DENALI!!!!!

Sunday 8th June

We had set the alarm for 7am but the phones battery died sometime during the night so thanks to my bladder we got up at 7:30.  We got ready quickly called into Subway and picked up breakfast and lunch and made our way to the bus queue.  We put our helmets in a locker, we usually lock them on the bike but we weren't sure if it would rain or not.  Waiting for the bus there were people in the queue smoking it was so awful.  Why are smokers such unthinking people!!!  We ended up in the second row of seats so it was great because we could see out the windscreen as well as the window beside us.  We ended up with ALL the smokers sitting around us typical!! so after every rest stop we got a good dose of secondhand smoke...yes I'm whinging LOL

So the idea of the bus is that you ride the bus into a certain point into the park and then you turn around and come back after having hopefully seen your fair share of wildlife.  It was cloudy and cold when we started out and looked like rain.  We had ridden a fair way into the park and hadn't seen anything yet we were all getting a little edgy.  We saw a few caribou moving down towards the bus.  And then a fox.  We were travelling along and there was a cyclist at the side of the road and he flagged the bus down.  Turns out he was Lee (our drivers') boss.  He told Lee that there were two bears ahead and could we 'shield' him with the bus so he could ride past, it was amazing doing this, the bears just moved quietly along and as we moved past the bears the rider rode beside the bus and then away once he was safe.  We stayed and watched the bears eating beside the bus we could have reached out and touched them.  We saw a moose but he was quite a distance away. 

one horned moose

.

rudolf the red-nosed reindeer

We got to Eilson Visitors Centre (our turn around point) it was so cold out there and Mt McKinley was shrouded in cloud hopefully we will see it tomorrow when we ride to Anchorage.  On the way back to the main gate we saw a Mumma bear with two cubs and a young bear walking along the road we followed him for a long time before he walked off over the snow.  It was a great day!!!

 On the way back to the hotel we stopped and got a burger for dinner.  We went for a short walk when we got back to the park and saw some moose poo but no moose.