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!!!

Two weeks worth

Sorry guys Ive been lazy, not enough pics to justify but a lot to talk about.
So...
14/02/09 - Valentines day!..with no valentine.
So instead of moping I sweetalked Andrea into teaching me to snowboard. I borrowed Espens boots and Pirkas board.
Andrea was such an awesome teacher. Apparently I learnt really fast and after 3 or so runs could with a lot of effort get up by myself and steer the board down the hill. I was hooked. I guess it helps to learn if your being taught buy a cute instructor you might want to impress. I loved it, so much so I'm buying my own board now!!!

That afternoon there was a huge party and everyone got VERY wasted, particularly the singles it seemed :-p. I had to drag Dale out of the loo, he was thretening to beat me up, but seing as he couldnt stand I didnt take it seriously.

15-18/02/09 We have been frantically preparing for the Icebreaker party. Ash has spent 4 hours a day making decorations. His viking ship loooks awesome.

18-20/02/09- This week we are doing field work trying to observe aurora at the Kjarl Hendix observatory from 5pm until midnight every day. It really messes up your time cycle.
Unfortunately the weather these 3 days are cloudy and results in only 2 mins of aurora in over 21 hours of waiting. We basically watched 10 blank screens of clouds for 7 hours a day.
To stop us from going insane we were made to calibrate all the equipment which meant lots of twiddling knobs, turning off and on lights and going outside in the freezing cold roof and shivering to death while shining a light into a dome. Very educational but I hope its not a view of things to come as a scientist.

21/02/09 - Icebreaker party. Getting there as soon as I could after waking up I spent ages helping arranging the last touches to the party.
The party went amasingly. The decorations were unbelievibly good, it looks so great. The food was awesome with a 30kg cake with over 120 eggs in it for desert. Everyone had awesome costumes. The party was really fun and lasted until 5 am at UNIS.
I had an amasing time. Thank you so much Kristine, I just wish you didn't have to go back on Wednesday. xxx Story of my life!

The next day we had to go down and clean it up. Neals was still there unconscious on a sofa upstairs and there was one hell of a mess. luckily I was in charge of alcohol storage and sound equipment so I was busy with those tasks. I feel a bit bad as I got there a bit later than the others.

24/02/09 Snowmobile! An awesome PHD student Jeff who suffered with us at the observatory has offered to give us his knackered snow scooter. He says its too expensive and old to get the shop to repair it but we can have it and try to fix it up ourselves. It sounds like a cracked engine block or piston shaft, which if we can get a replacement part quite cheep can be fixed with a lot of blood, sweat and tears. It should be a fun project before my new snowboard arrives!!

Aurora as Promiced

As promised here are some pics of the awesome aurora the other night.
Yeah they maybe weren't quite as good as the pics made them look, ash has a stupidly good camera and left the shutters open for ages so more light than can be seen by the eye is taken by the camera. But they were still pretty damn awesome.

In a a completely unrelated incident, yesterday I bought what I thought was frozen pork. When I got back Celia laughed at me for about 5 mins and told me I had just got 1kg of reindeer fat! Luckily the shop accepted it back the next day.


The guys also built an awesome igloo this weekend. I helped...with one brick, and then helped celibate by drinking in it, it was so manly. Typical British builders though, the roof collapsed after just two days!
Good times, and today we went sledging on those tiny bum handle things you sit on, you know what I mean. Anyway James fun the fastest and most fun way to travel was backwards when you cant see a thing!

Scooters, Abandoned mines and Ice Caves

06/02/09 - To be able to go on excursions with UNIS we had to spend the day doing Snow scooter training so we would be safe drivers. It was really great fun. Eric didn't have a license and so rode on my back. We only nearly flipped over once but we managed to right it the way we were told not to because if it didn't work we could have broken our legs of ended up trapped under the scooter, but we were fine.
Makes me wish I could afford to get one of my own now :-( .

In the evening there was an awesome free concert by a famous Norwegian singer in the Huset. It was great,everyone was dancing, such fun.

07/03/09 - We went and visited the ice cave we tried to find last week. The cave had been opened up properly by the tourists. Luckily only a small number had been in, but you could still see they had managed to smash off hunders of stalegtighs already.
It was so beautiful. More ice spikes than you could ever could count. The walls were like icy marble with gorgeous bobbly and wavy. textures.
It was very icy and slippery though, getting bacj was a struggle. We could only go a kelometer down it as it got too slippery and steep and we wouldnt have been able to return. It looked like it went of much further but we needed more equipment for that.

08/02/09- Michiel, Kristian and I on a spur of the moment decided to viset the old abandoned mine on the mountain above our Barracks. It was far harder work than we thaught to get there.
Once inside it was so worth it. Everything was as it was left. Spooky and dark.
There was still old porn on the lockers and stuff, so funny.
It was really big and creepy and so fun to see all the old equipment and where the guys had to work, it must have been a tough life!
The trip down was much easier but the trip tuned out to be far more fun and adventurous than I initially thought. I got back just in time to go to kyak polo. So much for my quiet weekend!