Train Day

Today was a transfer day. Packed up and headed for the station for our trip on the Aurora Winter train from Anchorage to Fairbanks. The trip was about 600km and took just under 12 hours.

A big day out but the time went fast and we were very lucky. The weather once again was stunning. Not a cloud in the sky although still quite brisk. This meant that we have been in Alaska for 5 days and have been able to see Denali clearly every day. All the locals tell us this is almost unheard off.

Our route took us up the Knik Arm, onto Denali National Park and then through to Fairbanks arriving at about 8pm. The country we travelled through was stunning. Big mountains, snow covered ground (heaps as in 10 to 15 feet) and blue sky throughout.

Every now and then we would fall over something odd. Coming out of a beautiful gorge we came upon Alaska’s biggest coal mine. When I say big, I mean big – they have some serious Tonka trucks working there.

A little further on the train took a big diversion around what turned out to be the Clare military base. This is the base that monitors the Russian and North Korean missiles. As you would expect they are quite tense at present and there was a heap of security everywhere.

Again the wildlife was fantastic. A whole train full of people spotting eagles and moose is hard case. Moose tend to find walking on rail tracks easier than the deep snow which lead to some tense moments between moose and train. As we got further up we came into Caribou (wild reindeer) country. We are only 25km from North Pole Alaska at present so thought of dropping over to put an order in but given I had a reindeer burger for lunch on the train not sure what reaction I would get.

On arriving in Fairbanks we were met by one of the local tourism people Ed, hard case. He took us shopping at Fred Meyer which is a superstore where we could buy our last minute needs prior to heading into the Arctic Circle tomorrow (think hand and foot warmers). Overnight bags are being packed and kept small because of weight limits on our plane flight out. Likely we will be out of contact for a couple of days but really looking forward to hunting some Aurora and putting Janet’s new camera training into effect. See you on the other side.