August 2017 — yorkshirehayley.com

Greenland: Camp Ice Cap

There were two questions on my mind about Camp Ice Cap and the likelihood of a positive answer to either was diminishing by the second. Would I be able to keep warm? Would I be able to keep upright? Would I be able to keep up was a question I didn’t even bother with, I already knew the answer to that was a resounding no, so no point worrying about it.

Camp Ice Cap was at Point 660 on the permanent ice sheet that covers most of Greenland and my feeling of nervousness intensified as we drove the 38km from Kangerlussuaq to get to the edge of the ice sheet.

Of the seven of us on the tour, on paper, I was the one with the most experience since I was the only one who had ever used crampons before, when I did a heli-hike on the Fox Glacier in New Zealand and I was also the only one who had ever camped out on the ice before when I slept in a tent on an Antarctic island. Oh how evidence can lie! Neither one of those things was remote preparation for what lay ahead.

On the way to the permanent ice sheet we stopped to look at the wreckage of a plane that had crashed and the plane wreck had just been left there. I knew flying in the Arctic was dangerous from my time flying in the Northwest Territories in Canada. The challenging weather could make for very hazardous flying conditions and add to that the fact that compasses are much less reliable because of the proximity to the magnetic pole means that pilots really need to know what they’re doing to be able to fly in the North. And here was a stark example of what happened if a pilot didn’t know what he was doing!

To start with we put crampons on, I put my rucksack on my back and there were also sledges with equipment that needed to be pulled to the campsite which was a 2 kilometre walk over the ice sheet and would take about half an hour. There were 5 sledges and 9 of us, so I avoided being one of the ones who had to pull a sledge. I knew I would only just be able to manage myself and my rucksack and anticipated that by the time we left camp the following day, everyone else would realise that too and wouldn’t even think about asking me to try and pull a sledge on the way back. And this was a correct assumption.

The hike to the camp wasn’t too bad, trekking over the snow covered ice sheet, although there was quite a lot of exposed ice visible and we had to walk across some of it. Apparently the ice sheet is 3.5km thick. So it goes down a long way. And has the potential to hold some very deep crevasses, which is why you can’t go wandering about on your own. If you hit a snow bridge that won’t take your weight you just sink into the snow and presumably suffocate. What a cheery thought. Or you might fall into a crevasse never to be seen again.

The vast Greenlandic permanent ice sheet stretching out ahead of us

The ice sheet was very uneven, lots of ups and downs, why did I imagine it was going to be flat? I suppose when you think of polar explorers you just have a vision of them pulling a sledge across a flat expanse of endless snow. And of course, the reality is nothing like that. When you do get to exposed ice it is extremely hard so you really have to stamp into it to get a grip with your crampons. Luckily there wasn’t too much of that on this hike.

I was lagging behind everyone else on the hike, despite the fact I didn’t have to drag a sledge. There were 2 guides, an old Inuit Greenlander called Adam who had been going on the ice for 35 years and Stefan who was Danish and had been in Greenland for a fortnight and was learning to be a guide. He was already a qualified mountaineer, he just needed to learn the terrain in this particular area. Adam was leading the way and Stefan was at the back with me. I wasn’t too far behind the others and then Stefan pointed out the camp. There was a large orange dome tent already up. That was basically the tent where we all congregated, sat round the gas burner and it was quite warm in there. We had a cup of tea and then it was time to put up the tents.

I don’t remember much about putting up tents from when I spent a night on the ice on Antarctica over 10 years ago. As far as I recall I didn’t actually do a great deal. This was going to be different, 4 tents to put up in absolutely freezing temperatures and we had to use ice screws to pitch the tents too. I had a tent to myself as I was the only single woman on the trip.

Putting up tents, from what I can tell, is not fun. Putting up tents in the snow and ice and freezing cold is even less fun.

We had to find a spot in this harsh environment of black ice hills to pitch our tents

The blokes did the heavy work, digging the snow out to reach the ice, putting the ice screws into the ice for a stable foundation for the tents and I helped with putting the poles into the tent and clipping them into place, more difficult than it sounds when it’s minus 20 degrees and you’re trying to use fiddly clips with enormous thick gloves on. I had 3 pairs of gloves and permanently wore 2 pairs, but in order to do the more fiddly work I had to take the thicker pair of gloves off and just work with the thin pair and then quickly replace the bigger gloves to warm up again. You can get cold and frostbite very quickly and you didn’t have to have your hands exposed for very long for them to feel absolutely freezing. Even with two pairs of thermal socks on and my new boots that are supposed to withstand temperatures of minus 32 degrees Celsius, my feet always felt cold.

This was going to be good to do as an experience, but why anyone would choose to do this more than once was a mystery to me. My tent was the last one to go up and two of my fellow adventurers Matt and John helped me put it up, along with Stefan, the guide. Two inflatable sleeping mats, a sleeping bag and an inner fleece cocoon got thrown into the tent for later and then we went back to the main pod for our evening meal.

The Greenlandic permanent ice sheet is up to 3.5km thick

I had already decided I was not eating the dehydrated food that was being provided. I think they just give people that as an authentic experience so you can feel like a polar explorer, but it was entirely unnecessary to eat it. They had bread, butter, cheese, dried fruit, chocolate and I had my stock of fruit and nut bars in case I got really stuck. They even had Earl Grey tea, so I didn’t need to use my own supply of teabags. So everyone else gamely gave the dehydrated food a go and I had cheese on toast! And we got to know each other a bit as we sat chatting in the tent. There was a Danish father and daughter, Matt who lived in Plymouth and had come to Greenland for a long weekend to do Camp Ice Sheet. John was from Dublin, but lived in London and had also come to Greenland for a long weekend and there was an American mother and daughter. We all chatted for quite a while in the lovely warm tent with the gas burner and then it was time to go and sleep in the tent. Prior to that I decided I had to brave the toilet.

There was a tall green tent a little distance away which contained the toilet. The most difficult thing for me was trying to find which side of this tent the zip was on so I could actually get inside. Not easy in the dark with just a torch from Tesco to help you. They had got this portable toilet with a large plastic bag inside it to collect everything, which would then have to be transported out at the end of the camping expedition. It was hardly Raffles, but it could have been worse.

I do think this adds weight to my argument that we should be able to live on batteries as this would eliminate the necessity for transporting portable toilets to the middle of nowhere. But since that isn’t an option at this moment in time, it wasn’t as bad as I was expecting.

So next thing was inflating these two sleeping mattresses in my tent. In my opinion as well as having remote control tents which pop up all ready to sleep in at the touch of a button so we didn’t have to assemble them in sub-zero temperatures, the mattresses should have been self-inflating. I was still struggling to figure out how to inflate them when Stefan came to check on me and I told him I couldn’t inflate the mattresses. It was simply a case of blowing them up yourself, which I suspected was the case, but you had to just twist the tops and blow into them, rather than completely unscrewing the tops, which was what had been baffling me. Stefan blew them up for me, made sure I knew what to do with the sleeping bags, one big sleeping bag and an inner cocoon made of fleece to go inside that and then I had to attempt to get into them, not as easy as it sounds in a freezing cold, dark, tiny tent with just my Tesco torch giving me a bit of light. The boots, waterproofs and jeans came off, I took off my jumper to use as a pillow, got my iPod ready to rock me to sleep and managed to get into the sleeping bag.

Mountaineers use this brand of tent when they climb Everest – they must be absolutely freezing too!

The air mattresses weren’t really big enough. You needed a double one to be able to sleep comfortably. You had to line them up in a straight line on top of each other and get the sleeping bags directly on top of them to keep off the frozen ground. And it wasn’t easy to manoeuvre. I wasn’t laying in a straight line and my feet even in two pairs of thermal socks got a bit cold because they were always resting against the side of the tent. You could feel the cold even with 2 pairs of socks on and through 2 sleeping bags when the temperature is minus 25 degrees Celsius. But I found it impossible to line up the mattresses and sleeping bags so that my feet didn’t touch the side of the tent.

I didn’t expect to sleep at all, so the fact that I did get some sleep was a bonus. By 5am I was awake, breakfast was 7.30 in the main tent, I stayed in my sleeping bag to keep warm and then braved the toilet at 6am for the final time on the trip. My tent was closest to the toilet so I could hear if anyone else came past to use it, so I knew I’d gone before anyone else had. I got dressed and went for breakfast. We had breakfast and then it was time for our morning hike over the ice sheet.

Preparing to hike on the Greenlandic permanent ice sheet

Permanent ice sheet. Now I know the word ice is in the name, but even so, I didn’t expect it to be exposed ice that was like glass and virtually impossible to walk on, I expected it to be covered in a fairly deep layer of snow to cushion things a bit. The reality was there was a light dusting of snow from the overnight flurries and drifts, but basically, you were walking on black ice. Black ice, in England, on flat pavements is lethal. So now imagine black ice on a series of inclines and declines. You have crampons on. They did very little help to me. The ice is so solid they don’t seem to stick in very well. You had poles, but the ice is solid and the poles won’t stick into the ice, therefore they give you no stability and are worse than useless. To say I was absolutely terrified was an understatement.

I remember when I was at the Waitomo Caves in New Zealand and did the adventure caving which was very hard going physically. I couldn’t keep up with the other four who were on the tour, but there were two guides and one was always with me. I remember asking Haydn, one of the guides, if I was the slowest person they’d had on the tour and he said, not by a long way, in fact, they assessed the people at the start of the tour and if they were deemed incapable of completing the adventure caving they were escorted out by a third guide before the point of no return. Haydn said they did have to say to some people, “you can’t come, you’re too useless” and the third guide would lead them out of the cave. It wouldn’t surprise me with the Kiwis if they were blunt enough to actually say to people, “you can’t come, you’re too useless”.

Intrepid polar explorer equipped with poles and crampons setting out to conquer the Arctic wasteland

This is what I was anticipating could happen on this hike across the black ice hills of the permanent ice sheet. I’d found the hike to the camp challenging enough, but it was manageable. However, this was different. Within 5 minutes of walking on this black ice with its inclines and declines, even if the Greenlandic Inuit was too polite to tell me I couldn’t come, I was too useless, I was honest enough to say it to myself. If I carried on I’d break my leg or my neck. Possibly with a little more practice and preparation and perseverance I might have managed the hike, and I felt like a complete wimp, as was often the case, for backing out, but was trying to prove I was a hero worth the risk of getting helicoptered out on a stretcher? And to make me feel slightly better, John was almost as useless as me, he got about 10 steps further and then also refused to continue. So Stefan escorted us back to camp.

Me and John took a few photos and then while John was given an ice axe to chop some ice to melt for hot water, I had to take down my tent. I was thinking as I went inside to pack my sleeping bag that it was Sunday and it would normally be dance class.

I’ve never said no to attempting any moves in dance class, any lifts or drops even if they look daunting. I haven’t tried the one where I get tipped upside down and flipped because it hasn’t been demonstrated in a class I’ve attended yet, but I would have happily practised that with my dance partner for an hour and a half over hiking over those glass ice hills. It really was the most difficult thing I’ve ever been faced with, I can manage caving and if I’ve got ropes to hang on to like in the ice cave in Iceland, then I can also manage. If this hike had been with the aid of ropes, I could have managed it, but with unstable poles and unstable legs, it was a disaster waiting to happen.

I was pleased I’d been to the North Pole in a boat, because that crazy dream I’ve had a few times about maybe one day skiing to the North Pole has evaporated. Certainly if it’s anything like what I was faced with on the ice sheet it would be impossible. But if it was over snow, I might be able to do it. And I suppose if you had skis it would be snow and not ice. I’d also thought about trying ice climbing in Greenland. Maybe not such a good idea, although I might manage it with ropes. The thing is, if I had to get to the climbing point over terrain like the ice sheet without ropes, it would be a non-starter.

So after a few attempts at folding I managed to stuff the cocoon into its bag. Then I started on the bigger sleeping bag. I spent about 15 minutes puffing and panting trying to get the sleeping bag into its bag before I realised that I was trying to stuff the sleeping bag into the bag for the air mattress which was why it was impossible to get it all in. Those of you who go camping on a regular basis can stop laughing now. So I started again, with the right bag this time and managed to stuff it inside. I deflated the air mattresses and then Stefan came along and rolled them up and put them in the bag and then it was time to take down tent. I took down the tent on my own with Stefan’s assistance and that was my tent down and I could go into the big tent, in the warm to have a cup of tea. Then the others got back, we had something to eat, dismantled the other tents, put everything in sledges and headed back to the vehicle that would take us back to Kangerlussuaq.

Step onto a snow bridge and you could fall straight into a crevasse like this

Another long hike, but as everyone had realised I was completely useless, there was no suggestion of me dragging one of the sledges because it was my turn. I could only just manage myself and my rucksack. There was quite a bit of up and down on the route back, but it was all snow, very little ice, there was just one section that I struggled on a bit, when that happens I just freeze and can’t move. I have no idea which leg to move or where to put it. Eventually I realise I have to move, my brain kicks into gear and I work something out because I know I can’t stand there all day. I’m really not cut out for the life of adventure am I?

I have a constant debate about pushing myself to do things that are challenging. Is it better to book them and try and do them and then fail to do the entire thing if they turn out to be a bit beyond my capabilities, but congratulate myself for what I have achieved? Or should I know better, realise it is going to be too difficult for me and not attempt it in the first place? I was talking to a British couple in the Old Camp later who were probably about my age. The woman said she definitely would not have managed the hike. She’d been on an afternoon trip on the ice sheet where they just walk on the snowy part, so she’d seen the black ice hills and said she wouldn’t have walked on those under any circumstances. She seemed to think that the hike to the camp, putting up tents in the freezing cold and camping out overnight was enough of an achievement in itself and it would be a shame to push myself beyond my capabilities and be airlifted out, especially when I had another week in Greenland with plenty more things to look forward to. So let’s go with that.

The thing is when it comes to skydiving, bungy jumping and that kind of thing, it doesn’t bother me. I know if I do something like that in a country with proper safety laws, regular checks on equipment and fully trained staff, it’s going to be an exciting adrenaline rush, but I won’t be in any danger.

Anyway, we were transported back to Kangerlussuaq by tundra truck, one of those big trucks that are high off the ground and have big windows. For the second day running, the heating wasn’t working and it was colder in the tundra truck than outside. We had to wait for the tundra truck to turn up after hiking from the ice camp, then we had to wait for the less adventurous tourists to do their small walk on the ice sheet, then we had to wait while they all had two cups of hot chocolate or coffee before heading back to Kangerlussuaq in an unheated truck. It wasn’t pleasant, all of us who’d been out on the ice all night were completely fed up, but at last we were back at the Old Camp accommodation which was as welcome a sight as the luxury Das Cataratas Hotel at the Iguacu Falls, despite looking like a room in a university Halls of Residence. I made myself a cup of tea, had a shower and then treated myself to the small bottle of white wine I’d got on the plane from Copenhagen. The wine was a celebration, to congratulate myself on making it back alive and in one piece.

Whatever I say about the camping on the ice sheet, it was worth doing, I trekked on the Greenlandic permanent ice sheet, maybe not as far as some of the others, but further than most people will ever do and I slept out on the ice sheet in a tent on my own. I also enjoyed the company; we did have fun chatting to each other around the gas burner in the tent. It’s one of those things you can look back on and be pleased you did. Some experiences were awful at the time, but you look back on them and are pleased you did them. Generally this wasn’t completely ghastly at the time, a lot of it was enjoyable and I even managed to get a bit of sleep when I was in the tent. It wouldn’t be for everyone, but I had a great experience.

I travelled to Greenland in the second half of March 2017.

I booked Camp Ice Cap 660 with World of Greenland.

I stayed at Old Camp in Kangerlussuaq before and after Camp Ice Cap.

I travelled to Kangerlussuaq with Air Greenland from Copenhagen.

Denmark: Helsingør – A Visit to Hamlet’s Castle

Kronborg Castle - otherwise known as Elsinore in Hamlet — Kronborg Castle – otherwise known as Elsinore in Hamlet

This above all: to thine own self be true. To be or not to be was just too obvious for me to use.

It had always been my plan to visit Helsingør so that I could go to Kronborg Castle, otherwise known as Elsinore in Shakespeare’s Hamlet and hence why this post is likely to be littered with quotations from said play.

I got to the station and saw the next train to Helsingør left in 4 minutes. In that time I managed to buy myself a ticket at the automated machine, run to platform one and dive into the nearest carriage which happened to be the quiet carriage, so I put my iPod on and listened to my music on the way to this coastal town. When I arrived in Helsingør my mobile bleeped and said “welcome to Sweden” because this is the town where the bridge is that links Denmark to Malmo. That was for another day, I didn’t have time to hop across the bridge to Sweden and do Malmo justice.

Model of Kronborg Castle in front of the actual castle

I’d read that you could see the castle from the station so you couldn’t get lost and the only thing you had to do was follow the signs for Kronborg Slot (I visit so many castles I probably know the word “castle” in more languages than any other word). And there it was, ahead in the distance. It’s right by the sea and has a double moat as fortification, so it is quite a sight. I have to say that looking at the castle from the outside I couldn’t see why Shakespeare had chosen Kronborg for Hamlet’s castle, but I did some further research and got to the bottom of it.

Fish made from recycled plastic items by the seafront

It was a pleasant walk to the castle, but it was very cold, I was regretting not putting my thermals on. I even put my hood up to keep a bit warmer. While walking along the waterfront, I also passed an unusual sculpture of a fish made of various plastic items.

When you get to the first moat the castle does look quite impressive, but I still wasn’t seeing it as Hamlet’s castle. However, as Polonius says “though this be madness, yet there is method in’t”. I walked up to the drawbridge, crossed the first moat and I was in the barracks area of the castle. As it was off-season, most of the shops and galleries in the barracks were closed, so I headed straight to the castle. You get to see almost the whole interior of the castle, so it is worth going inside. There was a free tour later, so I had time to look around some of the castle before that started.

Main tapestry room depicting important kings of Denmark

The first lot of rooms I looked at were the tapestry rooms. The first ones were actually rather gloomy, that’s when I got why Shakespeare had set Hamlet here. Now it made sense, this gloomy interior was definitely a good setting for Hamlet. I didn’t think Shakespeare travelled to Denmark though and so he wouldn’t have seen either the exterior of the castle or the rooms and it actually was only constructed about 20 years before Shakespeare wrote Hamlet, it wasn’t a couple of hundred years old by then or anything. And in fact, as I suspected, Shakespeare never did travel to Denmark, however, troupes of actors travelled around Europe and one in particular, Will Kempe gave Shakespeare a lot of information about the castle. And as was often the case with Shakespeare’s plays, he didn’t write the original story, he took an older story and adapted it, the original story of Hamlet was set in Denmark, so Shakespeare needed a castle to set it in. Will Kempe probably told him all about Kronborg in the town of Helsingør, hence the name Elsinore Castle in the play and that’s why Hamlet is set in Kronborg Castle. But the gloomy rooms, definitely a good choice for Hamlet’s castle.

Some of the tapestries were quite nice, but the best ones were reserved for the last room which were tapestries of Danish kings, each one had a write up about the particular king.

The one I found most interesting was Oluf, although it isn’t him who should have been displayed in the tapestry, it was his mother, Margrete. She was guardian to Oluf when her husband, the king, died and ruled Denmark and Norway on his behalf. Oluf died before he was old enough to rule, so Margrete carried on ruling albeit under the name of a young relative, but she was the one who made all the decisions. The King of Sweden decided she wouldn’t be able to withstand an attack, so he tried to invade Denmark and Norway, but was defeated, so then Margrete was ruling Sweden as well! There were tapestries of this extraordinary woman produced, but they didn’t survive.

King Oluf - although his mother Margrete was the one who really made Denmark powerful — King Oluf – although his mother Margrete was the one who really made Denmark powerful

After the tapestry room you come out into a huge ballroom and then it was time for the tour of the casemates of the castle.

The casemates are underground passages, not dungeons as such, they were the accommodation for the soldiers unlucky enough to be conscripted into the Danish army or men who were poor and needed to earn money as soldiers. The conditions were awful, more of them died of diseases than during any conflicts with Sweden. They had a diet of salted herring and salted pork and got 8 litres of beer a day to drink. Yes, I think the only way I could survive living in a dungeon would be if I was permanently drunk.

Holgor, the sleeping giant protecting the castle who failed to wake up when Sweden invaded!

Also in the underground passage was the giant Viking figure of Holgor Danske, the sleeping giant who is supposed to wake up if any invaders arrive and save the castle. Unfortunately he was still dozing when the Swedish decided to invade in the 17th century and they kept hold of the castle for a couple of years.

I had a look in the chapel and the king and queen’s apartments. Frederick and Sophie were apparently very happily married, although it is a story that I find keeps repeating itself in history. After winning lots of wars, at the age of 38, Frederick needed to get married. He should have married Sophie’s older sister, but decided he wanted to marry Sophie instead. She was only 14! But the reports are it was a happy marriage and they had 7 children.

This above all: to thine own self be true. At the top of the Cannon Tower

Finally, leave the best until last, one of my favourite pastimes in castles and churches, running up the steps to the top of the tower. In this case it was 145 steps to the top of the Canon Tower with views over the castle courtyard, it was built as a rectangular castle, buildings on 4 sides with a courtyard in the middle. You can also see a long way out to sea from up there and out to Sweden as well.

On my walk back to the station I went past the cannons and then onto the sea wall path, it said it would take 10 minutes longer, but why take the short path when there’s a long one instead! It was a lovely walk, even if it was still cold. Although as I was leaving, the sun came out. Typical.

I visited Denmark in mid March 2017.

Kronborg Castle is in the town of Helsingør a 20 minute train ride from Copenhagen and over the bridge from Malmo in Sweden.

Trains to Helsingør are every 20 minutes from Copenhagen Central Station and the journey time is 20 minutes. Tickets are available at the station at automated ticket machines.

I travelled to Copenhagen with SAS from Manchester.

I stayed in Wake Up Copenhagen on Borgergade in the heart of the city.

Shower in the middle of my budget hotel room

Copenhagen Central Station was about a 20 minute walk from my hotel in the city centre. Wake Up Copenhagen is a budget hotel, one of these minimalist places where they think all the guests staying there are blind. That’s the only reason I can think of to have the room numbers painted in giant figures at the side of each door in bright green… It was clean and comfortable, the bed was a decent size, the ensuite was more a glass enclosure in the middle of the room, the shower was very clearly visible from the bed with not quite enough frosted glass, but since I was in the room on my own, it didn’t matter. If you want a hotel in the city centre that isn’t a complete fleapit, this is what you’ll usually be faced with for under £100 a night in Denmark. It was absolutely fine for me.

Norfolk: Hiking the Pingo Trail

No, not Pingu. Pingo. I wasn’t going to see any penguins on this walk through the Norfolk wilderness. On the other hand I wasn’t going to see any earth covered ice hills on my walk through Norfolk either. These hydrolaccoliths are only found in Arctic regions; I’ve seen them in the Mackenzie Delta in Canada. So I was intrigued when I found out about the Great Eastern Pingo Trail, an 8 mile circular walk in Norfolk and decided to investigate further. I was planning a trip to Cambridgeshire anyway, so I thought I’d do this walk to have a look at these Norfolk pingos.

Arctic Pingo near Tuktoyaktuk - how Norfolk would have looked during the Ice Age — Arctic Pingo near Tuktoyaktuk – how Norfolk would have looked during the Ice Age

In fact, these were ancient pingos and bore no resemblance to anything I’d seen in the Canadian Arctic. Basically they were ponds. They varied in colour, some were clear water, there were a couple of muddy brown ones and a few that looked like they were filled with green gunge. If you didn’t know anything about the geology of the area or anything about pingos, you’d think that you were looking at ponds, some of them green gunge ponds. Actually these ponds were remnants of the last Ice Age when Norfolk was covered in ice that came down from the Arctic and there were around 400 earth covered ice hills in this area. But it’s warmed up a bit since then. Pingos are only temporary formations that have a crater in the top, eventually that crater will get bigger and finally the whole thing will collapse leaving a perfectly round pond behind. And that was what I was looking at on my walk today with my friend, Alan.

The walk started from a car park and was signed in both directions as it was circular. I decided the route through the woods would be the best start. I had read an article about this walk and got a map from there, but I have been known to follow a map and wonder why I can’t see any of the landmarks described and then realised I’m following the map in the opposite direction. As long as I could see the signposts we were fine. You get to the first pingo pond very quickly and it’s really exciting to see. Even if it is just a pond. You wouldn’t think seeing a non-descript pond in a forest would be that interesting. And it wouldn’t be if you didn’t know it was an ancient pingo. Knowing this pond is a collapsed hydrolaccolith is what makes it special. Or maybe that’s just me. The first couple of ponds were full of clear, reasonably clean water. The next one was stagnant, green water that didn’t look very attractive at all. We arrived at another small, clear pingo pond and soon after that reached a very large pond, I’d class it as a small lake really. There were a couple of serious photographers with their tripods set up here, presumably to take photos of the birdlife on the lake, but we had 8 miles to walk, so after a brief stop, we were on our way again.

A bit further on and we arrived at a spot with a little more water and bulrushes! There was another photographer who was settled in taking photos of grass or insects or something and I didn’t want to disturb her so I walked round and managed to get caught in some thorns from an overhanging rosebush stem, but I disentangled myself and got a photo of the bulrushes before once again moving on.

We were walking through an area where there were longhorn cattle grazing. Did I see one? No! There wasn’t one anywhere in sight. They’re big animals, how can they hide? We went through a few areas where it said longhorn cattle were grazing. Didn’t catch sight of even a horn! After that there was quite a boring section of the walk along a road and past houses. But once we got off the road and back onto the path, then it started to get interesting.

The trail took me through the woods by the side of a stream

In front of me was the perfect pingo pond. It was small and round, it was clearly visible in this field without too much vegetation to obscure the view. This is what I was expecting a pingo pond to look like and I’d found it.

Beautiful colours of the water in the stream

After crossing the field, we got to a bridge which led us back into the wood to follow the trail. The next part of the trail was lovely, a nice woodland path by the side of a stream. A log over the stream provided an ideal photo opportunity, but I resisted the urge to try and stand on it and certainly I wasn’t going to attempt any Dirty Dancing type moves, that would have been a recipe for disaster, I’d have been straight in the water! So I just shuffled onto it and struck up a pose, trying to look relaxed and comfortable in this precarious position, reasonably successfully I like to think. I did shuffle out almost half way across, but then again, the stream wasn’t very wide, so it wasn’t a huge distance. We came across another pingo pond with a fern growing out of an isolated patch of soil in the middle of it. It looked like a kiwi to me. As I reached the next bridge, the stream was a gorgeous colour, a kind of milky grey and bronze coloured stripes. This is where I also saw a tiny frog. There is an endangered frog, the pool frog, living in this area, it was thought to be extinct, but they discovered one and introduced a breeding programme and released them into the swamplands of Norfolk. Whether this was a pool frog or not, I’m not sure, I know the juveniles can be that small, but it was gone far too quickly for me to be able to tell, In fact I only saw it because I almost stepped on it, it was so tiny and well camouflaged.

Posing on a log in the middle of the stream

Our next landmark was Thompson Water and just before that was another pingo pond, this one filled with green gunge. Thompson Water wasn’t a pingo, it was a man-made lake. It was a haven for birdlife so I went into the hide and watched a swan with some cygnets swimming across the water and another swan with cygnets in their nest just underneath the hide. They were busy preening themselves, the one moment the mother stretched her neck and flapped her wings, I didn’t have the camera pointed at her and after that she went back to preening. I waited for about 4 minutes with my camera trained on the swan, but when she didn’t bother looking up again, I realised I’d never make a wildlife cameraman. I didn’t have the patience to sit around for hours waiting for birds to do something interesting that might be worth capturing on film. So we were off again. With all the stops we’d been making, time was getting on and we weren’t even halfway round the circuit yet.

Sunlight creates a dazzling reflection in the stream

The trail led out onto another road and the long distance Peddar Way path which was another section of the walk that wasn’t that exciting. The only surprise was a sudden smell of sulphur and I’ve been to enough thermal areas to recognise that and spotted a hot spring in the stream. It was difficult to see and fenced off making access impossible, so after taking a very poor photograph, I moved on. We couldn’t stray off the path because it was fenced off with an ominous warning Military Firing Range – Keep Out sign. I didn’t hear any military firing going off that day, but still thought it prudent to obey the warnings.

The route didn’t get particularly interesting again until we were off the road and back into the wooded area. This is also the only place on the hike where we took a wrong turn. The route was very well signposted and I’d never once wondered which direction I should go up to now. The signpost pointed into this field, so I took the most obvious path through the dense fern foliage. I was tripping over the fern stems, pushing the leaves back to battle along the trail, it was like trying to hack my way through the Vietnam jungle. Maybe that’s a slight exaggeration. We reached a slight clearing and turned to follow the footpath watching out for signs. The next sign I saw said “Wildlife Trail”. What? We were supposed to be on the Pingo Trail! So where had I gone wrong? The car was at the start/end of the Pingo Trail, no use following the Wildlife Trail, I had no idea where we would end up if we went along that path. So we turned round and headed back watching for another signpost and within 5 minutes came to a huge signpost pointing out the Pingo Trail in both directions and the Wildlife Trail in both directions. How could I have missed that signpost? It was enormous, impossible not to see. And even if I’d not noticed it, surely both of us couldn’t have gone blind at the exact same moment and neither of us seen it. So we can’t have walked past it in the first place. And now I had another problem. The Pingo Trail was a circular route. The signpost was pointing both ways. So which direction had I come from? Which way did we go? My sense of direction is hopeless, whichever way I think I should go, my best bet is to go in the opposite direction. And that turned out to be the case in this instance. Alan had a bit better idea than me, but went along with what I thought and so we did go the wrong way first, worked out that we’d cut out a corner and missed the signpost and so now we should be going in the other direction.

Green gunge territory - better known as Cranberry Rough — Green gunge territory – better known as Cranberry Rough

Off I went, through more dense undergrowth. The ferns were a nuisance, but weren’t particularly hazardous unless you trip over the thick stems that tangle on the ground, but on this section of the path, there were lots of nettles. My arms were bare, but thankfully I had got trousers on, it wasn’t warm enough for shorts and I was very grateful for that, otherwise I would have put shorts on and got stung to pieces. The nettles managed to get me even through my trousers, so this is definitely not a hike to do in shorts, no matter how hot it is! The path was very overgrown in places, but it isn’t a popular path. Yes, it was a weekday and the schools hadn’t broken up yet, but it was a sunny day in July. However, the Pingo Trail isn’t a hike you would just stumble across. You’d have to know about it or be told about it. It wouldn’t automatically be your first choice on a short break in Norfolk. But it is well worth doing and the fact you hardly see another soul on your walk is definitely part of its appeal.

Cranberry Rough swamp is the perfect habitat for the endangered pool frog

So the last part of the hike took us through more woodland and some boardwalk because I was now into green gunge territory, officially known as Cranberry Rough. It wasn’t just the pingos that were bright green, there was a huge swamp area made up of it and all the plants and trees were growing out of this. It was quite a contrast to the other watery marshland I’d seen elsewhere on the trail and I did like it because it was so different. I found the swamp fascinating, ideal habitat for this endangered frog, it was just the type of environment Kermit from the Muppets would have loved! On leaving this bright green marshy territory it was once again into the Vietnamese jungle, pushing through the dense ferns and dodging the nettles.

And there, on the trail, my North by Northwest moment, a crop field I could dive into for a photo. There had even been an aircraft overhead earlier, I was both disappointed and relieved not to have to run through the crop field hiding from the plane whose pilot was intent on killing me! I’m sure things like that don’t happen in Norfolk!

After that, I really was ready for the end of the walk. This 8 mile walk which should have taken three hours, had taken more than four and I was ready to get back to the car now. Surely it couldn’t be much further and then I spotted the road in the distance and knew that the end was in sight. So we pressed on and that was it. I’d made it. It was a thoroughly enjoyable walk, one I probably would do again. Seeing the ponds that had once been pingos during the last Ice Age was fascinating, especially as I have seen real pingos in the Arctic. And maybe next time the longhorn cattle will put in an appearance for me.

I hiked the Pingo Trail in July 2017.

The Great Eastern Pingo Trail starts in the car park off the A1075 about 3 miles south of Watton, Norfolk.

For more adventure ideas in England, check out these posts.
Yorkshire: Gaping Gill Winch Meet
Wiltshire: Longleat Festival of Light

Greenland: Viewing the Aurora Borealis by Snowmobile

Aurora Borealis in clear night sky near Ilulissat

I’d only tried snowmobiling once before, in Canada back in the 90s, so when I went snowmobiling in Greenland, it was like starting from the beginning again.

I turned up at PGI Greenland to check in for my first excursion with them, 3 hours of snowmobiling. Joaquin would be guiding me today and I first had to get kitted out. Joaquin found it very amusing how bundled up with layers I was with 4 layers on the bottom half and 4 layers on the top half, or 5 if you count the fact I’ve got a double layered coat, fleece underneath and waterproof on top which detach into 2 separate coats. It was Greenland in March and around -20 degrees, of course I was going to be well wrapped up. He recommended for snowmobiling, that I wear their padded dungarees and a padded coat and only keep 2 layers on underneath. The dungarees and jacket were so enormous I looked like the Abominable Snowman! He gave me padded mittens to wear and a balaclava to go under my crash helmet. It was like I was going to be doing Formula One racing! Not Formula One racing as it turned out. Moto GP!

There was one other person on the snowmobiling tour, so it was just the 3 of us and Joaquin said I had a choice. We had 3 snowmobiles. So we could either take 3 and drive one each, but he warned me it would be around an hour driving each way. Or we could take 2 and I could ride with him. I asked him if driving the snowmobile was difficult and he said it wasn’t, but you had to move with the snowmobile, shift in your seat and lean into corners or if you were going sideways along a hillside you had to lean to balance things out. So I wasn’t going to be Nigel Mansell, I was going to be Valentino Rossi! Anyway I decided I was going to drive. That’s what I’d come here intending to do, the opportunity was here for me to drive and if there’d been more people on the tour I wouldn’t have had that option, so I went for it! I have to say, even though it was with some trepidation I started out driving the snowmobile, I absolutely loved it. I was completely buzzing when I came back.

Snowmobiling along trail to see Ilulissat ice fjord

I got my basic instruction on how to drive a snowmobile, the throttle was a lever on the right hand handlebar, the brake was like a bike brake on the left hand side. And there was a red emergency stop button… Joaquin showed me how to shift my weight when we were cornering and then we were off to have a practice.

We went to a snowfield to practise cornering, I was okay at it, but I had to get used to standing up completely to shift my weight and really lean over when we were going round corners. We tried one more time and then we were off! Joaquin said he would keep looking back to make sure I was okay and he’d slow down or stop and wait for me as necessary, that I was not to try and catch him because he’d just go faster. He also said the dog sleds had priority so we had to pull over for them, wait if there wasn’t room to overtake and only overtake when there was plenty of space. With all that in mind, we set off.

Looking like The Abominable Snowman, bundled up for the Greenland Winter - I could hardly move to walk! — Looking like The Abominable Snowman, bundled up for the Greenland Winter – I could hardly move to walk!

It is physically quite demanding with all the moving and leaning you have to do, plus I was quite tense to start with. I’m no natural athlete and I’m not very big either, handling a snowmobile was quite hard work, it was a heavy machine. It was less physical when I relaxed a bit more, but still reasonably difficult. I just had to follow what Joaquin did and lean the same way he did when he did. He warned me when I went uphill just to keep going, not to stop or I’d be stuck. So I made sure I accelerated up the hills even though there were some tight turns, quick leans and I was bouncing around like in the General Lee in the Dukes of Hazzard on some of those fast corners! As there had been a blizzard the day before, there was a lot of fresh snow on the ground, Joaquin also took us on the more difficult trail. So he said I’d done really well driving for an hour on the difficult trail in harder conditions than usual.

We did see quite a few dog sled teams while we were out, I bet the people on them thought we were right hooligans, tearing past on noisy machines, disturbing the tranquility! But I was having such an adrenaline rush. There was one really steep downhill section with seriously deep snow that Joaquin wouldn’t let me drive down. He drove his snowmobile down, walked back uphill, told me to walk down the hill and it was so steep I actually slid most of the way which was great fun. Joaquin drove my snowmobile down for me, just as well, I don’t think I could have got down that section without getting stuck.

View of Ilulissat Ice Fjord

We had a stop at a viewpoint to view the ice fjord, so we did a short hike to it. Joaquin helped me over the difficult bits, he was very good at watching me to make sure I was okay and helping me if I was struggling. The huge padded dungarees and enormous jacket, both of which were far too big for me hampered me quite a lot, which added to the difficulty with the slippery, uphill climb. When we finally got to a good spot to view the ice fjord Joaquin produced a flask of tea. I’d had this fantastic snowmobile drive and was now looking at this beautiful view over to the ice fjord drinking tea to keep myself warm. How much more perfect could it get?

We came back on a different trail so I didn’t have to negotiate that very deep snow, this time uphill! I know it is possible to do very steep climbs in snowmobiles from seeing the race up the mountain in Jackson Hole 4 years ago, but there was no way I could handle a snowmobile like the lads in that race could! I think that section of the trail would have been difficult for me to manage going either up or down, I’d probably have overturned the snowmobile.

The drive back was immensely enjoyable even though I was cautious on downhill sections. Joaquin kept holding both his arms out to illustrate that he was neither accelerating or braking, but I felt more comfortable braking a little bit to slow the snowmobile down. However, I was more used to the snowmobile now and how to move and balance so I was better at driving it. I was definitely on a high when I came back and ended up driving quite well after my apprehensive start in difficult conditions on a challenging trail. Something I found with my excursions with PGI Greenland, the guides were really encouraging and gave a lot of praise and compliments to make you more confident and make sure you were enjoying the experience. Without doubt, that was the best thing I’d done in Greenland so far. And it was to get even better the following night.

Ready to head back on an alternative snowmobiling trail

The undisputed high spot of the two days of tours with PGI Greenland was the snowmobiling night tour to see the Northern Lights. I was the only one booked on the tour, so they decided they were basically going to have a staff outing and take me with them! Four of the staff, both guides and office staff went out on a hunt to see the Northern Lights with me. The snowmobiles were out ready when we got to the garage, once again I was kitted up like the Abominable Snowman. Joaquin said the small snowmobile was for me to drive, the same one I’d driven the day before. Now he knew I could drive one, they’d just got one out for me ready. There would be a snowmobile in front, I’d be in the middle and the other snowmobile would be at the back.

The Northern Lights were already visible and a beautiful green was illuminating the sky at the location of the snowmobile garage. And then we set off driving. The aurora was glowing in the sky the whole time I was driving the snowmobile. I was trying to watch the sky while I was concentrating on the trail, it was easy at first, I could keep glancing at the sky because the trail was straight and flat. I can’t describe how beautiful it was driving a snowmobile across the snowfields watching the green glow of the Northern Lights in the sky. And no one else in town does night time snowmobile tours, so no one else was out, just 5 of us on 3 snowmobiles. It was pretty special.

After the straight, flat section there was a long uphill section and I had to give my full concentration to driving the trail and forget about looking at the sky for a while. But then when we got to the spot to watch the aurora, we turned off the engines, had tea and biscuits, took photos and enjoyed the dazzling display of dancing lights in the night sky. We were all so excited to see them and they were amazing. It was a magical night, a combination of a personal tour and an office outing, I was very fortunate. We watched the aurora dancing for a while, mostly green with pink and purple flashes like I’d seen before and also a shooting star that flew across the sky at one point.

Joaquin asked if I wanted to drive back and I said that actually I’d just ride back because I was tired and I didn’t feel like concentrating on the trail. There was a lot of going downhill on the way back and I took downhill sections slowly and I’d probably be worse in the dark. I’d driven there in the dark, I’d had 2 hours driving the snowmobile during the day on Friday too. So Joaquin took my snowmobile and I rode back with Jose. It was all so personal and made me feel very special, that’s what good customer service is, they were all so wonderful and did a marvellous job. I raved about them to everyone I met, they have made my visit to Greenland special and driving out on snowmobiles to see the Northern Lights will be my enduring memory of my trip to Greenland.

I travelled to Greenland in the second half of March 2017.

I travelled to Ilulissat with Air Greenland from Copenhagen via Kangerlussuaq.

My snowmobiling tours were with PGI Greenland, a seasonal adventure activities tour operator based in Ilulissat with offices in the town centre.