22 September pm

The abstinence from food plus the meds seemed to do the trick and I was good to go for the afternoon excursion.  As we landed, we were excitedly told that there was Musk Oxen for us to view from atop the steep (for me) slope.  So some rather apace trekking, on uneven and spongy vegetation with some rocks and bog thrown in.  Being so rugged up, I was overheating impressively by the time I reached the top.  So there you have one hundred or so tourists in a line, clad in all colours of the rainbow, silently ascending the slope on the opposite side to the unsuspecting oxen.  I had images in my mind of old cowboy films where great lines of baddies suddenly appear on the ridge, which made me chuckle.  Silently of course.

On hand signals from the guides, we gradually inched our way up until voila! at the summit we could view two oxen peacefully grazing 50 metres away.  It's a wonder they didn't die of fright when they looked up and saw us.  I clearly lack some part of the expedition spirit as I found it as exciting as watching two cows graze in a field.  :). Everyone else seemed pleased as punch, couldn't believe their luck (!) and took a million photos.  I found the most amazing part was the 200 degree view of the surrounding iceberg filled water.

After about 5 minutes, the oxen decided enough was enough, and wandered off in the other direction.  As it had been drizzling the whole time, the guides decided trekking further for a couple of hours might not be the most enjoyable pastime, so we returned to the ship early.  

I had a very early night, but leapt out of bed at 2am with the low-grade Aurora visible announcement.  Quickly pulled on (not enough) warm clothes and boots and ventured out on the dark deck.  Our on board astronomer was on hand to point out where to look and what we were looking at.  What we could see were white streaks and stripes which moved in various parts of the sky.  Alas no spectacular green dancing lights this time, but aurora nevertheless.  The stars themselves were amazing and I saw three spectacular shooting stars which I found quite remarkable.