Day Six

Another early start. Up at 5.45am. Caught an Uber just after 7am and arrived at the Anchorage Depot of the Alaska Railroad. Train wasn't until 8.20am but we had to be there an hour before departure. Bought a fridge magnet from the shop whilst we waited. Boarded the Denali Express at 8am and then we left on time. 

Unit

An announcement stated that along the journey they would keep us aware of any wildlife spotted. Two minutes in whilst we were still in Anchorage they said there was a black bear. We saw it.

Bear

It is the first time we have seen a bear in the wild on all our trips. And that was as good as the wildlife got. There was a moose in a field at one point. 

Although the train goes all the way up to Fairbanks we were only riding it to a town called Talkeetna. Only one train runs in each direction a day so therefore it was the furthest we could travel on the train and still get back here on the same day. Train ride was ok but mainly had trees each side so couldn't see much. We could have paid a lot of money to sit in special viewing car with a domed glass roof but we were glad we didn't bother. Michael Portillo did a journey on this train once so I started doing impressions of him, 'My Appleton's Guidebook tells me the train is full of twats' 

At around 11.15am we got to our stop. Detrained. Walked up to the town. Looked around some tat shops. Only bought a Talkeetna fridge magnet. Persuaded Ann not to buy any tat. Ann got bitten on the hand by something at this point. Had lunch at shirleysburgerbarn.com

I had a Talkeetna burger. Ann had something.

Nice burgers

After lunch we walked through the rest of town to our booked activity. Signed in and then got on the shuttle bus to AK Sled Dog Tours

The group was spilt in two. Half of us had a guided tour of the kennel and met some dogs, the other half went mushing. When they were waiting to go the dogs got quite excited.

We heard all about how the dogs are trained and how the place works. It is owned by Dallas Seavey who is a five time Iditarod Champion. The Iditarod is a one thousand mile race which crosses Alaska in early March each year. One musher and sixteen dogs go unaided for eight to fourteen days across the course. Bit of a pricey business with a the cost of running the training and taking part costing a million dollars per year. Hence getting idiots like us to part with our cash.

Having heard all about it, it was our turn to do some dryland mushing. This had been something Ann wanted to do, so when it came to deciding which of us would mush and which would just sit and be driven obviously I got told by her I would be doing all the mushing. I tried to argue that I should get to sit and do nothing but to no avail.

Got to meet our team of four dogs and then got on board the sled. It was like a four wheeled bike. Handle bars and brakes except it was pulled by four mental huskies.

They run the dogs at 8mph so a quadbike set the pace and the dogs follow. I wanted to go much faster but couldn't as we had to follow the others. I think Ann was pleased at this as she was clinging on in the seat. One dog kept trying to take a shite whilst running.

We stopped at points to water the dogs as they are used to much colder conditions and it was actually quite warm. This gave us a chance to take some photos of the team.

Eventually made it back to the kennels and said goodbye to our teams. Got back on the bus to head back to Talkeetna. When we got on the others had sat in a way which meant Ann and I had sit separately from each other with other people. This led to us having to talk to other people. I was sat with a woman called Christy from California. I think that was her name, I had forgotten three seconds after her telling me. We chatted about various things, mainly how little of her own country she had seen. Ann gave her phone number to her woman in case she ever came to England. The bus dropped us off at the station.

Waited an hour for the train. Got on. Had more comfortable seats on the way home. Spent most of the journey trying not to fall asleep. Train got back half an hour late. No idea why, just went really slowly. Got an Uber back home. Ann's bite has swollen up. She is now sleeping it off.

States visited - 2

Bear watch - high

Husky watch - extremely high