always in a hurry...

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it's got to be just another quick update because we're moving on in a few minutes. flying into barrow, at the top of the world , 180 miles insode the arctic circle. We also need to find out at the airport if the fact that Northwest airlines have just gone bust will effect us at all. they were only supposed to fly us to japan, so it's not a big problem!!

so our first 4 days in alaska have been alot of fun. you can either either spend an absolute fortune being spoon fed the best of alaska - $5000 for a 5* week long fishing trip, $700 dollars to fly to see bears, $500 to land planes on mountains , $300 to walk and climb on ice, or you can use your initiative and find it all yourself in the incredible state parks here. Few people seem to realise that Alaska has all these things within a short distance of major hubs and there is no real need to pay the huge prices to fly all about the place, unless you truly need the isolation that Alaska can offer. We have spotted moose for ourselves, done some great hiking and some simple climbing and scrambling, and we have some ice walking planned later on. On top of this we have seen the northern lights for the first time which defy description. Even distorted by the city lights of anchorage they are just so fantastic and..hey...that's free for everyone!!

must go but we'll continue the update asap...

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