Days 8 and 9

Today we got to phone school. All of our mates and our parents and siblings had gathered together in our CLC to talk to us! Bless! We did miss the hike for it though, but you can't have everything. It was great to talk to everyone again!

On friday we went to a ghost town. It was totally deralict and quite weird. In the space of two weeks the whole town upped and left. They left eveything behind - instruments, games, books, crockery. There was also a bottle house which was very random, but a sign of good recycling I suppose...

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Hi everyone! You will never guess what we ahve just seen!!!!!!!!!!!!
A real live polar bear!!!!!!!!!!!
Just casually strolling along the mountainside, like it was on its way to Tesco's! And we all went mental!!!!
It had something in it's mouth (a fish or maybe a bird) and it was alone. I got some pics, but they aren't very clear. Some people got amazing pics though. Look out for me (Rach) on the TV!!!!!!

Days six and seven

Today we had a huge snowball fight at a place called Texas Bar (It is quite like Ny London)! It was absolutely mint. Everyone got involved, and poor Richard got pelted. We all slid down the slope holding hands, and nearly went off the end into the soil! I think the BBC got some of it on film. This may be the most northerly snowball fight in the world!!! Woo!!!

Then, we went to a tracker's station. Here we met a tracker who had been living there for a year! Brrrr. As we were walking back to the 'beach', we were also brutally attacked by Arctic terns! They were nesting, and were a tiny bit put out by our presence! We had to hold sticks up in the air, to stop them attacking us.
Never mind firearms training... At the beach we decided to go for a wee dip... in the ARCTIC SEA!!!!!!!!!!! ARE WE MENTAL??? Yes probably. I can tell you - it was more than a bit chilly. Apparently, stay in for longer than 2 minutes and you die. Needless to say, we did not test out this theory. And we did not tell our mums that when we phoned them!!!

Day five

We're still travelling back in time! Now...

Day 5 - Sunday 8th
Today we visited two 'towns' on our travels. Ny London was basically one house. This one, like many others we will see later had been abandoned. Inside all the food and bedding was still spread out, and nails still littered the ground. It was really weird. We also saw a reindeer with it's baby! Awwwwww.
Next stop was Ny Alesund, a scientist base. Ny Alesund houses the worlds most northerly pub, shop and post office. We worked with marine biologists, geese men, and artists to get a more indepth knowledge of the land around us. Mary drew a very moving picture of a chair and a table - Becky and Amanda had some stiff competition!

Day four

Now obviously it isn't really day four, so it's time for another trip back in time.....

Day 4 - Saturday 7th

Today we visited UNIS (University of Norway in Svalbard). Adjacent to this, there is Svalbard's National museum. Here there are lots of stuffed animals, including a polar bear - our first sighting!
This was actually really interesting, if just for the comedy value of seeing people squeezing through tiny coal mines if nothing else!
Later on, we boarded the Russian ship Polaris - this was to be our home for the next week. Becky and Mary and Me and Amanda are sharing. The cabins are teeny weeny, but very nice and...cosy! We stopped off at Barantsberg. We had a guided tour around the mining town. We were particularly amazed by the fridges that hung out of everyones windows!

Hi everyone!

Hiya everyone it's mary here, we had the most amazing time ever. We all made some amazing friends and we even saw a polar bear!!!
We had several lectures from various scientists(which someone managed to fall asleep in) and landed on many different islands. As you can imagine I had some blonde moments and embarrased myself quite a bit, however I still had fun. The highlights of the trip was when we got to walk on the arctic pack ice and also how we met so many great people. The worst part was leaving everyone at heathrow airport- where we all cried (me more than others) however i'm glad to be back in my own bed and not having to wake up really early.
We'll all fill you in later once we've all slept for a few days!!!!!

We're back!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Hello everyone, your intreped explorers have returned! It was absolutely amazing - the trip of a lifetime! We will tell you all about it soon, once we have caught up on our sleep! Keep watching the blog, more updates to follow soon