Where to begin??! Having in true Ness style almost missed the flight from Heathrow - running (or rather attempting to move one foot in front of the other) from the office with a North Face bag which was larger and almost as heavy as me and felt lined Sorel Glacier boots to Heathrow T5 via Paddington and the Heathrow Express was interesting...a quick conference call to Bex Comyn was needed on how to negotiate onto a flight when you are more than late after a few fair well calls as the realisation that I would arrive at the airport after the flight had closed.....It was closed but thank goodness as it was delayed I was allowed on - someone was on my side!! So the journey to Norway and Svalbard (1.300km from the North Pole) began.
It was not a straight forward thing however, having had a night in Oslo - highly recommend the Raddisson airport hotel - you can push your airport trolley into your room which is 10 minutes away - I almost kissed the information person at the airport when they told me and was the highlight of the journey for at least the first 24 hours! Day 1 flight to Svalbard or not quite. Having flown over what I could only see as snow, snow and more snow with occasional frozen rivers and mountains for we had to land at Tromso (think I've spelt that wrong!) in the far north and stay for the night due to unseasonally warm weather and rain the runway was too runway - slightly extraordinary for somewhere that is usually fully functional in temperatures of -25....thankfully I met up with one off the instructors so we made the most of the SAS airport flight delay allowance fund.
Finally arrived and met up with the rest of the team a day later and it was time to get used to 24 hour darkness....really hard to get used to - when on earth are you meant to shut the curtains?? It was great to finally start wearing my kit rather than carrying it and get stuck into putting up tents, pulling pulks, polar bear drills and lighting stoves in the cold. Unseasonally warm weather has meant we haven't been able to do as much as we were meant to outside but I'm sure we will be fully up to speed after a 2 week mini expedition which we are just about to embark on.
The town is a lot more civilized than I had imagined but still struggling with the darkness, and have discovered my fingers really aren't great in the cold so need to invest in some fat mittens to keep them functional. I've also had to invest in a merino wool bra which I suspect will be a little smelly after a few days out pulling pulks but is essential to keeping away pain from certain areas.
Seriously not looking forward to any potential encounter with polar bears - especially as it's still dark all day - although the sun appears for a moment for the first time at the end of this week which is pretty exciting and we saw the moon for the first time yesterday - no northern lights as yet....learning to ski on the cross country skis has been pretty interesting - especially as it's so icy.
Otherwise all well - great team bonding - and have managed a very fun night out in one of the 4 places to eat (including a cafe) in town - which resulted in experimenting with various gimp masks....you possibly might have to have been there for that one.
Will update when back from our training expedition in 2 weeks - seem to be lacking in dry bags so will be taking my Herve Chapelier bag with me - as well as more functional north face bag and rucksac (thanks H & M!), don't think that's the done think but anyway! Bring on the shower and pedicure on return!! Right must get on with dividing up my food into nose bags....
Big love xxx
ps read Lou's blogs for a more factual account of proceedings!
No comments:
Post a Comment