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Published: July 15th 2006
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The day starts off with a bit of admin. Our plan is to catch a train from Anchorage to Fairbanks tomorrow, a biggish town steeped in gold-rush history. From there we'll get to within the Arctic Circle, which has always been one of this trip's highlights. Then we plan to spend about 10 days in Denali National Park before returning to Anchorage. (Maggie - we should have some bear stories by then, and hopefully we'll live to tell the tale.)
We hired mountain bikes and took them out for most of the day, timing it just slightly wrong as the heavens opened when we were about 20 minutes from home. At one stage we had to cycle on the extremely wide pavement. When we stopped for a sandwich shortly afterwards an angry man followed us in and in a very roundabout way told us that we must have different bikes in Europe without bells, and that this is highly dangerous (he could have been walking with his grand-daughter, who could have acted unpredictably). We politely thanked him for his advice and have passed on his safety concerns to the rental company.
That said, the bike trail around Anchorage was excellent. Gemma spotted a bull moose and we had a group of people all watching (and no doubt individually checking that they aren't the group's weakest member). We met one lady who had participated in a city-wide training day for Anchorage's emergency services, which involved a mocked plane crash, where a plane laden with nuclear waste crashed on a park full of people watching an open-air concert (that would be seriously bad luck). An airport worker who was eavesdropping, and at first didn't realise she was talking about a faked event, was just itching to say that the woman was lying. Then it clicked and he walked off sheepishly.
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Barbara Simmonds
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Nothing like a good yarn...............
Just saw you haven't had any comments yet, so here's a comment! Do keep telling us about the stories people tell you. Many have a huge fund of knowledge and experience about the local area, (or are just good at telling a good story!). Can't wait to hear more............!