630 start again.... ARGH!!! Today we were going right into the Denali national park and were travelling round it on one of the park buses, we would drive for four hours then stop at a visitors centre and drive back four hours wildlife spotting along the ways.
Myself and Jamie decided to wear our matching sweaters and sit next to each other so we looked super cool and I'm sure not at all strange to people around us.
The driver told us all to look out for wildlife and if we saw anything we were to shout out and say where it was using the clock system of 'it's at 3 o'clock' for example. After driving for around an hour we saw a bear in the distance, it was close enough that you could see what it was but not so close we had to fear for our life or anything: it was really surreal to think there was a grizzly bear in the wild not that far from where I was. We kept driving and now everyone was hoping we would see a moose: in the next few hours all we saw was a fox, a squirrel and more caribou which we'd seen driving through Alaska, although it was hilarious to see how excited people got over a squirrel!
The bus journey itself wouldn't have been that interesting if it wasn't for the people we met on the bus.
Sat in front of me and Jamie was a young girl and her mum and to the side of us was the dad, a son and two more sisters: Jamie had spoke to the little girl a bit and she seemed really cute so when we stopped for a toilet break we made more conversation with the little girl and found out her name was Mollie and they were from Boston. Then we spoke to the older daughter who must have been around 13 and her name was Sadie, the next daughter was called Brooke and the boy was called Cole.
Once we'd spoken to Mollie, that was it we couldn't shut her up: she did her English impression (very regal obviously) asked if me and Jamie had any other best friends apart from each other (think this was due to the matching jumpers which was really cute) and decided to give me a 20minute lecture on the Americans and bombing Hiroshima which was interesting to hear from her perspective haha.
Slowly, Brooke started to show more of an interest and started to talk to us aswell and we took stupid pictures of them and had pictures of us with them.
Then we were at the visitors centre which was the half way point of the day so we said bye and went off to have our dinner; we also had time to kill so did the recommended 30minute hike which took 10minutes.
Some people stayed to do a longer hike at the centre but the rest of us got back on the bus and who should come and sit infront of us but Mollie and her family; she loved us. The rest of the journey consisted of Mollie and Brooke playing games with Jamie, like them games where you have to clap each others hands and that, no idea what you'd call them, oh and Louise taught them the penguin song which had majority of the bus laughing along. Then I got educated by Cole the son on how wonderful America is and then asked "what exactly do you think England does better than America" yep, well done for living up to that arrogant American stereotype!! I answered by simply saying "the people" he didn't understand haha!
Then the kids decided to do some riddles on us where you have to work out the solution: this didn't end well as we were all knackered, we didn't exactly appreciate being patronised by kids and we were just fed up haha!
Anyway, they certainly made the bus journey go fast and we were soon back at the start saying bye to them while the parents thanked us for entertaining their kids...
We got back to Brendan sooner than arranged so we asked him if he'd take us back to the campsite so we could shower and get ready as we were going out for tea. Before we all showered we decided the best way to end the day was to shotgun a beer, which is where you basically down it in seconds: it was my first ever attempt and there was quite a bit of sprayage but I finished it and ended up showering feeling rather tipsy.
On the way to the restaurant which was over the road from the campground we passed a pizza place and heard people shouting at us: It was only the Boston Bunch. Mollie ran right over and gave Jamie a big hug then screamed as I chased her to try steal her baseball cap, we spoke for a little while and then said goodbye again with Brooke and Mollie giving me and Jamie big hugs.
Meal at the restaurant was pretty standard food, but I got very excited that they had strongbow, well I was excited until I tasted it... ENGLAND I MISS YOUR CIDER!!!!!!!
We planned to go in the bar next door but they only took passport as I.D and Jamie only had a driving licence so me, Jamie and Ross went back to the campsite to drink while everyone else stayed at the bar.
We ended up having a few drinks, chatting and then crashing out in our tents..