This morning the Silver Cloud anchored off Texas Bar, Liefdefjorden at 8:30am and as I was in the first group scheduled to disembark at 9am, I had my breakfast delivered to my room. Texas Bar is an old fur trappers hut which was built by the famous Norwegian hunter, Hilmar Nous in 1927 and left with the promising name! The hut now belongs to Sysselmannen, which is the governing body of Svalbard and it is occasionally used by scientists. When we landed our guide gave us the option of just exploring around the hut or coming in a good hike up to get some views over the bay. I chose the hike as it was much more appealing than just doing laps around Deck 9! It was a really interesting walk as we had Liz with ... read more

Happy birthday Anne! Up at 6:30 this morning as breakfast was coming at 7am. Made a slight mistake when ordering my breakfast this morning - I ticked the buckwheat pancakes and then I ticket banana, as I thought it would be a healthy option. When my breakfast arrived I had two buckwheat pancakes - and two banana pancakes! Doh. Sonal suggested I just have one of each as she could see by the look on my face that I didn't intend to order four pancakes! So, that's what I did. Lesson learnt though. We arrived at Gåshamna in Svalbard around 7:30am. Gåshamna is a relatively large and open bay on the southern slopes of the Hornsund fjord. The bay has a width of about 2km and is included in the Sør-Spitsbergen National Park. There remains two ... read more

This morning was spent getting organised to check out of my hotel by 12pm. After checking out, I went for a wander around town and looked out some tourist shops, as I wanted to buy a neck-gator that would double as a variety of things. I found a cute one with Raindeer/mooses on it. I had been advised via email that my cruise ship would now depart from the other port in Tromsø, which was a shame as I am staying next to the main one where the Silver Cloud was originally going to depart from. I checked out different ways to get to this other port and eventually I found a shuttle bus that left from the main port. Yay - all good. I went back to the hotel to get my bags, as my ... read more

I made sure I got up so that I had enough time to have breakfast without rushing. Made it by 9:30 which was just right. After breakfast I spent the morning catching up on my blog. While I was working on it I received an email from the tour company advising me that the tour I had booked for tonight was to be cancelled due to weather conditions - they said cloud and fog. Damn - but this just meant I now had more time to finish my blog before heading off for the day. Just after 12:30 I was finished on the blog and was right up to date as at the previous night - yay! I decided to walk over the big bridge joining the island to the mainland, as I wanted to see ... read more

Janine and I headed to the boulangerie to get some baquettes and criossants for breakfast. We also went to the supermarket and picked up berries and fruit and other items to add to the table. Jess prepared everything again and we all enjoyed breakfast together. I needed to leave the apartment by 10:45 to head to the train station as I needed to get to Charles de Gaulle airport in time for my 2pm flight to Tromsö in Norway. We headed off down Boulevard St Germain for about a 12 minute walk and Con was kind enough to take my suitcase. This time we took the direct route with no stops along the way and guess what? Google maps was accurate! As I already had my ticket I was ready to leave - so said goodbye ... read more