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Back civilization! We flew back into Talkeetna in the morning and after wolfing down some fresh fruit and water (that didn't even need to be melted!), we headed to the Ranger Station to check-out and let them know that Matt got some mild frostbite (proper mountaineer now!) and then straight to the Denali Brewing Company restaurant for some fish'n'chips, a burger and some celebratory beers which we had been craving for the last 3 weeks. That wasn't quite enough for us so we picked up a cheeky pie from Roundhouse and a couple of cans of beer to have while we waited for our shuttle to Anchorage. That night we stayed at a reasonably priced airport hotel (convenient for picking up a rental car the next day), ordered in Chinese takeaways and had our first shower in a long time. Needless to say it was GLORIOUS!
The next day, Matt went and picked up the rental car and we met with the Airbnb host to check into our home for the next 5 nights. That afternoon we headed down to Ship Creek and saw someone that had caught a huge king salmon in the creek which was in the middle of town, visited a few tourist trap shops and the popped into 49th State Brewery for a couple of well deserved beers and a really tasty pizza. Delicious! We then swung by the local supermarket to pick up some supplies and visited a nearby seafood market to pick up halibut for dinner and some smoked salmon sticks. Sooooo good!
On Thursday, we did a little tiki tour down to Girdwood which was a lovely drive along the coastline. It reminded us both of New Zealand with the mountains, lush landscape and being right next to the sea. First up we did some gold panning and were really successful with the little bags of dirt they supplied us, not so successful with our own gold search down by the river though. After passing through the local ski resort town, we then thought it was necessary to drown our sorrows at the local brewery. Matt was able to pick up a fishing rod earlier in the day to have a crack at fishing for dinner so on the way home we stopped by Bird Creek to throw the line in. Much to Vanessa's amusement, Matt wasn't very good and Van ended up showing him how it was done. Neither of us were successful at catching dinner though so we opted for a HUGE surf and turf dinner at home. Massive amount of food after starving ourselves on the mountain and shrinking our stomach, but also very good J
The next day we had an Anchorage chill out day and spent the day sorting out our visas, sending rental equipment off, cleaning and sorting out equipment. That night we visited the Glacier Brewhouse for dinner and shared some king crab legs, halibut and craft beers. Yum! Afterwards we swung by Ship Creek which happened to be hosting a king salmon fishing competition. There were sooo many people with all of the shore lined with women, men and children! The fish didn't stand a chance! On Saturday we visited the market followed with some breweries. The Mooses Tooth with some pizza was a particular favourite and set us up nicely for the Megan Leavey movie that afternoon. That evening we had roast chicken and vegies. Luxury compared to our pasta and rice meals on our Denali adventure!
Our last full day in Alaska was a nice trip down to Seward, which is a really cool fishing town. First stop was the Sea Life Centre where we saw native wildlife of Alaska, including some Puffins! We were both transfixed with them when they dived about 10 metres deep to eat a dead fish. Very impressive animals. After that we were feeling pretty parched so popped into the Seward Brewery for lunch and a couple of drinks. Probably highlight of the day was when Van spotted a Moose and its two calves crossing a river right next to the road. On the way home we had a couple of little stops to break up the trip and Matt indulged in a celebratory cigar. It was pretty interesting to see how much Exit Glacier has receded over the last 100 years. Dinner was an epic amount of king crab legs at home! Salivating just thinking about it! Our last day was spent cleaning up, having a delicious Vietnamese lunch with the team that got off the mountain the day before and then headed to the airport for our redeye flight back to TO. Awesome adventure!
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