Tourist Director' was in the town and he was being awkward as to whether or not we could stay in an empty hut for free, or had to pay to stay in the 'hostel', a group of containers down at the harbour. In the end, we waited until a group of tourists from another boat had finished their tour and had had their fill of the hotel bar and souvenir shop. We joined their bus down to the harbour and our bags.

The bus then took us to a 4-wheel pick-up truck, where we put all our bags plus Martha, Andrzej, Massimo and Davide in the back, and headed out of town in the direction of a hut. The road ran parallel to an old aqueduct crossing an endless gravel river plain. It got worse and worse. Eventually, where the road petered out, we stopped near 2 huts, which we were not allowed to use. The driver gave us some wooden planks to use as firewood together with a heavy bucket of coal, and sent us off across the tundra to a hut "just a km or so away". The weather was dry, but rather grey and cool.

The going was much easier than expected, but there was neither sight nor sound of a hut. After a while, we deposited the coal and wood to flounder on, intending to come back for it without our packs once we had located the hut. The going got worse as we had to cross small stone ridges. Eventually we decided that there had been a misunderstanding, and that we were not going to find a hut. What should we do?

Michal claimed to know another hut from his tour of the previous year, but to get there the shortest way involved crossing a not-insignificant river, climbing over a hill, maybe crossing a second river, and finally climbing up to the hut. Alternatively, we could retrace our steps to the road and then follow another road up to the hut. In the end, common sense prevailed, and we retraced our steps. We left the wood and coal where it stood as we walked past.

On reaching the road, there was the temptation of the 2 huts just standing there. After a lot of soul searching, and considerations of the restrictions that we should have if we disregarded the ban and decided to stay in one of them, such as no fire and no wandering away from the hut on our own, Michal finally decided that we had to hike to the hut that he knew.

It turned out to be nearer than expected, maybe 3 km, and also with less severe climbs than expected. It was nicely situated on the side of a small lake and, once we had got the fire going, it was quite cosy, if rather cramped for the 8 of us. There were beds for Kari, Massimo, Martha, Andrzej, and myself, and space was found on the floor for the other three. We boiled water from the lake to add to the dried food, and made enough extra boiled water for drinking tomorrow.

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Tuesday, 18 August, Pyramiden

Although an alarm clock went off at 7, and another at 8, we didn't actually get up until 09:00! The weather was grey and not tempting to do much in the way of hiking. In any case, we were to go into Pyramiden to meet Ilona at around lunch time. Also, Michal seems to have a fixation on Pyramiden, which I can't understand. It is certainly a remarkable ghost town, with many buildings in remarkably good condition, but I find it rather depressing. One sees the huge amounts of effort that went into building it up by the Russians to be a model of the Communist doctrine. But I see it more as an example of just how fleeting anything man-made can be.

Anyway, we simply had light packs and walked into town. The final stretch is along a gravel road through an endless gravel river flood plain. We went up to see a shed made of glass bottles, but we couldn't go inside because it was locked. Other buildings also turned out to be locked.

After another long sit in the bar of the hotel, Ilona turned up on the boat from LYB. Most of the others had another bowl of 'borsch'. Kari and I contented ourselves with a salametti.

Afterwards, Ilona charmed one of the two guides to come with us and open up some buildings, including the glass bottle house and the school house. We again ended up in the bar waiting for a favour from the bus driver. When he finally arrived, it really was a big favour. He drove us to where the track to the hut turns off the gravel causeway over the gravel flood plain, making it not much more than a 30 minute climb to the hut.

We lit the fire and, by the time that we had boiled up enough water for a portion of dried food each, the hut was warm enough to tempt quite a few of us to have a dip in the lake before turning in. With Ilona as a 9th person in the hut, it really was cramped, but we managed. I slept on a table.

It rained heavily in the night, and water had seeped in along the floor near the door. Fortunately no one's bags got too wet.

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Wednesday, 19 August, Pyramiden – Nordenskjøldbreen - Longyearbyen

We were up relatively early this morning, 07:30, because the bus driver had promised us another favour. He was going to meet us at the gravel road at 10:00, drive us up to see a dammed lake, and then take us into town. We tidied up the hut a bit, and left at about 09:20 to get to the bus. It was on time.

The dam that we were taken to see was rather strange. It had refrigeration rods buried into it to keep the dam frozen and stop the water in the lake from seeping away.

Once in town, there was a vote on what to do. Ilona and Kari stayed at the hotel watching for arctic foxes. The rest of us went for a climb up one of the 2 very conspicuous galleries going up the hillside to the mine. According to Martha, we went up 1420 steps. These were wooden slats nailed across planks. It was quite a climb. We estimated that we got about 70% of the way up to the mine before we decided to turn round. We had to be ready to get the boat at 14:00 to the Nordenskjøldbreen (glacier), which calves icebergs into the fjord, and then back to Longyearbyen. We managed it with lots of time to spare.

We had lunch, a pork stew, on the boat, and just managed to get it down before things got rough. They quietened down as we drifted around in front of the glacier, admiring it, and listening to the gentle popping of air bubbles as the ice flows melted. But once we set off again for Longyearbyen, it got really rough. Many people were sick. Kari and I found a comfortable settee, where we could take our minds off our stomachs by dozing. Eventually we were back at the town for about 18:30.

We were bussed up to the hostel, where Kari and I showered and went into town for burgers. Unfortunately, we were too late for the shops. Tomorrow we're off by boat again at 08:30 to go to Barentsburg for our 6-day trek through the tundra back to Longyearbyen.

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Thursday, 20 August, Longyearbyen – Esmarkbreen – Barentsburg – Start of Trek

We were picked up by the bus at 08:30 to be taken to Polar Girl again. Tomek turned up a bit late – too much partying last night apparently! We sailed across Isfjord to the Esmarkbreen (glacier). The sea was still rather rough, so we spent most of the time sitting quietly in the lounge until we reached the glacier. Whilst the boat drifted around in front of the glacier, we were lucky enough to see a big calving from the glacier as a big block of ice fell into the fjord.

Once under way again, it was time for lunch. This time it was a fish soup, and it was delicious. We sailed back across Isfjord to Barentsburg, arriving at about 13:20. Barensburg is an active Russian coal mining town.

There was a guided tour of the town by a Russian girl. Despite rather a lot of propaganda in her presentation, the tour was very interesting. We ended up at the most northerly brewery in the world, sitting in the bar for a beer and some more food. The original tour plan was to spend the night in a hostel in the town and to start trekking in the morning. For some reason, Michal decided to forego the hostel, and to start trekking this afternoon. [A note added later … In hindsight, this was an excellent decision. The weather forecast was for the good weather to last only until Sunday afternoon, which turned out to be the case. As a result, we had 3 glorious days of trekking, including the circumnavigation of Colesbukta.]

We set off hiking at about 16:15. It started with a long stretch along a gravel road out to a headland in a cold wind but otherwise super weather. The road became a track through the tundra at this point following the coast north. The going was generally very easy on level ground, but we had some trouble crossing a small stream getting slightly wet feet, since we hadn't got organised enough to put on our gaiters.

There followed a much bigger river, but took our boots off for this one and put on our crocks. They did very good service. I took Kari's crocks back across the river to lend to Martha, who was very unhappy barefoot.

The land rose gently after the river until we got to a steep, very gravelly bank. It was a struggle to get up the loose gravel, but it was worth it. The top was a flat grassy area making a super elevated camp site. We were there for about 19:30 and had covered some 12 km. Despite the sunshine it was rather cold because of the wind. We tended to shelter in our tents eating our ration of dehydrated food as a result.

During the “night” we organised a polar bear watch in pairs. Kari and I did the 00:00 to 02:00 shift. It was cold but fantastic wandering around the camp when on shift, the sun being just above the horizon. Our tent and my sleeping bag are definitely somewhat on the marginal side for Spitzbergen temperatures. Even with full clothing and an emergency aluminium foil over me, I was rather cold in the night.

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Friday, 21 August, Second Day of the Trek including Climb of Vesuv

We were up at 07:00 to warm sunshine and almost no wind so that breakfast was very comfortable. We were away soon after 09:00, and soon reached the next and, as expected, bigger river. We should have taken off our trousers and long-johns, as well as socks and boots. The water was deep and quite fast flowing, but not too bad to cross with crocks. My trouser bottoms and long-johns had to be taken off after the crossing, though, and hung on the rucksack to dry. Fortunately it was warm enough without them on.

The river valley was quite wide with several water channels with gravel or boggy patches in between. We kept the crocks on until we were up on the tundra on the other side of the valley. We had plenty of time to dry our feet and get our boots on before the others caught up.

After the river, things got more arduous. We had some 100 to 200 metres of elevation gain to master, but the going, on the whole, was much easier than we had expected. The tundra has soft bits and grey hexagonal patterns where the permafrost has repeatedly thawed and refrozen. Some of these are very soft and tiring to walk on, but there's been much more firm going than soft going so far.

By about 12:00 we were starting to tire but managed to refresh ourselves by brewing up some tea. It was estimated that we still had some 200 metres of elevation gain and 3 km to trek. It felt like much more. The landscape became very barren (yes, even more barren than it was before!). The views, however, got better and better as we climbed with the superb weather. Our goal was a flattish area below the mountain Vesuv. We were there by about 14:30. It was not really an ideal site. Water was quite a way away, and only a trickle at that, and the ground, although soft, was bare. It might well have been muddy if it had rained.

The advantage, though, was that we could climb Vesuv after setting up camp. We went in 2 shifts, because not everyone wanted to go and one of the guns had to stay with those staying behind. It wasn't that easy, with very loose shale most of the way. The summit rocks were also too fragile for all of us except Tomek to risk climbing, so we didn't get to the very top anyway.

The return was very easy - a simple slide down the loose or muddy scree. The rest of the afternoon was spent brewing up and/or eating, or snoozing. We've got single person, 1 hour polar bear watches tonight. Kari's on from 23:00 till 24:00, and I'm on at 05:00 in the morning.

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Saturday, 22 August, Third Day of Trek around Colesbukta

Davide woke me from deep sleep following a sleepless time because of the cold. When I got out of the tent into glorious morning sunshine with no wind, I saw why. There was a very hard frost. Fortunately, because of the bright sunshine, it felt quite warm. After getting myself sorted out clothing-wise, I decided to fill up our water bottles ready for breakfast.

The trickle of a stream was covered in a thick layer of ice under which it was barely flowing. After scraping away some gravel to make a little pool bigger, and using a small bottle to fill bigger ones, I managed it. By this time, my shift was already half over. I boiled some water for ourselves, having a warm drink from the remains, which warmed me up splendidly. After my shift, there was still an hour of lying in the tent. At least it was a warm hour.

Probably because of the frost, things got going slowly over breakfast. It was almost 09:30 before we were underway. We started off by descending Fossildalen down to Colesbukta. From a distance, this looked as though it might be difficult, as the valley is very deeply and steeply cut into the hillside. However, it turned out to be quite a simple descent down its right hand side, so we were soon down at sea level faced with the problem of how to get around the bay. The land behind the beach is essentially a river delta with one main river channel, but lots of other channels to cross too.

Crossing the main channel of the river at its mouth, where it runs into the fjord, might have been possible, and would have certainly been the simplest and least arduous route, but even Andrzej gave up very quickly when he reconnoitred it. So we had to traipse inland until we could get across. Kari and I immediately changed into crocks due to the marshy conditions. Most of the way, though, we went barefoot because we were sinking in so deep, that the crocks kept being sucked off and were so deep down that we could hardly get them out again. The bogs were very cold. Everyone else eventually ended up with boots completely full of water.

When we finally came back to the main river, we were lucky. It was well defined, the banks were not very muddy, and the bottom was firm. It was only about knee deep. We all got across relatively easily.

Our troubles were not over yet, however. The flat flood plain of the river estuary, nearly all very wet, deep bog, went on for a long way before we finally reached firm ground again near a dilapidated water conduit. It was some 2 km across the estuary, and it took us probably 1.5 to 2 hours to get across. Fortunately it was sunny and warm. The same stretch in rainy weather without sun would have been quite an ordeal.

We followed the conduit through the ruins of Colesbukta harbour and on to an abandoned Russian hut where we are probably going to spend 3 nights. As we were crossing the estuary, we could see the approach of the forecast bad weather for tomorrow. It started to rain in the late afternoon, exactly as forecast - quite unusual in our experience of Svalbard forecasting so far.

When we arrived at the hut, the stream near it was carrying plentiful clear water, so we were soon boiling up water for food. We are now in an area where there is the possibility of getting a nasty parasite from the water, so it has to be boiled for 3 minutes. That's a real pain.

Massimo and I had a bathe in the sea. Massimo managed to stay in for over 3 minutes before he had had enough. I managed about 15 seconds. It was good to have a proper wash, though. Later, Kari, Tomek, Michal and I played a little bridge. Although Michal only has a vague idea about how to bid, they won easily.

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Sunday, 23 August, Fourth Day of Trek, a Hike towards Grumant Mine

It rained a lot in the night. Unfortunately the roof of the second room of the hut is not water tight, and I was trying to sleep in there. A few things, such as my trousers, got wet, but I was lucky on the whole. I retreated to the kitchen to sleep with the others later on, mainly because of the rain, but also because of the cold. The second room is not heated.

Today is scheduled to be a rest day. It was 09:00 before most people started moving. By that time I had got this diary up to date. It rained lightly during the morning, so time was spent preparing tea and lazing around.

By 12:00 it had stopped raining and cleared up a bit, so we set off for some exercise. We walked along the disused railway line towards the old mine at Grumant. It was used to transport coal from the mine to Colesbukta harbour for shipping. It must have been an incredible engineering feat to build it. It had a wooden covering originally, presumably so that coal could be shipped for more months of the year than otherwise would have been possible.

It turned out to be about 5 km each way, with a couple of rather difficult streams to cross, and a couple of rather rickety bridges to cross too. Crossing these bridges was possibly the most dangerous activity so far this holiday. We followed the track until it disappeared into a tunnel. The tunnel was impassable because it was blocked some 50 m from the entrance with a wall of solid ice.

It started to drizzle on the way back, it having been grey and cloudy all day. Our neighbouring stream has turned muddy with the rain overnight, so we are now fetching water from a small stream some 500 m away. It is now 19:30, everyone has eaten, and a group of 5 has set off to fetch more coal from along the track in the direction of Colesbukta. Yes! It seems as though it is normal to burn coal rather than wood in huts here. Coal seems to be lying around in abandoned piles all over the place whereas wood has had to have been imported at some time or other. It makes it smell a bit like Britain in the 1950's at times, and things easily get rather dirty.

As we were getting back to the hut, a group of 4 Austrians with a Finnish guide turned up at the hut. They had 3 dogs with them to handle the polar bear watching problem. They had just crossed the same estuary as we had yesterday, and were looking rather exhausted. One of them was in an incredibly sorry state. He had fallen over into deep water when crossing the river and was wet through. They are drying themselves out now, just like we did yesterday. They are intending to make a very long trek tomorrow to reach Longyearbyen in a single day. We are contemplating doing it in 3 days.

Sleeping space is going to be a bit tight tonight.

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Monday, 24 August, Fifth Day of Trek, a Hike to Colesbukta returning over the Hills

I slept on the floor under one of the bunk beds. It was fine. I can't remember the last time that I spent 12 hours in bed unless I was really ill. I climbed into my sleeping bag last night at about 21:00 to get out of the way, and it was turned 09:00 when I got out again, not counting the usual outings for leaks. Many of the others were not up until 10:00. It was raining lightly most of the morning.

The main theme of this holiday is going to be boredom. We spend ages sitting around doing nothing, and because of all the polar bear hype, it's not possible to do anything on one's own. We spent 2 hours sitting around, although I did manage to rustle up 2 others to go and fetch water. The local stream is still brown, so we're still having to walk some 500 m along the railway track to get clear water. We brought back 25 litres of water between us.

Finally, at 12:00, the rain had stopped, and we set off for a walk back along the trail to Colesbukta to mooch around the old buildings there, which were once the harbour shipping out coal from the Grumant mine. Michal really seems to love this. To me, once you've seen one derelict building, you've seen them all, more or less. Perhaps it's my lack of imagination.

Slowly we wandered past the buildings along the beach to the skull of a whale, that has clearly been there for very many years. At this point, Martha and Andrzej turned back, and the walk became more intense. We picked our way through the bogs behind the beach, which we had crossed 2 days ago, and then started to climb, following a snow-scooter trail. The snow-scooter trails are marked by wooden poles and are quite common.

The climb seemed stiff to me, though Kari said it wasn't. I suspect a deficient diet of dehydrated food is the cause of my lethargy today. Eventually we reached a sort of top, where we had a rest. The going was generally not too bad, but with stretches of bog here and there. After the rest, the trail turned slowly back in the direction of our hut, and the going got wetter. The weather was also worsening as the cloud level descended. Just as we reached the highest point, Tomek wanted to go off up into the clouds to reconnoitre a route over a saddle. Massimo went with him whilst the rest of us dressed up against the weather to wait for them. The plan was that, as soon as we should see them returning, we were to set off across a wide, wet, shallow valley, and they were to traverse across in the descent to meet us. The only minor problem was that they disappeared into the clouds.

However, we did manage to see them returning, so we set off. Before we met, the clouds came down in a rush even more, but we met up anyway without much trouble.

Eventually, we got to the top of the stream which flows into the fjord by the hut. It was steep and rocky and full of muddy water. We picked our way down it, fortunately without incident, and all got back to the hut safe and sound. This descent probably matched the crossing of the rickety bridges on the disused railway as far as danger was concerned.

We had been out for about 6 hours. Andrzej and Martha had a good fire going for us. I finished off the day with a half-dip in the sea.

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Tuesday, 25 August, Sixth Day of Trek from Colesbukta to Longyearbyen

The discussion the previous evening about how we should continue the trek to Longyearbyen was endless. Should we camp twice or just once? Or should we grit our teeth and go right through in one day like the Austrians. Martha has basically had enough of roughing it, and pulled out all the stops to get us to get back to civilisation as soon as possible. Our 2 Italian colleagues were in favour of a single camp, mainly because the second camp, if made, would probably be at the end of the dirt road going out along the fjord past the airport. The town would therefore be so easy to reach that it would be senseless to undergo the discomfort of camping when a shower and bed were reachable. Kari and I had open minds.

In any case, I've come to the conclusion that there's little point getting involved in these discussions with Michal. They are endless and, at the end, it's still not clear what, if anything, has been decided, and, if the decision is clear, one can be certain that it will be changed within the hour.

If I remember rightly, the decision this time was to assume that we would be having one camp, and the decision as to whether that camp would be up in the mountains, or down on the coast by this dirt road would be decided later. There was also discussion as to how we should climb up away from the coast. We had to do some 500 m of elevation gain, a non-trivial undertaking with full packs. On that point, I don't know what the decision was. I was expecting to follow the railway track to the north towards Grumantbyen, and at some point climb steeply up the hillside before reaching Russedalen.

Anyway, we were up for 07:00 and off just after 09:00. Contrary to my expectations, we started off up the steep hillside behind the hut, heading north, immediately. It was very steep. At first the climb was grassy, then we contoured for a bit before tackling the second stage of the climb, which was significantly steeper with loose stones. Kari was rather unhappy at this point (she's not happy on loose ground), although she climbed it without trouble, despite the load . We gained about 250 m of elevation before the gradient eased off.

By this time we were unfortunately in the clouds without a view. We headed roughly north, skirting around the tops of Russedalen and Grumantdalen to get onto Fuglefjella (Bird Mountain). This involved crossing the top end of Grumantdalen, over the black remains of a glacier. We had a rest just before this crossing. The view across the valley through the drifting fog was not very encouraging. The valley below the snow and ice was filled with a "basket of eggs" glacial moraine formation, only the moraine was composed of what looked like black mud, rather than the more usual stones. We came across the footprints of the Austrian group, who had reached this point by ascending either Russedalen or Grumantdalen, during the crossing, which Kari found very reassuring. The crossing turned out to be no trouble, and took no time at all.

The weather started to improve at around this point, sometime in the afternoon. We had good views down to the left into Litl Bjørndalen and Isfjorden, and to the right into Bjørndalen. The route to Longyearbyen was to descend a stream into Bjørndalen to get to the dirt road at its end leading to the airport.

All the while there was uncertainty about the camping plans, not to mention lots of discussion leading to a lovers' tiff between Martha and Andrzej. At some point, Michal even floated the idea that Tomek would accompany Martha and Andrzej down to Bjørndalen and out to the airport, returning the same evening to the rest of us camping on Fuglefjella. That would have been an incredible undertaking for Tomek.

Eventually Michal made the decision, that I would have bet on all along, that none of us would camp, but all grit our teeth and trek another 10 to 12 km into Longyearbyen. We descended the steep stream into Bjørndalen quite easily, since it was quite well used, presumably by day tours from the town. Just before we could relax, we faced the challenge of having to cross the big river flowing down the middle of Bjørndalen. There was no chance of getting across it with dry feet if one kept one's boots on.

Tomek just waded across with his boots on, getting sodden socks in the process. Kari and I used our crocks again, making the crossing relatively safe if a bit complicated with all the clothing changes. We were still no slower than anyone else because of the time that we could save doing the crossing and walking over the stones. Poor Kuba had the worst crossing. He stumbled and dropped his boots in the river. Fortunately they could be rescued, but a sock got lost in the process.

By the time we reached the road, the weather had turned glorious. Kari noticed just how beautiful it could have been to camp on the fjord edge at this point and walk into the town early in the morning. But for once the plan was not changed, and we marched the 11 or 12 extra km to the "Polish Hut" near the university building in town to finish off the day. It was 20:15 as we reached the edge of the town, some 11 hours after leaving the hut. Altogether, we had covered about 27 km and climbed to a bit over 500 m. As a compensation, we were able to see a minke whale swimming way out in the fjord. Martha, Andrzej and Michel took a taxi for the last bit from the airport; the rest of us slogged it along the road, giving me, at least, the first signs of blisters on my toes that I had had all holiday.

We dropped our bags at the Polish Hut and dashed off up to the Svalbar bar/restaurant for food and beer. Later we were queueing for the one shower in the hut, with its 15 minute wait between showers because the hot water needs time to be regenerated in between. At NOK 200 per person per night, the hut it very cheap, but it wouldn't take much effort to improve its facilities all the same. The toilet flush is a Heath-Robinson affair, there's no fridge, and there's no washbasin in the toilet either. Teeth cleaning is done in the kitchen sink. With 9 of us plus an existing resident, Carolina, the hut was severely overloaded.

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Wednesday, 26 August, Longyearbyen – Hike on the Plateau

Despite the rather late night, Kari and I wanted to get going as early as possible. We were hoping to change our flight from next Sunday to Thursday (there are only 3 direct flights per week between Longyearbyen and Tromsø, on Sunday, Tuesday and Thursday) since our trek had ended 3 days earlier than expected. The thought of spending possibly 4 full days confined within the town boundaries because of the polar bear threat was daunting. So we wanted to get up to Gjestehaus 102 to retrieve the bags that we had left there, and then get an Internet connection to tackle the problem of the flight.

We got people moving at about 08:00, an apparently uncivilised time in Michal's lifestyle. Michal wanted to take a taxi up to Nybyen. Massimo in particular was not in favour of that, so we walked the 3 km uphill to get the bags. Kari and I stayed there for breakfast, a good deal at NOK 50 each, before walking back into town to sit outside the library, where there is free Internet access. Kari went off to get some stamps for postcards and T-shirts for Finn and Dylan whilst I did some preliminary Web searches.

It transpired that the Thursday flight was, as we really already knew from enquiries at Tromsø airport on our way north, fully booked. The only other way of escaping from Spitzbergen to Tromsø before Sunday is to fly via Oslo. This would cost us some CHF 550 each, on top of the CHF 310 that we had already paid.

We had called in at the Tourist Info Office to get an SAS phone number at the airport, but there was only a recorded message when we tried calling that. We still think that there's a chance of a cancellation on the flight, so we haven't yet given up hope. We trundled on down the short distance to the Fruene café to meet the others having their morning coffee, and from there we returned to the hut.

An idea from Tomek took seed around noon that we could go for a hike with him, and the protection of his Mauser, up to and over Longyearbreen (glacier) and from there up onto the Plateau, the mountain plateau to the west of the town, and then back down a steep path past the church. He estimated it as a 4 hour walk, and suggested leaving at 17:00 so that he could catch up on some sleep first.

There were 5 of us on the walk, Tomek, Carolina, Massimo, Kuba and myself. We marched up to Nybyen in a mere 25 minutes and on over a big stream, fortunately with the help of a wooden plank as bridge. We were soon at the left hand edge (looking uphill) of the snout of the glacier and were able to find an easy way onto the ice proper. It was rather nerveracking working our way up and across the glacier with neither crampons nor ice axe. I had my walking sticks, which helped a little; the others had nothing to help them. Jumping across the crevasses with their fast flowing streams was particularly dodgy. Fortunately we managed it without incident and were soon climbing off the right hand side of the glacier up towards the Plateau. We were also climbing into cloud. The going was rather unusual with lots of black, very soft shale to traverse.

The Plateau, when we reached it, was really strange. It was flat of course and, in the fog, seemed infinite. The remains of geological drilling sites are scattered here and there. The going is not easy because the ground is covered quite widely with masses of smallish stones.

We trekked on and on with no end to the plateau in sight following directions given by Tomek's GPS. At on point he said: "Another 2 km". But it was much, much more and, when we finally got to the edge of the plateau, we found to our dismay that we were looking down onto the airport, not onto the town as expected. The fault was soon found. Tomek had the scale of his GPS set too large. As a result, its small screen did not show that the Plateau has 2 tongues running roughly north-south separated by the deep valley of Blomsterdalen. We were on the main part of the Plateau to the west of Blomsterdalen, not on the smaller part to the east. It was a long way back to get around the top end of the valley. When we finally got around the valley and reached the NE edge of the Plateau, we thankfully looked down onto the town. The descent by a steep path past the church was straightforward. Our estimated 4 hour hike had turned into 6.

On getting back to the Polish Hut at about 23:00, spaghetti was made, beer, schnaps and vodka were drunk, and a fine party was had by all. It turned out to be quite a late night. Massimo and Davide were catching a plane at 04:40, so they didn't bother going to bed at all.

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Thursday, 27 August, Flight to Tromsø, Tromsø to Skibotn

Despite the late night, we were up reasonably early to try to get places on the afternoon flight to Tromsø. We had decided to walk out to the airport rather than going by the airport shuttle bus so that the check-in counters would hopefully be quiet when we arrived. We first went up to the bank, though. Our Norwegian cash supply was starting to get low because of various items that we had to pay by cash, such as the nights in the Polish Hut.

After walking about two thirds of the way to the airport, a couple of French chaps stopped and gave us a lift for the rest of the way. That was very welcome with our load of 2 rucksacks each. We were almost 3 hours early.

The airport terminal was full of Russians, presumably waiting for a charter flight to change shifts at one of the Russian mines. Their children were going wild chasing around the hall. Fortunately, the check-in counters were deserted.

It turned out that the SAS personnel at the airport are not able to handle reservations or ticket changes. One has to phone a call centre. We did this and eventually were put on stand-by status for the flight. I guess that we could have done this yesterday, if we had known the jargon and procedure. The man at the call centre said he would call us back to tell us if there was room on the flight for us or not.

The shuttle busses arrived, the queues at check-in grew and grew, and slowly got less and less as the passengers were processed and went through into the departure lounge. At some point one of the SAS ladies said we should phone the call centre again, because it shouldn't be taking so long for us to get a response. We called, and were told that we were still in the stand-by queue and must simply wait.

When the queue was finally processed, the SAS lady checked the status and said that she could check us in provisionally so that we could go through to the departure lounge to wait there. This was very hopeful - it was difficult to stay calm. At least we could get a much needed coffee in the departure lounge. There are no facilities in the check-in hall.

The plane arrived, emptied itself, and the departure lounge followed suit as everyone bar us boarded it. When the lounge was empty, we checked what was happening and, lo and behold, there were three spare seats. Kari got business class (actually, this was simply the SAS-Plus status that we had paid for). I had to sit with the plebs at the back of the plane. We didn't care, any seat would have done rather than kill three more days in Longyearbyen. The only minor complication was that, when the food was served during the flight, and I ordered the sandwich and beer that an SAS-Plus ticket entitles one to, the flight attendant wanted me to pay because she assumed I had an economy class ticket. I had to fish out my ticket to convince her otherwise.

There wasn't much to see during the flight. We only got a quick glimpse into Bjørndalen before we climbed into blanket cloud. It was cloudless as we approached Tromsø, though. We approached from the north, on the opposite side of the island to where the town is located. It felt like landing in the tropics when we got out of the plane. It was about 17 degC with full sunshine. The rucksacks arrived quickly and undamaged, we didn't have to wait too long for a town bus No. 42, so we were by the car for about 17:15 feeling extremely happy.

We headed out of town along the E8 with Finland as goal for the evening. It turned out to be too far, though, so we settled for the Skibotn camp site that we had stopped at on the way up. We were offered a luxury hut with its own shower and toilet for NOK 700 instead of the usual NOK 900. The weather deteriorated significantly at we got nearer and nearer to Skibotn. Kari cooked spaghetti to have with a jar of pesto sauce for our evening meal. The shower was a delight.

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Friday, 28 August, Skibotn to Sirkka

In the morning the weather was blowing a gale and it was quite cloudy. It looked as though we were in a rain shadow region of wet weather coming from the east, our destination for the day.

We had shopped quickly on our way from Tromsø for essentials such as milk for breakfast, but we still needed things like geitost to take home with us. So we shopped in Skibotn before setting off, as this was likely to be the last chance to shop in Norway this holiday. The road to the Finnish border climbs steeply and is very windy most of the way. But it is nice to see mountains with trees and grass again, and with rugged shapes. I found the mountains around Longyearbyen to be singularly unattractive, a bit like slag heaps.

Somewhere along the lonely stretch of road that follows the Finnish/Swedish border, we were surprised to see two young reindeer walking along the side of the road on their own. The sad reason was clear a couple of km further on. A car was standing at the side of the road with its hazard lights blinking, and next to it was a dead reindeer. Hopefully the two youngsters will be able to fend for themselves.

We stopped for coffee and cake at the camp site that had originally been our goal the previous evening. The café was beautifully furnished. We continued to the bridge over to Sweden at the E45 junction to cash the deposit on 6 beer cans and spend our last few SEK on petrol. As expected, we started to have more and more rain showers as we progressed east.

We stopped at the first sizeable Finnish town, Muonio, for lunch. We had Frankfurter sausages, chips and salad with milk. It was surprisingly good.

We continued on to our goal for the day, an appartment in Sirkka. Sirkka is a ski resort where we had stayed 6 years ago. In summer it would appear that they rent out the studios very cheaply. For EUR 50 we had shower/WC/sauna/cheminée/washing machine/etc. Kari was able to do a very necessary load of washing.

Just as we were about to start cooking yet another meal of spaghetti with bottled sauce for supper, Kari found a Tintin cartoon by Steven Spielberg on TV. We started watching it, so our evening meal became beer and crisps in front of the tele. The film was not really worth even that much. By the time we went to bed, the rain had set in with a vengeance.

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Saturday, 29 August, Sirkka to Utajärvi

It was still raining when we got up.

The goal for the day was a hotel which we knew in Utajärvi. We left in heavy rain, but it did slowly improve. By the time that we reached Rovaniemi it was dry, so we were able to stroll around the town centre and find a coffee, cake and ice cream. We filled up with petrol, had a picnic lunch of sardines just after Rania, and phoned the hotel from Pudasjärvi to book a room.

We followed the dirt road from there that we had cycled 6 years ago. All went well so that we were in Utajärvi for 17:00 after covering some 430 Km. The hotel room was nice and spacious and cost EUR 90, including breakfast, shower/WC, and cooking facilities. Since the sun was shining, we were able to have a quick dip in the lake.

Tragically, the proprietor's wife had died suddenly earlier in the year so there was no evening meal available at the hotel. There's also not much in the way of restaurants in Utajärvi, so we were reduced to using the cooking facilities in our room to prepare spaghetti yet again. We went into town afterwards to try to get a dessert. We bought what we thought was an apple pastry and some yoghourt. On tasting the pastry after microwaving it, it turned out to be savoury. By this time, it was unfortunately covered in yoghourt! It tasted fine, nonetheless.

During an evening walk by the lake, we had a wonderful view of the full moon rising.

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Sunday, 30 August, Utajärvi to Sysmä

I had a terrible night with a runny nose keeping me awake. So I turned off the alarm clock and it was 08:30 before we went over to the breakfast room. There was porridge available.

There's not really a lot to report about today. It was a long drive to Sysmä, which we wanted to reach in order to make it hopefully a rest day tomorrow going into Helsinki and getting a ferry to Tallinn. We went as near due south as possible to Kestilä on the same tiny, rough, dirt roads that we had cycled 6 years ago. We continued south on Road 822 to Pyhäntä, where it changed to Road 599. After some 30 km we again followed the very tiny dirt roads south-west to Pyhäsalmi. From there, it was the big, busy, fast E75 to Jyväskylä. We stopped for a funny-tasting coffee and pastry in Pyhäntä, where we changed drivers. We stopped again for a very good hamburger across the road from the Hänniläsalmi camp site, just south of Viitasaari. On returning to the car, the driver of the Russian lorry, next to which we had parked, befriended us and insisted on giving us a bottle of Russian vodka. The only Swiss speciality that we could offer him in return was a pair of very-well-travelled salametti. I hope that he likes them.

We were careless with our map reading preparation for Jyväskylä. As a result, we ended up heading out of town the wrong way along Road 9/E63 and had to turn round. It probably cost us half an hour and 10 km. We eventually reached the camp site in Sysmä at about 17:30 after some 475 km. The site has been improved a lot since our last visit. Perhaps that explains why a very basic 2-person hut with no water costs EUR 52! The kitchen and shower facilities are, however, extremely good, as is the evening sun shining on us over the lake as I write this. We settled for a müesli and cup of tea sitting on the verandah outside the kitchen for evening meal.

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Monday, 31 August, Sysmä to Helsinki

This was more or less a rest day. We just wanted to do the 180 km or so to Helsinki and get the evening/night ferry to Tallinn.

We awoke to a bright blue sky and brilliant sunshine. Half an hour later it was grey fog! We had a nice breakfast of muesli, bread and jam in the camp site's kitchen, before setting off for Lahti and Helsinki. The fog cleared as we crossed the string of moraine islands across Päijänne lake.

We simply bypassed Lahti on the motorway, but came off it onto Road 140 soon afterwards because I was hoping to fill up with 'cheap' petrol just before Helsinki. This decision unfortunately led to a route finding problem on our way into Helsinki. Road 140 suddenly turned into a suburban side road just 15 km short of the city. At least it did so next to a petrol station. There was also a McDonalds there, so we had a quick hamburger to set us up for the hassle of getting into Helsinki. We returned to the E75 after this stop.

Actually, getting into Helsinki wasn't too bad, since the E75 motorway leads one pretty much to one of the Talllinn ferries, the Viking Line. We decided to take the 21:30 ferry, since one can get a cabin for EUR 50 extra, and stay on the boat until 07:00. The total cost of the crossing was EUR 114.

It was by this time only about 14:30, so we had some 6 hours to kill. The car parking fees in the city were so horrendous that we decided to try to drive out of the city a bit to what, on the map, looked like a park. It took us ages and ages to get there going round and round the one-way systems, and when we finally got there, the parking fees were still high. The 'park' wasn't much to write home about either. However, it was sunny and warm, so we had a pleasant hour or so drinking a beer and snoozing.

On returning to the harbour, we found a space in a long-term parking-disc car park, so we were able to leave the car and have a stroll around the town. This included a meal of fried small fish (not bad, but it wouldn't be my choice for every day) at the market on the waterfront. We returned to the car to brew up a cup of tea and kill the rest of the time until we could check-in.

The ferry was very pleasant. Our cabin was miniscule, but did have a shower and toilet, and the beds were comfortable.

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Tuesday, 1 September, Tallinn to Biržai

We were up at 06:15 to get down to the car deck in good time. We didn't have to wait too long before a member of the crew let us off. The way out of Tallinn was straightforward but, somewhere along the way, we missed a turn, or turned too early, and got onto the wrong road. The road signposting in a new country is often confusing. Estonia was no exception.

From the lighting in the sky, we thought that we were heading west rather than south, and tried to get back to the right road by going cross-country on small roads. Our map has a scale of 1:500'000, and was not up to such undertakings. We totally lost our sense of direction so that, when we finally found a road sign giving a destination and road number which we could find on our map, we found ourselves 20 km east of Tallinn, rather than 30 km south. From there, it was simply a question of turning round and following the signs to Pärnu. The mishap cost us 70 km and over an hour. ... Kari's just (22:00) had an alternative idea as to what went wrong. It's possible that we were originally on the correct road anyway, but didn't wait long enough for a confirming road sign. The road signs in Estonia are certainly a long, long way apart, and the place names are worse than tongue twisters, totally impossible to keep in one's head. In addition, it's possible that the lightest part of the sky in the early morning is more NE than E. Our corrections were intended to be east of south to get back to a southerly road, and could therefore have actually been easterly based on where the sky was lightest. In any case, there were times when we would have conceded that a SatNav could possibly be very useful.

Once sure of being on the right road, we stopped for a bowl of muesli and slice of bread and jam to serve as breakfast. This was followed soon after by a halt for coffee and cake. It was the best coffee since leaving Fosslia, and the cake was fine too, if somewhat on the heavy side. The coffee house itself, though, although smart, was cold and bare; it could have been something out of a Cold War spy film.

On account of the lost time, we continued on around Pärnu and down the E67 rather than attempting to follow my cross-country cycle route between Latvia and Estonia. All went smoothly as far as the Latvian border, except for missing the last petrol station before the border to fill up the tank cheaply. But immediately after crossing the border we were held up by long stretches of road works and innumerable lorries. Fortunately we had planned to return to my cycle route by turning left at Salacgriva, about 13 km past the border.

We were soon somewhat regretting this decision as the quality of the tarmac was very bad. It soon got worse as the road surface turned into rough gravel with water-filled potholes. After a while things improved when the road surface changed back to asphalt again. We were in Limbaži for lunch, where we found a simple restaurant. The set meal was fine, if not very exciting.

On our way towards Riga, we found the Zorbas hotel and restaurant where I had stayed when cycling, stopping for coffee and desert, which were excellent and very cheap. The restaurant was full of families with young children all dressed in their Sunday best. Apparenly, because it is 1st September, it's the first day of school, and such a family treat is a local custom.

We bypassed Riga to save some time, picking up my cycle route with a little, but not too much, trouble to the SE of the city. From there it was a simple drive over the Lithuanian border to end the day in Biržai.

Although the guest house where I stayed last time in Biržai was fine, I thought that we might try the town's hotel instead. They are both 3-star rated. The hotel takes some finding, being on the outskirts of the town, but the trouble is worth it. We have a very nice big room with a view over a river and countryside all for EUR 45. We went out to find 2 local geological attractions before supper. We've only found one so far, some rather special lakes with a magnificent viewing tower with 168 steps. The local guide pamphlets have rather dire maps in them, so the lakes took a lot of finding, including 4-wheel driving down a rough dirt road, and ending up being shown the way by a local resident in his car. Tomorrow we'll try to find a sink hole called Cow's Cave. There wasn't time tonight because we had to get back to the hotel for supper, and a very good supper it was too. Now, as we get ready for bed, there's thunder all around the town. From the size of the puddles everywhere, it's clear that these are not the first local storms.

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Wednesday, 2 September, Biržai to Łomża

It was foggy when we got up at 07:30 for breakfast. We were offered pancakes, which we accepted. They came with jam and a lot of sour cream. It was quite a heavy breakfast.

We started off the day by visiting the two local sights that we didn't have time to get to last night - the wooden causeway over the lake, and the sink hole called "Cow's Cave". We could park right at the end of the causeway, which is some 500 m long. It was foggy on the lake, so we didn't get the normal view of Biržai church, but it was very beautiful all the same. There were a few people out slowly rowing here and there across the lake towing a fishing line behind them, and a few grebes paddling around.

We then set off to search for the sink hole. With our research of the previous night, the area was not difficult to find, some 3 or 4 km out of the village along the road to Salociu. There is actually quite a large area exhibiting sink holes. The nearest to the road is called "Lapès Ola" (Fox's Cave), and is quite small. "Karvès Ola" or "Cow's Cave" is a few hundred metres down a gravel side-road across from Fox's Cave. It is quite big with wooden steps to help you climb down into it. The whole area is dimpled with subsidence. In Switzerland, when similar sink holes occurred not long ago, the whole area was cordoned off to keep people out. Such restrictions fortunately don't apply here.

We set off on the road to Kaunas and Poland just as it started to drizzle. It turned to heavy rain, which went on and on. The first signs of it stopping were some 2 hours later as we were reaching Kaunas. We had driven most of the way along the E67, or Via Baltica as it is called, with hundreds of heavy lorries in the downpour. We also had some very long waits at traffic lights for road works. It was not very pleasant, so we were ready for lunch.

Kaunas was much more pleasant than I remembered it. Last time I was in the centre in the late evening of a bank holiday, and it was cool and deserted. I had also just had a puncture to repair. This time, shortly after the rain had stopped, it was full of people and it was warm and sunny. It was very pleasant. We found a small restaurant for a nice meal.

The route continued along the E67 with lots of lorries and two-lane traffic. It was neither easy nor fast driving. The rain, fortunately, held off. We crossed the border into Poland, regaining the hour that we had lost crossing into Finland a few days ago, stopped in Suwalki to get some Polish money out of a bancomat, picking up a parking ticket at the same time, and tootled on to Łomża. We found a room in the Hotel Gromada for PLN 170 (CHF 43) with breakfast, the same hotel that I had stayed in 7 years ago.

We went out for a walk to a pizzeria at the other end of town, some 3 or 4 km away, to find that it was closed. We returned to our room to eat up some picnic stuff that was in danger of going off. There's a lot of traffic noise from the open window at the moment, so we'll probably be shutting it to sleep tonight.

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Thursday, 3 September, Łomża to Łodz

(Written on Friday evening in Jelenia Gora - I'd had too many hours driving and too many beers last night to update my diary ...) Yesterday was the slowest day ever. We averaged about 35 kph! We were on the road for about 11 hours of which maybe 2.5 hours were spent drinking coffee, picnicking, and strolling around Warsaw's old town, and covered less than 300 km.

We stopped not too long in Ostrow Mazowiecka, to try to sort out the parking ticket that we got in Suwalki on Wednesday. We stopped at what I expected to be a tourist info office, but turned out to be the town hall. A man there interpreted the ticket for me ... pay PLN 30 within 5 days or PLN 50 later, and he told me that I could pay it at the post office just up the road. For the sake of 7 or 8 francs, I decided to simply pay it rather than ignore it. I found a very helpful lady at the post office, so it was all done and dusted quite quickly.

We continued on to Warsaw, stopping twice before we got there, firstly for a coffee of sorts, and again for a picnic. The picnic was just outside a school on the edge of a small town in nice warm sunshine and was very pleasant.

We had a street map of Warsaw, so knew more or less where we wanted to park. It worked out perfectly, and a young man showed us how to operate the parking meter - you have to put in the registration number of one's car, as well as money. We had a stroll around the main square, enjoyed a beer and then an ice cream, before finding the car again to set off in the direction of Łodz and Wrocław (Bresslau) on minor roads.

We basically followed my cycle route, which I had chosen to avoid lorries and heavy traffic on the main trunk roads. We assumed that the traffic would at least be light, even if the road was not too fast. We were mistaken. Maybe we were stuck in the evening rush hour, even though it was only mid-afternoon, but the road was jammed solid. There were traffic lights with long waits every few hundred yards or so, and it went on, and on, and on. We had originally thought that we might get to somewhere near Bresslau to spend the night. In the end, we settled for Łodz, some 200 km less.

It transpired that we didn't fancy Łodz very much. It seemed very run down. So we decided to continue towards Warta, even though we knew that that was the stretch where I had had to sleep in the tent when cycling because I couldn't find a hotel. Time went on, and no hotel popped up. Suddenly, Kari spotted a sign to a hotel down a side road. We went down it, keeping our fingers crossed. The hotel turned out to be a palace. It also cost the relatively palatial price of PLN 400 for a suite, all the rooms being occupied. After much dithering and making moves to go on to another hotel, we actually got the toom (it turned out to be a very big room rather than a suite) for PLN 300 (CHF 75).

It really was luxurious. It was too late for a meal by this time, so we settled for a couple of beers sitting outside in the garden, followed by another beer and our last two salamettis from the cool box back in our room.

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Friday, 4 September, Łodz to Jelenia Gora

Breakfast in our palace was at 08:00, and was very good if not what we are used to. Frankfurter style sausages and scrambled eggs rather than muesli is not our usual choice. The coffee was also rather 'special'.

The driving was much easier than the previous day. Again, we were on minor roads, but this time they were empty and the road quality was also above average. Some way before Bresslau, we found ourselves on a motorway, which put paid to our plans for a morning coffee, Polish motorways not yet having built any service stations. They do, however, have very spacious parking areas where we were able to have a nice picnic.

Again, we had a street map of the city, so knew where we would like to park. It worked out splendidly, and the parking meter was of the same design as the one in Warsaw too. We walked through the old town to the cathedral across the river on the other side. The view from the tower was very clear. On the way back to the car, we decided against a beer as time was getting on, but managed to find a very good ice cream in a strange Italian restaurant complex.

Getting out of Bresslau was easy, except for a short stretch of diversion, presumably avoiding road works, which was rather slow. We picked up a stretch of motorway which also helped us to get clear of the city. The drive from there to Jelenia Gora was trouble free through very nice scenery. We were in Jelenia Gora for about 17:15, and easily found a room in the 3-star Hotel Fenix for PLN 175. We had a short walk in to the old town for an unspectacular pizza for me and disappointing lasagna for Kari.

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Saturday, 5 September, Jelenia Gora to Regensburg

Another Polish breakfast ... very good scrambled eggs, but not much in the way of cereals, and no jam, only honey. But it's filling, just not what we're used too.

The plan was to cross the Czech Republic without getting any Czech currency. The slight worry was that one needs a "label" for Czech motorways, and they cost CZK 310 (CHF 12) for the 10 day version, available from petrol stations, just like in Austria. We weren't sure that we'd be able to pay by credit card.

The road over the border is quite mountainous but very beautiful. The first attempt to get a "label" failed because they wanted cash. They would have accepted EUR 15, but we thought that that was too much. The second attemp was successful, so we also filled the tank at the same time. Once we got past Turnov, it was motorway to and around Prague and to and around Pilsen. We stopped for a picnic once Prague was behind us. It was a nice sunny day, but not too warm.

After Pilsen we were driving on a 2-way road, so the going was much slower, but by then the goal for the day, Regensburg, was almost in sight. Having reached a country with Euros as currency again, we stopped in Cham for an ice cream before trundling on to Regensburg.

We found a nice hotel room for EUR 82 in Marienhof, a small village on the Danube some 6 km up river from the centre of Regensburg. We immediately drove into the city to stroll around the old town before it got too late. There were plenty of ladies wearing dirndls, and men in lederhosen. This is Bayern, after all. It's a very beautiful old town. We returned to the hotel for a modest evening meal.

We've decided to follow the advice of Google Maps as to how to get home from here, viz. to follow the Autobahns via Munich and Lake Constance. If we were to try to follow the Danube to Ulm, it would be 2-way traffic all the way so we wouldn't get home till late and be very travel weary. We might get stuck in traffic jams around Munich or around Bregenz. We'll have to see.

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Sunday, 6 September, Regensburg to Riniken

As mentioned above, we decided to get home as simply as possible. We took the Autobahn towards Munich, then through Allgäu to Bregenz and on to Riniken. It's a bit tricky getting around the top end of Lake Constance without ending up on an Austrian motorway and having to pay a toll. The signposting is also less than optimal. Despite our best efforts, we did end up on the motorway, much to our dismay. We simply turned off again at the next exit. Hopefully there will be no Austrian fine following us home.

We called on Kathryn in Baden and the Madens in Windisch on the way past, getting home in the late afternoon.