Day 12 (Wednesday, 29-7-98)

We set off to get to the other glacier, Qoorup Sermia, taking out tent along in order to erect it somewhere higher up so that we can reach the glacier from there without the rucksacks. After struggling uphill and not actually finding the spot where we thought according to the map we should put up the tent, it was eventually put up in a dried out lake. Flat sleeping tonight.
Making our way over to the glacier was a bit up and down. but eventually we made it. Passing some lovely deep blue lakes on the way. And now, here we are, looking at the front of the glacier from a vantage point 600m up the mountain. We were told that this glacier moves at a speed of 20 meters per day, so we expected to see some section. At this point the glacier delivers its ice into the fjord. The water ahead of the glacier is completely covered with ice, this ice sheet only starts breaking up a kilometer or two down the fjord. It is difficult to judge how height the ice front is, we could only do a rough estimate which ranges from 25 to 100 meters.
Rumblings could be heard frequently but we couldn't see any falls. The collapses most likely happen underneath to a large extent. So we sat having one coffee after another and waited for the big one. Eventually we did see the big one. This happened after a period of rummaging and occasional small pieces coming off. The final act was a piece the size of a house plunging down into the ice covered fjord. After that it was quiet again, we packed our things and made our way home.
Another observation were the high level glaciers hanging on the mountain tops on the far end of the fjord, a place called 'Qooqqup Qaqqai', the mountains there reach close to 2000m. Noticeable was the complete lack of vegetation on the slopes going down to the fjord on the opposite side. The reason for this is most likely the continuous moving of the top cover, no plant can take root here.
My mosquito net came in very handy today, the insects which include mosquitoes were out in full force. Jim helped himself with Tabard.

Day 12 (Wednesday, 29-7-98)

We set off to get to the other glacier, Qoorup Sermia, taking out tent along in order to erect it somewhere higher up so that we can reach the glacier from there without the rucksacks. After struggling uphill and not actually finding the spot where we thought according to the map we should put up the tent, it was eventually put up in a dried out lake. Flat sleeping tonight.
Making our way over to the glacier was a bit up and down. but eventually we made it. Passing some lovely deep blue lakes on the way. And now, here we are, looking at the front of the glacier from a vantage point 600m up the mountain. We were told that this glacier moves at a speed of 20 meters per day, so we expected to see some section. At this point the glacier delivers its ice into the fjord. The water ahead of the glacier is completely covered with ice, this ice sheet only starts breaking up a kilometer or two down the fjord. It is difficult to judge how height the ice front is, we could only do a rough estimate which ranges from 25 to 100 meters.
Rumblings could be heard frequently but we couldn't see any falls. The collapses most likely happen underneath to a large extent. So we sat having one coffee after another and waited for the big one. Eventually we did see the big one. This happened after a period of rummaging and occasional small pieces coming off. The final act was a piece the size of a house plunging down into the ice covered fjord. After that it was quiet again, we packed our things and made our way home.
Another observation were the high level glaciers hanging on the mountain tops on the far end of the fjord, a place called 'Qooqqup Qaqqai', the mountains there reach close to 2000m. Noticeable was the complete lack of vegetation on the slopes going down to the fjord on the opposite side. The reason for this is most likely the continuous moving of the top cover, no plant can take root here.
My mosquito net came in very handy today, the insects which include mosquitoes were out in full force. Jim helped himself with Tabard.

Day 13 (Thursday, 30-7-98)

It started raining during the night, but receded temporarily to give us a chance to pack our things and start moving off. Our aim was to stay high, following the fold of the mountains and only come down at Narsarsuaq.
Again typical Greenland scenery, valleys, streams, lakes. We started mushroom collecting early on in the hike and were very successful, had a complete meal together by the time we got down.
The final down was tough, thick with low bushes or trees, steep down at places and wet. Note was taken of the afforestation going on here. Different types of conifers (pines, firs, struts and cedar) had been planted recently. I presume its to see which ones will grow the best, so that more Danish taxpayers money can be ploughed into planting trees on the hills of Greenland. Perhaps I am just envious, because this will have given some agricultural extension officer or some post graduate student an interesting assignment for a year or so. With all this battling through the vegetation we were happy to reach a road at the bottom of the mountain, which led us straight to the hostel. Here we booked in as campers, that means for DKr 90 we get to use the showers, toilets, kitchen and dining room, but had to sleep outside. No problem, the full monty was something around 160. First thing after putting up the tent was to have a hot shower, what a pleasure.
The recreational activities could now begin. We took a stroll down to the hotel and had some coffee (DKr 6, that was cheap) and some cake. Next on the list was the souvenir shop in the lobby, here I bought a pair of seal skin slippers for Eleni at great cost (DKr 450, she is worth it), and paid by credit card. This was amazing, she put the card into the card reader and in a few seconds had authorisation. Sometimes when I go to our hardware store around the corner from home it takes minutes to get authorisation and here I am at the other end of the world and it goes in a flash. We had some discussions around this, with Jim not believing, as I claimed, that this little machine made contact with the Mastercard center in Johannesburg and got authorisation from there. He thought that this would take too long, it probably just consults a list of cards not to be honoured somewhere in its own system. Is anybody out there who knows how it is done?
Than a visit to the KNI shop to get some eggs for dinner. I took note of some prices of meat:
Veal cutlets DKr 159.90/kg
Mutton chops DKr 67.90/kg (they grow them here)
Pork chops DKr 44.90/kg (why so cheap, I didn't see any piggeries around Greenland)
Interesting observation, they had a special offer on Whiskers cat food, but we could not remember having seen a single cat in any of the settlements. Perhaps this is why the stuff is on a special.
In the evening we had our fried mushrooms and eggs. I think there were some envious people around there when they saw me cooking, it smelled and looked good. And I was envious of somebody cooking a piece of wale, I would have liked to taste, but no offer came.

Day 14 (Friday, 31-7-98)

Got up and it was raining, we had breakfast in bed, rather than carrying everything into the hostel. Today we had to catch a plane, which was taking off at 11h00. We did our last stretch of Greenland hike in full gear and were at the airport by 8h30. Check in started at 9h00, and then we waited, nothing happened. Announcement: plane can't take off because of the weather. So we had a stroll over to the hotel, the cafeteria was still closed, but the souvenir shop was open and Jim bought himself a T-shirt. And then we found a recent Danish newspaper, what we could establish from that was shocking news: the Dow-Jones, FTSE 100 and all other major exchanges had a major drop, Gold was still hovering around the $290 and the Rand had received another knock on the head, gloom, at least for me, Jim seems to enjoy these things, one would think that he has no money in the stock exchange.
Back to the airport, a new announcement: departure has been delayed to 14h00, go to the hotel, lunch is on Greenland Air. So I thought, the delay suits me, it means less sitting around in Copenhagen, I rather spent my time in Greenland.
We happen to share the lunch table with the two pilots and were now able to get first hand information. When questioned about about when are we really going to take off the reply was that it all depends on the flag fluttering in the wind outside the hotel. As long as the wind blows in the direction of the fjord we are not taking off. He was brought in from Ottawa with his 727 to take this flight, Greenland Air must have run out of planes. With this 727 he can only take off towards the fjord, the other direction would be tricky because of the mountains that the plane would have to climb over fairly quickly after take off. So now we didn't have to worry any further and only had to look at the flag pole for answers. Another interesting couple we met was Susan and her travel companion (I have forgotten his name, lets call him Mike). They were both from Canada, she is writing a historical novel which includes Eric the Red and was touring Iceland and Greenland to get a feel for the background of the story.
Mike has a degree in philosophy and was at one stage teaching at university, but is now a crane driver in the docks of Vancouver. He is a union representative and writes articles for newspapers and magazines as a side line. It makes one wonder, the pay at university must have been really bad.
And the wind kept on blowing in the wrong direction, Greenland Air now put us into the hotel for the night. I still had this walking urge in my legs and whilst Jim watched TV I took a hike down to the harbour and back. It was still drizzling. The night was not so peaceful, some very noisy people kept us awake, the acoustics in the place is terrible.

Day 15 (Saturday, 1-8-98)

There was a wake up call at 03h00, by 03h20 we were at breakfast and by 04h00 at the airport checking in. We then had to wait until 05h00 before boarding the air craft. A funny episode whilst we were waiting. There was TV showing some videos. As we were waiting a new video had started, called 'Callgirl' or something like this. And just when the scene got really steamy and the woman had all her cloth off and all the guys were gathering around the TV some spoil sport security guy comes along shaking his head and changed the channel. Our flight had to make a touch down at Keflavik, that is the airport near Reykjavik in Iceland. That is because he couldn’t take on a full load of fuel in order to keep the weight down. We took off and I could see why we had to wait for the wind to die down, he took off just before the water's edge and only climbed at a very shallow angle. It started turning south as soon as we were above the fjord to climb enough to make it over the mountains when taking direction Iceland.
Kevlavik is a barren place and it is wet and Grey, not at all inviting. But I suppose the weather is not always like that. We had to stay in the air craft whilst they were refueling and ½ hour later we were off again. Got a climps of some of the scenery of the south coast of Iceland, it looks wild and possibly worth a visit. In Copenhagen we had to organise a new flight to Glasgow which is only 19h20 the next day. Greenland Air put us up in a hotel and gave us a taxi fare. That made us happy, the hotel was the First Hotel in the suburb of Kastrop.
Quick walk along to the coast before dinner, the weather was gray and cool. Dinner was good, some large shrimp stuff with rice and vegetable. After dinner Jim treated me to a good cup of coffee in the bar, at DKr 20 a cup it had to be good and it was. Watched TV and dried cloth until 24h00.
And here another observation: whilst hanging around the Copenhagen Air service counter waiting for the Greenland Air representative to sort out our hotel and on-booking, we got surrounded by people checking in for a flight to Las Palmas (if I was living in Copenhagen I would go there every weekend for a bit of sun). All of them (or nearly all of them) were walking or sitting around with a burning cigarette. One could not escape the biting smell of burning cigis, I had to move off one place at one stage because I couldn't take it any longer, Jim took my place, but even he as a ex-smoker had to give up. It gave me the impression that every person in Denmark smokes stinking cigarettes, or alternative conjecture: all Danes flying to Las Palmas do.