Click on a photo to enlarge it.
It was only 9am when we left and so much had already happened! There had been a lot of fireworks but we were now
independent! But we still had to get back to Anchorage. Fortunately we managed to get onto the 11am flight and
whilst we waited, we rang up a few of the nice people we had met during our stay at the lodge. We didn't want to
leave without saying goodbye.
They were all very sympathetic and understood completely why we had quit. One was even surprised that we had managed
to stick it out for so long!
A newspaper on the flight had articles on "How to keep good employees" and "How to quit gracefully"!! We were just
really relieved to be out of there. There will be no more helping out at German owned fishing lodges, that's for
sure!!
We spent nearly 3 hours at Anchorage airport working out what we were going to do. We rang up loads of places to find
out about renting an RV - horrendously expensive! 6 weeks rental cost the same as buying Winnie!! Our next idea was
to change our flights back to Vancouver, fetch Winnie and drive back up to see a bit of Alaska. So far we had only
seen the lodge!
Although we had tickets that we could change for only $20, we would still have to pay the difference in fare price
which was also horrendous as it was Independence Day! So we rang up a YHA in Anchorage to get a room for the night.
Then we waited outside the airport for 1.5 hours for the bus into town, until someone finally told us that the buses
weren't running today!! So we had to get an expensive taxi (our second today), dumped our bags in our room and went
off to find something to eat as we hadn't eaten anything since breakfast and it was now 5-30pm!
We went to the visitor centre to pick up info on what there is to see in Alaska and finally fell into bed, exhausted
at 11pm.
On Tuesday we moved to a different hostel for 2 nights and spent a lot of time on the phone, changing our flights to
Vancouver to July 15th, and booking accommodation and transport for the remaining 10 days we would be "spending" in
Alaska - spending being the operative word! Everything is hugely overpriced and we just couldn't afford to stay any
longer. Not without Winnie at any rate.
On Wednesday we went for a three hour walk along the coast and saw the earthquake damage from 1964 (9.2 on the
Richter scale). In the afternoon we watched a film about the earthquake and then an Imax style film about Alaska and
Mount McKinley (North America's highest mountain - 6,190m, 21000ft).
On Thursday we packed our bags again and got a coach for the 5 hour journey north to Denali National Park. We got a
great close up view of Mount McKinley on the way - only 35miles away as the crow flies. We soon found out that it's
very rare to see it as it is normally covered in clouds. We got to our hostel, where we would be staying for the next
7 nights at 10pm.
We had to stay in an old trailer for the first night and it was so cold we had to put our fleece jackets on in bed!!
Fortunately, we would be staying in the women's dorm for the rest of the time which was in the main house and had
heating.
On Friday we got the free shuttle bus from the hostel to get to Denali National Park which was 13 miles away. It took
us the whole day to get ourselves oriented with the various free shuttles and buses around parts of the park and to
find out about other shuttles that went further into the park and how much they cost. But we did manage to see the
dog sled show where we saw all the huskies they use in the park in the winter, along with two pups, and saw them in
action pulling a sled along the gravel.
We caught the 5-30pm free hostel shuttle back and then moved into the women's dorm. There were only 6 bunk beds in
there and we had to take a top bunk each. But it was better than being in the freezing trailer!
On Saturday we spent another day in the park, got a shuttle to Savage River (free) and did a very peaceful 2 mile
walk. On the way back we got off the shuttle early and walked the 2 miles back to the visitor centre along the Rocky
Creek Trail. Just after we set off, it started to rain so we took shelter under a tree for about 10 minutes. Then we
raced along the rest of the trail as we could see and hear the thick black clouds and thunder approaching and we were
pretty high up and exposed.
We just managed to get back to the café when the heavens opened! After coffee and biscuits we tried to book a shuttle
to Wonder Lake for $32-50 each. What a system! We couldn't book at the office but had to go outside, use one of the
public phones to book over the phone and then go back into the office to get our tickets printed out!! Work that one
out! We only just managed to get tickets and got the last two seats on our last day here!
On Sunday we took a day off which we felt we deserved after everything that had happened so far this week. We also
realised how much easier it is to travel in a motor home than it is to have to plan, ring up, and reserve
accommodation and transport as backpackers! We missed Winnie!
