More mines, cabin fever and BBQ's

19/03/09 We went on a road trip to a different mine today, mine 6 the latest to be abandoned, by the looks of it in the 80's or early 90's. It was much bigger scale and concrete than the mine 2, still freaky though. At the top all the dogs down the fjord in the kennels started howling together like wolves. It was very freaky.

20/03/09 Our first week day off in ages, unfortunately not for me. I agreed to be in charge of friday gathering so it was my job to buy the booze. Ash nicely agreed to join me. After we went for a walk in the glorious sunlight. The fjord is so beautiful in the sun.

21/03/09 - Bjorndalen. Me and a group of 6 others decided to stay at the cabin in Bjorndalen this weekend. It was where we saw the polarbear tracks last week. Jorgen and I decided to go early to warm it up. We "borrowed" around 50kg of coal from next to the power plant, aparently there is a special deal with the company or something but it felt a bit dodgy to me. The cabin was lovely, just freezing cold. Even 3 hours later when the others finlly arived the cabin had only got to about 0 degrees with a constant fire. It was also very smoky.
Despite that it was really good fun. We had a cozy meal together and a good laugh. I got to test out my new sleeping bag finnally, it was amasing, I loved it, I never wanted to come out.

The weather was glorious the next day. Half of the others went skiing (the norwegian half!), the others of us went on a walk in the beautiful surroundings. We thaught we saw a polarbear but it turned out to just be a yellowish iceberg.

When I got back to the barracks I got a big supprise. The others were just about to a BBQ so I jumped on that bandwagon. I think it actually worked better than at home, the BBQ's burnt at the proper speed. Of course I managed to burn my mouth at -24 degrees though!

25/03/09 - Got really close to another friendly reindeer today. Also I got a reply to go for an interview at Thales today, my first non rejection reply! Wohoo!
We also started dismantelling Malibu again today, we got the engine out and will start on the hard part of reparing tommorow. There is no spark so we think the coil (the part we snapped a bolt of last time) has broken, not an easy job to fix.

Polarbear tracks, Flamable gods, Russians and explosions

10-15/03/09 Today we decided to enter for the great annual Sledge race. In the process of building it we had a tiny accident. Well Dayle decided to use the angle grinder next to freshly cut fuel lines and we may have set the sledge on fire. Luckily due to quick action it was out shortly but not before me cutting my back and wrist dragging the flaming sledge out.


12/03/09 The sun is here, at last! I haven't seen it for over 2 months. Today we went for a small scooter trip. We just went 45 mins away down the road. On the way back we found polar bear tracks, really fresh ones. Apparently we were a few hours too late the police had to scare it off earlier.

It was great the sea had loads of icebergs in it.

13/03/09 - The sledge is finally coming together we thought of the name, the inflammable god! I'm so happy how its turned out.

I had an ipiphany today. The radar diagnostics course we have been doing he finnaly clicked today. I now understand the process of sampling and decoding signals and the complex mathematics involved. It was so refreshing, I now get it, wohoo!

14/03/09 - The day of the big sledge race! So many people turned up. There were 18 different sledges participating and the entire town came to see them crash and burn. It was so much fun. Ours was an epic tragedy.
We turned around and the others fell off and everyone laughed, however we weren't the last, one sledge was 2 seconds slower, so we didn't even get the wooden spoon.

15/03/09- Barrentzberg and tragedy. We decided to take Malibu on a larger trip. He went great all the 2 hour trip there. The weather was so beautiful, couldn't have been a better day.
Barrentzberg was crazy, it was like going back in time 50 years and heading to soviet Russia. As you can see there were statues of
Lennen and amasing views. We had brekfast including loads of interesting russian food but it was really good. Nearlly all the buildings are abandoned as they are slowly closing down the mining operations.
It was full of soot and smoke and steam appearing from every crack, including the ones in all the walls.

On the way back there was a horrific disaster! Malibu died. Down a hill there was two distinct bangs like a car backfiring and it never started again. I think the piston has gone again, bugger! We dragged it back all the way, nearly two hours. The view was great, it was just hard to enjoy it being towed rather that speeding along under my own steam. We will have to drag Mailbu to the sea garage open him up and get a post mortum, please cross your fingers for us!

It's Alive, ALIVE!!

See for yourself the blossom of all Dayle's and my work! A weeks work and its was so worth it to hear this glorious noise!

Dayle, Malibu and I

25/02/09 - Malibu is ours! We got custody of our own (not fully functioning scooter today). After 3 hours we managed to get it to the sea Garage. In the arduous process dragging her back a magic Eskimo man managed to get her started, well on one of the two cylinders.
When we opened her up we founds why the other wasn't firing! Can you see the problem? That's right pistons arn't meant to have gaping big holes in them!
26-27th/02/09 We found the manual for our scooter in the internet, printed it out and had it bound. Dayle and I then spent the next two days until 11pm every night taking her apart piece by piece. TO get out a piston you literally have to dismantle EVERYTHING in the snowmobile!
With a lot of swearing and WD40 we now have the piston out and a lot of parts.
To get a new piston we have been quoted £200. We are going to try and find it cheaper on the net. Or steal another engine from an identical broken scooter, there are a few lying around.

Friday night we had the gathering again at UNIS and it spilled over to the barenzpub just up the road, good fun!

28/02/09 - Today is the last day you can travel to the Balterdalen cave since as of March its a no scooter zone. Lisa on the picture to the left in the middle very kindly lent me her scooter. It was so nice, it went beautifully and damn fast, I hope Malabu works like that when she lives again!
Unfortuately after 5 hours of searching we didnt find it :-( . We did however chase some reindeer for a while, they didnt realise that running down the scooter track wasnt the best way to escape scooters!
On the way back Dayle let loose with the gas and went airborne at one point. Ill tell you what 80 on a snowmoble is damn fast!

We later on had a karioke party at Dayle and Lisa's barrack. As usuall it started slowly as people got more enibrated the more people started to sing. I was shattered though so I had to bow my head and go to bed early.

01/03/09 The day isnt over yet but I just went snowboarding again with Laura. We were sharing Pirka's board and she was just as bad as me so it was fun. Cant wait until my own board arrives now!!!