2. Getting it all together

Anchorage, Alaska is about as far as one can go from Cape Town, South Africa on a scheduled commercial flight. We took British Airways to London, London to Chicago and then American Airlines Chicago to Anchorage. To get to McNeil river sanctuary you have to go by float plane and the best place to get a flight in one of these is Homer. Now Homer is at the bottom of the Kenai Peninsular and about 350km south of Anchorage. The public transport options are not the most versatile and because we had to hire camping equipment, we also hired a car to drive to Homer. This worked out to be a good choice because it gave us the flexibility to detour along the way and spend a few nights where we chose. Although we had to leave the car in Homer while we were at McNeil, it was safely parked at the landing site for the float plane on the lake there. It is necessary to have flexible dates when flying by float plane because of the tides and the weather. The plane can only land at McNeil on a high tide of 15 feet or more and those are usually in the afternoon. If the weather is bad and the planes can't land then you have to spend another night in camp, or in Homer depending. So you can't plan anything fixed for a day or two either side of your four day viewing permit dates.

To stay at the camp you have to be an independent camper. This means that you have to take all equipment, except a stove, and all food except water. The Alaska Department of Fish and Game provides a comprehensive list of your requirements and we had to find an outfitter who could provide all the necessary items for us to hire. Here we struck gold in finding Max and Annette Finch at Alaska Canoe and Campground in Sterling. Having sent Max the ADFG's list of equipment by email, we turned up in Sterling on our way down the Kenai peninsular to load up our hire car with everything we needed. Max was fantastic in providing good equipment as well as advice to these two Africans.

Arriving in Homer we found our cabin on the lake where we spent the night. The cabin was such a good decision as it gave us the space we needed to organize all our provisions and repack everything into waterproof bags for the float plane. We also enjoyed watching the planes take off and land on the lake.

Homer has a very good supermarket where we bought our food for the trip. To supplement the freeze dried camping meals that we had bought from Max, we got a good selection of energy bars, instant breakfast oats, snack packs and chocolate bars. Along with the usual tea, coffee and sugar we also got a small amount of fresh provisions (bread rolls, sliced meat, tomatoes and milk). As there is a weight restriction on the float plane we decided against taking a cooler box and this perhaps was a mistake. A small cooler would have meant more fresh food which would have been a good idea. Anyway with 250 pounds each, including your own body weight, you can't over pack.

With tent, sleeping bags, mats, pots and pans, oh and a few warm clothes, we tipped the scales in the right direction and so loaded up and lifted off late in the afternoon to fly across the Cook inlet.