Happy birthday mum. Nice relaxing day for her. I went on a small walk this morning, known as Blueberry Hill. They offer 3 types of hikes from easy to difficult each morning. We jumped in a van and were driven down to near Wonder Lake and then had to walk down to the edge. Luckily, it was another beautiful clear morning and also no wind so we got the reflection in the water for the first 5mins we were there, until ripples in the water started happening.

Walk was nice and gentle, went up about 300ft but it wasn't strenuous by any means which was fine for me. More for the views. When that mountain range is clear, it is just breathtaking and you can't stop watching it. You can even see the snow blowing off the top of some of the ranges. We were out for about 2.5hrs. The guide talked about the different vegetation we saw, got to eat a few blueberries too. Nice and peaceful as only 7 of us. It was actually quite warm today, wish we had shorts. Got close to 30 degrees if you can believe it.

Back in time for lunch at the lodge. Those on the other hikes took packed lunches. Some relaxing time after lunch, reading a book and chilling out. Mum enjoyed her massage this morning and then curled up in the library reading. They do day trips out here and they arrived about 1pm so the tranquillity was broken. I did hear they were lucky enough to have a wolf wander down the road and past their bus. Apparently seeing a wolf is pretty rare.

At 2pm, Emmet (one of the staff) did a talk on sled dogs and the Iditarod race. His father won the race in it's 3rd year and he won the junior version in the 90s. Really interesting chat. Broke the myth that all sled dogs are huskies. Too warm for them in the summer so they tend to be a bit of a mixture. The dog they have here at the lodge are from a lady up north who uses them in the winter for tourists so they come here for the summer for some training. After the chat, Emmet showed us how he hooks the dogs up and then they they did 2 laps around the camp pulling something like a quad bike. The dogs were so excited to be going, you can just see they love to run. Afterwards, we were able to spend some time meeting the dogs and giving them some much wanted attention.

Then time for gold panning. They gave us mud boots to put down, our pan, a bag of gravel (they get it from an adjoining creek where gold was found in the past) and instruction on how to pan for gold. Bloody hard work. Lots of fool gold, but mum found a speck of gold.....unfortunately not enough to pay for our holiday. You are able to take the 'gold' to the front desk and they put it onto a laminated card. Something different.

I then had my massage which was incredible. She was very talented. Sometimes at places like these, they aren't the best but she knew what she was doing. Mum went and did the tour to Fanny Quigley's cabin which was about 2 miles down the road (quite close to the end of the road). Mum really enjoyed it, said she was a very interesting person. Came up here during the gold rush years and was able to make enough money to buy herself a cabin and she lived here till she died. Another recluse lived over the hill and they had an agreement to check on each other by the smoke coming out of their chimneys. When he didn't see smoke one morning, he came to check on her and found her dead in bed.

After dinner, one of the young guides gave a chat about growing up in Alaska. Some of the myths people think about Alaska and some of the myths he thought about the lower 48 (what Alaskan's call the rest of America). No snow days in Alaska, -40 outside, still go to school, 5ft of snow, still go to school. Only thing keeping them out of school would be icy roads.

After the chat, they put on a shuttle out to Wonder Lake for us. He then asked if we would like to go to Reflection Pond instead and we said yes, It was a further couple of miles along. Unfortunately the wind had kicked up so no reflection and although you could see most of the mountain range, a lot of Mt Denali was hidden but still very majestic and pretty.

Photos don't do Alaska justice, you just have to come here and do it yourself.