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Author: Hanneke

I started my first blog when I left the Netherlands (my home country) for an internship in Alaska in 2004, to keep my friends and family updated on my adventures over there. Little did I know it would be more than 13 years before I'd move back to the Netherlands! I spent a year in Toulouse (France) before starting a PhD in meteorology at the University of East Anglia in Norwich (UK) in 2005. That's when I started this current blog, first in Dutch but I soon switched to English. I really enjoyed life in the UK, and was actually planning to stay there after my PhD, but "life is what happens when you're busy making other plans" and I ended up moving to Tromsø in Northern Norway in 2009. Tromsø is a photographer's dream, surrounded by spectacular mountains, with the light ever changing from the midnight sun in summer to the dark days compensated by aurora-filled nights in winter. I learnt Norwegian and got a job as a weather forecaster - I got thrown in at the deep end, doing radio interviews and speaking with fishermen with way-too-strong dialects straight from the beginning, before I was anywhere near fluent in Norwegian :D I survived though, and slowly started to do some research on the side. I got more and more involved in research projects and in August 2015 I moved 2000 km south, to Oslo where I started working 100% as a researcher. A year after moving to Oslo, I met Michiel at a music festival in Brussels :) and we started to travel very frequently between Oslo and Rotterdam, where he lives. You can't do that forever though, and I soon realized I found the perfect "excuse" to finally move back home, something I had been considering many times before. So since July 2017, I'm living in Rotterdam! I'm actually taking some time off before finding a new job, and I'm looking forward to lots of adventures in the near future - so stay tuned!
Longyearbyen

Longyearbyen

Last week I spent 48 hours in Longyearbyen, my second visit to Svalbard (read about the first one here). We had a work meeting there, with everyone from my institute and everyone who works at one of “our” (mostly military) airports in Northern Norway (Andenes, Bardufoss, Bodø and Longyearbyen). But because most of us work shifts, we can’t all go at the same time and they actually have to organise the same trip twice! I was in the first group, the second group is there at the moment. The main goal is getting to know each other, so it was quite a fun trip 🙂

The flight time from Tromsø is only 1.5 hours, and we went straight from the airport to Svalsat, the world’s largest satellite receiving station. Quite an incredible place! We first listened to a presentation about the station, and then we went outside to take some photos, and we also went inside one of the domes. They all have satellite dishes inside, and while inside, we saw it slowly turn round to follow a passing satellite.

Satellite receiver at Svalsat, inside the dome is a satellite dish Some of the dome covers are made of fabric!

Satellite receivers in the sun. It was very windy that day! Me at Svalsat

Afterwards, we were taken to our hotel and we had some time to ourselves. Shopping time 😉 Longyearbyen is FULL of outdoor shops, which more choice than you’d ever get in Tromsø, I think everybody came back with at least one new item of clothing 😉 In the evening we had dinner at Kroa, a restaurant across the street from our hotel, in a very nice room.

Group meal at Kroa, in a beautiful room. The cover on the table is a huge seal skin.

The next day we had a meeting so we spent a large part of the day inside. As soon as we had the chance, Ine-Therese and I went outside with our cameras to capture the beautiful light. The light was really incredible the whole time we were there, always changing and always beautiful. I could have taken photos all day long!

Looking towards Nybyen and the Longyear glacier in the background One of the mine entrances, this one is known as julenissegruva - or the mine where Santa Claus lives ;) All pipes go overground, and all houses are on poles - because of permafrost

These photos were taken on our walk from the meeting place to UNIS, the university at Svalbard. I never got enough of the view of the mountains on the other side of the fjord, so pretty!

Walking towards town - the view of the mountains on the other side never bored me! And another view of the mountains in the sunlight

In the afternoon we went on a bus excursion to “Gruve 7” or Mine 7. Longyearbyen used to be a coal mining town, and you can see the remainders everywhere. They weren’t very original with names, so the mines are just numbered. Mine nr 7 is the only one in Longyearbyen that’s still in use. We couldn’t actually visit the mine, but we had nice views from the mountain above it.

Mine nr 7 (they have such original names!), the only one in Longyearbyen that is still in use Spectacular views!

In the evening the light of the setting sun painted the mountains a beautiful orange/red colour… We had a great dinner at Huset, which is quite a fancy restaurant. It felt unreal to sit in such a comfortable place, enjoying amazing food and great wines, and look out the window at the harsh beauty of the Arctic!

In the evening the view of the mountains got even more spectacular in the light of the setting sun

On Friday morning there was the option of visiting the museum, but a few of us decided to skip that and hike to one of the glaciers instead. Ine-Therese lived in Longyearbyen for 5 years, so she knew a nice walk – and most importantly: she was able to borrow a rifle and knows how to use it. As soon as you leave Longyearbyen, you should carry one to protect you from polar bears. It’s very rare to see one, and you can only shoot them as a last resort, but safety first!

On the way to the glacier we found this shooting practice animals - this one was the most realistic, the other ones were all farm animals like sheep and pigs! Looking back towards town

A panorama looking back at the Longyearbyen Valley.

A panorama of the valley that Longyearbyen is situated in. In the front you see Nybyen, a somewhat separated part of town with mostly student housing

Ine-Therese is showing the way 🙂 It was a beautiful walk, with some light snow every now and then, but great views all around.

Ine-Therese is pointing out the way to Tore Tore, Ine-Therese, Trond & Gjermund

Ine-Therese left Svalbard 11 years ago, and in her memory it was just a short walk to the glacier. Much has changed in those 11 years though, the glacier had retreated quite a lot and we had to climb quite high up to reach the glacier. We were keen to get there though, so we continued. And we were rewarded with this incredible blue ice, which really looked as if something was lighting it from the inside. Aurora-in-ice we called it 🙂 I’d never seen anything like it before!

When we finally reached the glacier we were rewarded by this amazing blue piece of ice which seems lit from behind - we called it aurora-in-ice :) Five meteorologists on the glacier!

It took us 2 hours to reach this point, and it was time to turn back so we wouldn’t miss our bus to the airport.

Ine-Therese showing our route on the map Heading back to Longyearbyen. Ine-Therese carries a gun as protection against polar bears

Here are some photos I took on the walk back through Longyearbyen, the first one shows Huset where we had the nice dinner the night before. The other one shows Ine-Therese “hunting” for Svalbard grouse. They were quite tame, she could come very close and they didn’t seem to mind.

Huset, where we had a great dinner the evening before. It stands all alone as it was placed at equal distance from the different settlement groups in Longyearbyen (miners, students, and governors) Ine-Therese hunting Svalbard grouse...

Before getting on our flight back to Tromsø, we visited the office of our colleague who works at the airport there. His office is in the control tower, just one floor down from the actual control room. Great views from there!

View (from the airport control tower) towards the glaciers and mountains on the other side One last photo... the sign outside the airport

It was a great trip, and many of us wished we could stay for a couple of days longer. Now I am dreaming of another trip there 🙂

Aurora, planes & satellites

Aurora, planes & satellites

It’s been nearly 4 weeks since I last posted, and time has flown by so fast! We’ve been to Mallorca for a week, a weekend trip to Altevatn near the border with Sweden, and I just got back from 2 days on Svalbard… Today is the first day I get to spend at home, sorting and editing photos 🙂

I’ll start with the most recent photos, taken last Thursday night. We had a Dutch meteorologist and his friend over for dinner, they were visiting Tromsø to see the northern lights. The northern lights have been very active lately, and they already got to see it 3 times during their visit. This was the evening before they were flying home, and when the aurora came out they were keen to use this last opportunity 🙂 So we headed to Telegrafbukta with a thermos of hot chocolate and watched the show. It was partly cloudy, but it was a great show! A few planes flew through our photos, on their way to landing at Tromsø airport which is quite close.

Beautiful show last Thursday evening A plane on its way to Tromsø airport :)

There was no wind and it didn’t feel very cold, nice way to watch the northern lights 🙂 While editing my photos, I found that I also caught a satellite flare (in the last photo below).

Aurora seen from Telegrafbukta in Tromsø The aurora is almost shaped like a heart :) Here I caught the flare of a satellite near the top of the image

If the aurora season continues this way, I won’t get much sleep this winter 😀 Luckily this time the lights died out just after 22:00, so we went home relatively early.

Visitors in September

Visitors in September

For the third year in a row, I had visitors coming early in September – and for the third year in a row they were incredibly lucky with the weather! Two years ago, Gert-Jan and Célia were here, and last year my brother and his girlfriend came for a visit. Last week, my uncle Joop came with his friend Pieter. We had sunny and very mild (up to 18 degrees Celsius!) weather almost every day.

On their first day here, we walked to the city centre. It was sunny and warm, but very windy at times. We wanted to have a coffee outside, but we had to choose our place wisely, or the coffee would have blown out of the cups 😉

Tromsø city centre on a beautiful sunny (but windy!) day

We visited the Polar Museum, my favourite museum in town. Joop and Pieter enjoyed it too 🙂

Joop getting friendly with a hunter in the Polar Museum Joop getting ready to fight a polar bear

The next day we drove to Sommarøy. It was still very windy in Tromsø, and we hardly wanted to get out of the car when we stopped at Håkøya. But at Sommarøy there was hardly any wind at all, and the reflections in the water were beautiful. We had lunch at the cafe there, then walked around a bit to look at some big fishing boats. Unfortunately it started to rain quite heavily, so we drove back to Tromsø.

On the way to Sommarøy, we stopped at Håkøya bridge. It was very windy there! While there was hardly any wind at Sommarøy... lovely reflections in the water!

Friday was their last day in Tromsø, as they were taking the Hurtigruten south to Trondheim that evening. It was another sunny day, so we decided to take the cable car up and walk around the top for a bit. Beautiful views!

Another beautiful day, and we took the cable car up. This is the city centre seen from the top of the cable car. Pieter and Joop admiring the view Pieter taking a break during our walk

Of course I took another panorama 😉 I have many of these now, but I still think it looks different every time!

Of course I had to take another panorama of the island - as if I don't have plenty of these already ;) Still it looks different every time!

Joop and Pieter were hoping to see the northern lights, but so far we hadn’t been very lucky. It was either cloudy, or there was no activity. On Friday night though, all the forecasts were showing enormous activity, there was a geomagnetic storm going on! AND apart from some high clouds, it was clear! We soon decided to head to the jetty at Telegrafbukta and hope for the best. Thanks to the quick communication through Facebook, Eelke and Roy were there too 🙂 And not much later, my colleague Nick arrived.  The more, the merrier – especially when you have to wait!

It took a while, but finally our patience was rewarded… slowly a few green beams were appearing, and after a while it got more active.

And there it was! The blue/purple colour was hardly visible with the naked eye, but showed up in many photos It was getting stronger, showing reflections in the water too

The moon was almost full, but it wasn’t disturbing the show at all. The lights weren’t always very bright, but they were very active, often all over the sky. In our photos, we could also see that there was a green glow all over the southern horizon – so they must have been visible much further south than usual. The solar activity is reaching its maximum soon, to be expected in 2012/2013. This season is going to be great 🙂

The moon was almost full, but the aurora was strong enough to show anyway Often the auroras were not very bright, but they were visible all over the sky!

At times we didn’t know where to look, and we were spinning around in order not to miss anything. It was even active right overhead!

Another outburst in the north And a snake in the other direction...

Sometimes all we could see was one beam near the horizon, but the activity would always come back. We were watching for about 1.5 hours!

Sometimes all we could see was one beam like this... Roy took this photo, showing Joop and Pieter on the right, Eelke in the middle, and my colleague Nick on the left. I am hiding somewhere :D

After midnight, the activity started decreasing, and it was also time for Joop and Pieter to go to the Hurtigruten for their journey south. Luckily, we had already put their luggage in the car, so we could drive straight from Telegrafbukta to the city centre. I was so happy that they were able to see the northern lights – and not just a little bit, they got an amazing show!

For more northern light photos of that evening: click here for Eelke & Roy’s photos, and here for Nick’s.