Travels with rarecat: eider

Tuesday, 16 July 2019

Arctic wildlife

After the stunning hard to beat arctic landscapes of Hornsund, the last two days of the trip to Svalbad focused on looking for wildlife. This meant hours on the zodiac - one record-breaking trip had us in the zodiac for more than 3 hours! This was because just as we were about to wrap up the session in Bellsund, we heard on the radio that there was a bear sighting on the other side of an island where we just left. This meant heading back all the way and of course by the time we arrived, the bear was almost near the top of the hill! Even our toes were frozen and the weather throughout the trip had not been cold enough for that. It truly gave us a small taste of what long hours in the Arctic environment could feel like.

Polar Bear on Alkhornet

The antlers were developing on this reindeer

A skua harrassing a kittiwake

This tiny loon like bird is a Red Phalarope

An eider threesome

Arctic tern mating

Eider in flight

Another reindeer in a classic pose

Our first bear sighting - this one was first sighted going into the water and swimming then it went up on shore and seemed to be looking for a place to snuggle down.

The last day of the trip we visited Poolepynten, known as the site of a walrus haul-out on the beach. We were allowed a half hour with the walruses at a respectful distance and the interaction between them were quite fun to watch. It was such a chore for them to move even a few feet and the expressions on their faces disarming. The time went quickly.

The afternoon expedition was supposed to be a landing and a hike on Alkhornet. And just as we were debating about whether the clamber up the rocks might be too hard for us, we heard on the PA that the landing was cancelled. The reason - a polar bear was sighted in the exact place of our landing!

So instead of a landing, we all headed out on deck to see the polar bear sauntering along where we were supposed to be hiking. It was also a treat to have a bird's eye view of the bear and the reindeer together on this magnificent tundra landscape.

The bear and reindeer on the tundra - the reindeer originally started running away when they saw the bear but when the bear showed no reaction, they stopped, but kept their distance.

The bear kept walking along the length of the shore with no change in gait for more than an hour. But there was more excitement as there were several whale sightings while we were all out on deck. What a super end to an exhilarating trip!

Humpback whale tail

More stunning arctic landscape at Longyearben, from where we took our flight home.

This wraps up our trip to the Norwegian fjords and the Arctic - an awesome experience all round!

Monday, 2 July 2018

Enchanting Eastern Fjords

Our journey around the ring road continued on to the east coast where the fjords were an important part of the landscape. In many instances, the ring road goes around the tip of each peninsula and then alongside the fjord on either side of a narrow strip of water. In some places, the driver was able to take advantage of long tunnels (one supposedly as long as 8 km) to cut through the mountains and shortened our trip. But the drive around the fjords yielded some astonishing scenery. I was lucky that it was my turn to sit in the front seat on the bus for the day and so was able to capture some road trip scenery I wouldn't otherwise have seen. Doubly lucky because this was my favourite kind of scenery - snow-capped mountains at almost every turn.

We had a nice break at Petra's Stone Collection - her collection of rocks and minerals from the area since 1946. It was an amazingly diverse collection set in the most beautiful landscaped garden. The most wonderful thing was as we drove up to her place, the fog had started to roll in and we couldn't see what was beyond the water. When we came out of the garden, it was like a different world outside. The same thing happened as we arrived at the restaurant at Breiodalsvik. We couldn't see where we were but when we came out, the most beautiful mountain range greeted us. It was magical!

By mid-afternoon, we were almost at our overnight hotel in Höfn. I had earlier mentioned to our guide that everyone came back from Iceland with stunning photos of the Vestrahorn. He told me it was right across from our hotel in Höfn. So I was all excited about the prospect of a good photo. Sadly, when he pointed out the Vestrahorn to me on the bus, that was the only photo I was able to get of the iconic mountains, already half shrouded in fog. He asked the driver to drive us up a gravel road to the top of a lookout hoping to show us the magnificent view of the mountains and the glacier, but we couldn't see a thing. The Vestrahorn was behind fog the whole time we were in Höfn, even though it was sunny. The fog just sat there.

We took a walk along the waterfront to the Höfn harbour and was lucky get some good shots of eiders, fullmars, black-headed gulls and arctic terns - the late afternoon light was perfect. It seems that I was lucky with the wildlife on this trip but not so with the iconic landscapes. Them's the breaks, I guess.

The ring road cut through snow-capped mountain ranges

The waterfront when we arrived at Stidvarfjordur to see Petra's Stone Collection

The same waterfront after we spent a good part of the hour in the garden

One of my favourites

A boardwalk lined with whale bones

Breiodalsvik where we had a delicious lunch of fish chowder

Fog was rolling in again after we took some photos

The local version of the sun voyager in Reykjavik

A short drive from Breiodalsvik is Merry Bay in the town of Djupivogur where there are egg sculptures of all the birds in Iceland. They all look the same to my untrained eye. I was more interested in the scenery...

As we continued our drive down the Eastern Fjords towards Höfn, there was more mountain and fog scenery.

We stopped at this spot to see an almost hidden waterfall coming out of a narrow gorge. This is the bottom half of a beautiful waterfall Fossadalur, too bade we couldn't get to see it.