Fish n Chips Travel the world: Heli-mushing

Wednesday 18th June

I have been looking forward to this day for a very long time!! When David first told me we were going on a heli-mush I was like "What is that?" Once he explained what was involved I've been so excited. It's raining this morning though so I hope it doesn't spoil the trip.

So we were picked up at our hotel by the people from Era tours. The driver said "one of you get in front and the other in the back" so I got in the front and David tried to get in the back it was full of people with 2 women spread across a 3 person seat and at first they didn't budge until the driver suggested one of them scoot over ha ha and then one of them asks "how many of us are going to be in each helicopter?" the driver said "6" did she think they were going to have one to themselves?!

We arrived at the heliport, got weighed and had a safety briefing. All we had with us, was on us ie. in our pockets as no bags were allowed on the helicopter due to weight restrictions. I was regretting bringing my sunglasses cause it was raining and I had nowhere to put them. Then we are sorted into groups some staying for the extended tour, like us, some just an hour. We ended up with just 4 people in our helicopter. I got put in the front seat on the way up I could not contain my excitement and I was physically jumping in my seat. I have never been in a helicopter before and it's magic!!! there was a little window at my feet and I could see everything on the ground. We flew over our hotel and I could see the motorbike parked in the parking lot. When we arrived up on the glacier it was sunny and really glarey so I was so glad I had sunglasses. We get out of the helicopters and the dogs are all going ballistic!! We get a briefing on how to stand on the sled and to make sure we are holding on and when told to brake to stay on the brake. Then the short stay groups go off on their mush and we get to go meet the dogs, our musher Eric takes us over and shows us how to harness the dogs and we each get to do it on a dog (we are with another 2 women Marisa and Martha from Cancun Mexico) the dogs are so cute and Eric picks the more friendly ones for us to meet. Some of them are wary of strangers so we give them a wide berth. Then we get to put their booties on. We each took turns on the two sleds Eric was at the front with two of us sitting in front of him and there was a sled behind that one of us stood and the other one sat down, during the mush we all switched places so we all got a turn mushing. While we are out on our mush the short stay people leave it makes us feel very special. When we got back to camp we gave the dogs a snack water and kibble and then they were given lunch and as one (180 dogs) all howled a chorus of thankyou after they were fed it was amazing! Then Eric handed us over to Stephen to show us around the camp. We saw the kitchen, the dining tent and then...........he showed us a puppy OMG!!! she was sooooo cute. Her name is Enya and she is 2 weeks old so her eyes are not even open yet and she was making these cute little groaning noises she was a fat little sausage and so warm and I got to hold her!!!!!! Then we were taken to a tent to eat lunch after washing our hands of course.. The helicopters came back with another load of people coming for a mush and took us back to the heliport. Our once in a lifetime experience is over but I am so glad we did it. They took a photo of us when we first arrived at the camp and when we get back they have a print available for us to buy. We buy the print because we want this day to be a great memory forever.

Dinner tonight is frozen dinners which are actually quite good pasta Marie Callender's for me and beef pattie Hungry Man for Dave. We do some washing and organise a 2pm checkout for tomorrow.