‘Cack-gore-dork’ is the way you say the name of our last stop on the southern tip of Greenland. It was a relatively short stop as we were a bit sluggish in getting up and ashore in the water shuttle.

We had a guided town walk organised for 11.30am and had half an hour before for a quick look around the souvenir shop. Really liked the little fluffy stuffed seals made from genuine seal skin and hair, but at around $A50 we passed and found a less genuine fluffy stuffed polar bear for the cabinet instead.

Our guide for the day was an interesting local young lady who lead us around the town, there was a moderate amount of up and down hills road walking for an hour and half. We had a few pauses along the way to hear about life in this part of the world, a chat about society rather than landmarks.

As we learnt she was nearly 18 and eagerly awaiting getting her driver’s license. I am not quite sure why as there are no roads out of Qaqortoq. Most families have small motor boats to get to other places along the coastline. Or, use the helicopter which we saw coming and going several times.

Qaqortoq is Greenland’s fourth largest town, about 3,000 people. Greenland is part of the Kingdom of Denmark, although mostly self governing, with a population of only 65,000.
We hear about the role of the small town square as a social gathering area, the education system, the health system, water reticulation and sewerage. She tells us that by the time kids finish primary school at age 16 they will normally be speaking three languages. Greenlandic being the Inuit native tongue in the home, Danish in school (most of their teachers come over from Denmark) and they learn English in class. She can speak French as well, having spent two years in France on some sort of ‘gap’ period after primary school before high school, which is three years. She doesn’t seem to have completed that yet, not compulsory.

She does like seal and whale meat. Smoked whale meat is served with onions and potatoes. A soup of boiled seal meat, rice and onions is the National dish. A bit foreign to us I suppose but they traditionally live from the fruits of the sea, there are not many ‘fruits’ on the land here, except for farmed sheep and reindeer.

The last stop on the walk is at the town’s ‘murals’, carvings in the rocks around town. The ones we see celebrate whales, seals and fish. Slobro is excited in trying to wrangle a stone polar bear with a head lock, unsuccessful.

After the tour we poked our noses into the souvenir shop and picked up some nick nacks, including a pack of Greenlandic salt laced with some local herbs. Looks ok! It was then back to the ship on the water shuttle for some R & R before the sail away.

We left the harbour headed for Canada, Newfoundland is the first stop. It was to be our last sighting of icebergs . Sun blazing over a deep blue sea. Things would be warming up soon!