Kalaallit Nunatt

Me, stoked with our first Greenland view (out my window at Hotel Kulusuk)

Arrival Kulusuk was a bit of a wake up call. Gravel runway, one-building-airport, Landie-as-a-taxi (for luggage only - humans walk to nearest habitation), polar-bear-head-decoration. But it was stunning. Thank God for the lack of an airbridge! I've never been somewhere before that literally took my breath away quite so effectively and for so long. I think more than anything it was the mountains and the real end of the world feeling. It's very barren, very brown, very cold. As we walked down the road I felt like the luckiest person in the world.

Our hotel was blessed with the most awe-inspiring view. From my window I looked out on a fjord which in winter is covered in ice. Currently there are just a few icebergs scattered along the coast. In the distance Apusilak Glacier stared icily down at us.

Our hotel from the road to Cap Dan

The daylight-hours view from my hotel window.

We spent the afternoon exploring the nearby settlement of Cap Dan. It used to be a fishing village, but the fishery has collapsed in recent years, and now most fishing is just recreational. I'd guess that about 100 people live there, in these wonderfully atmospheric houses perched high on the outcrops. The noise of dogs howling fills the air - this is summer, so the Greenlandic husky dogs are tied up and have little to do. Come winter, there's still a proportion of the population that will harness up their dog teams and head out accross the ice to hunt seals and polar bear. We passed the cemetry, we tried our hand at catching a fish or two from the rocks, we visited the picturesque little church. And then we spotted a whale. It was just out from us, just in the fjord, spouting happily away. Apparently it was a Minke. Whatever it was, I was desperately hoping that it wouldn't be spotted by anyone else in the village - they've got traditional whaling rights to kill up to three Minke whales each year.

Looking from the middle of Cap Dan out towards Apusilak Glacier. The poles in the foreground are a drying rack for fish.

We returned to our hotel for dinner, and then set out yet again. Georg, a local fisherman, picked us up in his fishing boat and we headed out into the fjord and towards the looming Apusilak. It did look oh-so-close, but it was 7k's by boat - I guess it's just the super clear air, and the lack of any man-made markers in the landscape, that make it really hard to judge distance. Georg was hilarious - a utterly dry humour which made it near impossible to judge when he was serious and when he was taking the piss. What made it even more difficult was the fact I have just three words in East Greenlandic, and perhaps five in Danish, and he had little more in English. But when I asked him about the size of the glacier he became quite serious. 'Smaller', he said. 'Fifty years back, no island.' I glanced around and spotted the island he was talking about. As we drew closer to the glacier, it became clear that even the end of the island closest the glacier was separated from the glacier head by a couple of hundred meters.

I had a bad feeling when I saw this, but all was ok in the end.

The boat beside our boat. Ours was cooler, but you get the idea.

Drawing closer to the glacier.

On the way back to the hotel, as the Arctic sun sank low on the horizon, Georg took us to get a close up look at some icebergs. They carve off the glaciers and float down the fjords out to sea, but there's a point in one channel which is too shallow, and the get beached. So it's like boating through a forest of these white giants. They're beautiful in the last light - tinged pink and yellow by the sun, but still with this luminous blue glow. Some of them have streaks of a deeper blue running though them. It's not just the colour though, it's also the structure. Each one has got this different look, this different feel. Some are rounded, others sharp and angular. Some have rings on them, others are quite striate. I felt almost like I was in a cathedral, it was that sort of emotion. Like I should be quiet, lest I break something special. It was at these moments that I found it hardest to keep filming.

The iceberg field at sunset.

And when we got back to the hotel, and I looked out my window, I once again couldn't believe I could possibly be so lucky as to see so much beauty in one day.

Late evening sunset from my window at Hotel Kulusuk.

We flew via Iceland to Greenland, stopping for what was to be one night in Rekjavik, the capital. Which would have to be one of the most uninspired cities that I have ever been in! It feels like an American suburb - there are these horrible big high rise concrete-and-glass things going up everywhere, motorways snaking every which way, and apparently over 250,000 cars for just 500,000 Icelanders! It was also exhorbitantly expensive. Like, NZ$40 for an average meal at an average restaurant. And $14 for a glass of house wine! And we ended up staying a second night there, because our flight to Greenland was cancelled due to fog...

Main motorway into Rekjavik - playground for Mercs and Chevs, and not a lot else.

From our hotel looking towards the waterfront.
The old being demolished, and the new going up.

We did find one pretty building though, right on the waterfront. Apparently it's the place where in 1986 Reagan and Gorbachev met to end the Cold War! Other exciting things about Iceland? Well, we discovered Icelandic is very hard to say and/or comprehend. The have letters that we do not recognise as letters, and sounds that we do not recognise as pronouncible! We found that Icelanders eat cold cuts and cheese with cucumber and hard boiled egg on toast for breakfast. It's very windy there. Oh, and the most exciting thing is that all their electricity is thermally generated, and their hot water comes staight out of the ground! This results in every Icelandic bathroom smelling like Rotorua, which is interesting to say the least...

The place the Cold War began to end.
Also the prettiest house in Reykjavik, and the prettiest time of day (almost midnight..)

And then finally, 24 hours later than we'd hoped, we got the call from the airport to say it was all go. One and a half hours in the air, and this is the first sight we had of Greenland -

Eye on London

London is addictive I reckon. I loved it, and would have loved it even more if I hadn't been staring at most of it through a lens! The number of times I was scowled at by security guards, tehe. Still amazing to be somewhere with so much history though, and so much grandeur...

We arrived on a blue blue day, and after 35 hours of travel it felt like we could do no better. We stayed in an amazing hotel just behind this monstrosity, which is the London Eye. Went up in it too (it rotates super slowly and you get an idea of how massive the city is, as well as doing the touristy thing and getting photos of all the sights!) so this isn't just a random pic. Walked up and down the Thames lots, but I haven't been on it yet (doing that on Friday - we're taking a boat to Greenwich!). It looks pretty here, and it is if you're looking at it from a distance, but it was pretty disconcerting to know that London's drinking water is distilled from the brown murk!

View from the Jubilee Bridge up the Thames (or is it down?!)

Visited the British Museum of Natural History which was amazing, and HUGE. For the botanists out there, I had the fantastic luck to go behind the scenes with one of the curators of the botanical collection, and check out the specimens from the Banks collection (the plants that were taken from NZ on Cook's first voyage). The rest of you would probably have been more impressed by the dinosaurs, or the massive blue whale skeleton. Or even the building itself - it is huge, and so beautiful!

Banks collection 'Day Book'


Entrance Hall and dinosaur!

We had a tour of the Houses of Parliament (building in front) and checked out Westminster Abbey (white building behind). Wasn't allowed to film there, which was nice, so I got a break! There's so much ceremony and things wrapped up in places like that - apparently MPs still vote on every bill by passing down one of two corridors and having themselves counted. If you don't show cause you're too slow (a bell goes off and you have 8 minutes to get there), tough for your party!

Houses of Parliament (front) and Westminster Abbey (behind)

Strolled through Hyde Park (complete with deck chairs - it's hilarious, you pay a couple of pounds to use one, or you can by a 'season ticket'!) and watched tennis, cricket and horses. Apparently they feed geese here, not ducks, and it's the pigeons not the seagulls that are the bain of the gardners life. Also got a tour of Buckingham Palace, which is on the edge of the gardens, but I was so busy filming no pics of that sorry. Lovely place though. Bumped into Will and we're getting hitched next Autumn.

Hyde Park

Jonothan Hunt, former Speaker and current High Commissioner to Britain and Ambassador to Ireland, took us out to dinner, in this quaint wee English pub. I ordered steak and ale pie and it was super good, if quite large! This was the first of our 'official engagements', and it came as a shock to me just how much the food miles issue is preventing NZ representatives from really addressing the climate change issue in any progressive way. I actually cried on the way back to the hotel, that's how much it shocked me.

The pub the High Commissioner took us to dinner at.

Tour of the BBC! Nowhere near as good as NHNZ of course, tehe. Well, no comparison really, cause the BBC Nat Hist office is in Bristol. But cool, nevertheless. Also went out to Camden Markets, which were so busy and crazy they reminded me of India. I keep getting tempted by loads of cheap summer dresses and stuff. It's the worst and the best time to come to London as a poor NZland girl, haha. Wandered through Soho and Chinatown, visited the Tower Bridge at night etc etc so on and so forth. Didn't sleep much, haha but the super all-you-can-eat buffet breakfast at the hotel kept me going!

Self explanatory I would hope!

Visited Cambrige too which was a-mazing. Not sure where I've put my pics of this though so you'll just have to imagine a stunning pedestianised town with narrow winding alleys, cute wee shops, cobbled pavements and about a thousand bikestands. It was great - I've never seen a better example of what I reckon central Dunedin should do! For that reason I think I have about 40 minutes of tape showing nothing but bikes in Cambridge, which some may argue is a little over the top for a 24 minute doco, haha. I now have a nagging desire to do more postgrad! We went punting on the river, and explored what must be one of the most picturesque towns in Britain, but the highlights of the day were meeting two amazing people. We went into the Institute of Astronomy with Gerry Gilmore, who is an amazing Kiwi astonomer who's done some groundbreaking work on dark matter. He's a fantastic speaker too, and kept us totally enthralled as he gave us a tour of the complex, showing us rooms which people like Eienstein had sat and yarned in. Then we went to Trinity College, which is one of the halls, to visit the Master, Martin Lord Reese. He's also a superhero cosmologist, Astronomer Royal, and the President of the London Branch of the Royal Society, and he's outspoken on a lot of climate change issues. We interviewed him in the third conservatory we passed through (it's a stunningly beautiful house), and 'took tea' with him which was served on the tinkling of a bell by the housekeeper (who was also lovely). He is an inspiring man - modest, charming, and with a brilliant mind. I felt so honoured to have met him. In terms of climate change, he said nothing stunning that he hasn't said before, but reaffirmed for us all what a huge issue it is for the whole world.

Right. I'm exhausted. Next installment tomorrow night maybe!

Next? Greenland!

I'm travelling with the Freemason/Royal Society of New Zealand Big Science Adventures winners - my three angels from Otago Girls' High in Dunedin! We're off to make a film about climate change, and look at its impact on the worlds biggest island. In Greenlandic, it's Kalaallit Nunatt - White Earth. I can't wait!