Weather: IT'S SPITTING!
Waking up early today I decided to get ready with the others, have a bit of breakfast and brush my teeth. The campsite is 'basic' (basic means only a toilet, and that is a whole in the ground with a shed on the top) so therefore no showers and cleaning your teeth from a cup of water.
I walked with the others as Eddie, our tour guide, had said that there was some hiking information and maps located where they were going to be picked up ... and there wasn't. So I therefore walked back to the campsite to find a table with 'things' on there. As I approached the table closer I met a nice gentleman who passed me a map, and for free, told me about his life story.
After, what seemed like hours, I said goodbye to the gentleman (he actually was a really nice bloke) and had a look at the map. For a national park I have to say this was the worst map I have ever seen; the scale of the map was too large ... so much so that roads, let alone footpaths, weren't marked on the map ... how was I supposed to hike with a map like this?
After some 'umming' and 'arrrring' (and taking some photos of the area) I decided to hike along the road (as I didn't feel comfortable with hiking in the bush without a decedent map ... I miss OS maps) to the next town Kenicott whilst stopping and taking photos along the way ... the guy who gave me the map said he hadn't seen a bear in months and so I felt quite safe.
The hike was okay, there were allot of trees so I didn't get to see allot until near Kenicott when the trees disappeared and I could see the glacier valley for miles. Before I started the hike I didn't realise that Kendicott was the place that the mine tour was happening later on that day; I decided to save myself $25.00 and have a look on my own. I also went into a small shop up there only to find out that a bear had been through the town of Kendicott 2 weeks ago (if I find that bloke I'll kill him) and that you had to be careful ... better get out the guitar and amp again.
I was back at camp around 5pm and we were all scheduled to meet around 7:30pm. I therefore had 2hrs 30 mins to kill on my own and so out came the cards. I was thinking about my tour and what I had lead myself into; basically it seemed that if you didn't do the overpriced activity you were on your own with no help at all; what is worse is that if I was bored, and travelling on my own, I would just book a coach and move on ... couldn't do that here (I wasn't feeling the love at McCarthy due to the weather and being bored day). I was a little disappointed with Trekk America; the least they could do was to purchase some decent quality hiking maps of the areas they are going to take you to ... I wasn't feeling the trekk love at the moment.
At 7:30pm I met the others for a meal out at the 'potato cafe' (ironically they didn't sell potatoes) and had a burger before heading to the bar. George is only 19 and therefore not old enough to drink; however what I didn't realise is that you have to be old enough to drink to enter a bar and the Alaskan's are really hot on asking for ID ... so we had to sneak him in.
After the bar we headed back to the campsite ... I hope tomorrow will be better.
Toodle Pip!
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