Hiking Nuuk Greenland

   The day was sunny and bright when we docked in Nuuk. As expected the area is very rocky and the houses are brightly painted – reds, blues, pinks, greens, etc. Our 5 hour hike started at 10 so we had time for a big breakfast. Our tour only had 2 sections (staggered leaving times). We had about 30 on our hike.

   

Nuuk

The hike was not extremely difficult. We were dropped at one end of the town and hiked behind the mountain to the end point near the airport on the other side of town. The photos show the landscape which was unlike anything else we have seen. Of course there are no trees, not even bushes of any sort. The ground was covered mainly with lichens and mosses. There was some colour to the landscape but it was overwhelmed by the grey barren rock. The evidence of glaciation was everywhere with large boulders strewn about. A few flowers were seen the the bog areas. They were similar to what you see in the alpine areas of Canada.

On The Hike

   There were 2 guides, a mother and a young daughter. That is all they were. They simply pointed the way. As a “tour” it lacked greatly. We did not learn a thing about Nuuk, Greenland, the landscape, etc. For example there were blueberries along the way. We learned this from someone on the other tour when we returned back to the ship. Nothing was offered by the young guide. The area is just getting into the tourism business and have not developed a good program. The hike was billed as strenuous. There was one person who could not keep up. The real guide had to stay back with him. It was evident in the first 30 minutes that he was not able to keep up. The group was continually waiting for him after every uphill walk. The final descent was a bit difficult but by the end he was so far behind that he had to go back by taxi after we left. This was after constantly waiting for him after every hill, etc. The result was that we were later than we thought going back to the ship so we decided not to stop in town. We did not have enough time to stay in town. We went to afternoon tea!

Up The Hill

    The town itself had many apartment type of buildings. We did not see one single family type dwelling. We did notice piles of building materials and there were 2 new “high” rise type structures going up. We could not tell what the main type of employment there is in Nook. There were many large containers in the port but we could not tell if they were coming into the port or for export. There were fishing vessels but not many large ones. Considering this is the capital with about 17,000 people in the city, it will be interesting to see what the next 2 stops look like. The next stop has 3000 people and the last stop has 1000.

   We sailed around 6. Some people reported seeing whales but we have not been lucky enough. As we sailed, we could see a number of small grounded icebergs. The weather remains cool but it was very nice all day. We decided to skip the show for a chance to just relax and have a drink. We have a sea day tomorrow. My camera was a bit “wonky”. I think there is a bit of an electronics problem. Still takes pictures but I can't always use the screen. We still have Judy's for backup.