After about 30 mins flying time we were back over the trees and heading for the rainforest.
And then we gently floated towards the lodge - doesn't it look fabulous.
Our pilot who absolutely loved his job even though it must have been tedious repeating the same trip sometimes twice a day.
It was rather like arriving at a safari lodge, the managers (owners) were standing there waiting to greet us and a posse of staff took care of our luggage and the supplies the plane had flown over. The accommodation is great with sofas and a table big enough to seat the max 18 guests.
Then upstairs are the 9 bedrooms (the two singletons on our tour have to share and our UK leader sleeps in the staff wing) each of which is named after a bear of some kind, ours being Giant Panda.
There was tea and cake waiting for us and then we were given a briefing of what to expect over the next couple of days. To save all the guests lugging in loads of wet/cold weather gear everything is provided here from wellies to sou'westers and the staff size you up on arrival and kit out your room named pegs in the heated "equipment room". We decided the first evening that we'd be warm enough with just a couple of layers so didn't need to wear the camouflage onesies. The viewing platform and hides are only about 2 miles upriver from the lodge but along an extremely bumpy and muddy road and we get there in this old school bus which has a top speed of about 10 mph. The 3 guides are all university graduates in various aspects of nature and two of them are rather slightly built girls and they really have to wrestle with the steering to turn the thing.
Our leader had advised us that the front row of the platform was better for photography and being first off the bus got you the best positioning so that's what we did. We'd made good friends with another couple and so us photographers took the front row and the two guys sat behind and we waited!
Unfortunately even had the weather been glorious we were too far away to get any decent photos but as you can imagine that didn't stop me taking 1000s of photos - so I'll try and restrict it to a few fairly interesting shots. This first picture, taken on my "small" 24-105mm lens gives an idea of the distance away we were on the other river bank.
Again uncropped, but with the 100-500m lens at full zoom, this is the first viewing of a Grizzly which eventually emerged from the undergrowth. It was soon evident that she had a cub with her, but junior remained under the bushes on the edge of the river until mum gave it the all clear.
From now on these are mostly cropped to better show the details. We watched mum digging up salmon eggs initially, until she eventually moved to the river to catch a salmon or two.
Further along the river a 3 year old sub-adult male appeared but he was rather wary of the mother and cub and moved away once they started to move towards him.
Plus a couple of stills for the book.
I think I must have taken this still just after it dropped the fish
This last one is pretty poor; the light had gone completely and it's all my poor camera could do to get this (and it's heavily "denoised" hence the slightly plastic appearance and weird colours).
By the time we got back to the lodge it was dark and we just had time for a quick wash and change before dinner. Drinks are included and the help yourself fridge is well stocked with wines so we all had a very merry evening.