Stepping back to Ekaterinburg
With all the drama of the past few days we are well behind with the blog. The ballet in Ekaterinburg turned out to be really good. The theatre itself was really impressive and the ballet was beautiful. However, it took a while to get over the lead dancer’s choice of tights which left nothing to the imagination - those Russian lads pack a punch!
The next day we went Husky dog sledging with an ex Arctic Explorer, Andrei. He was a real Ray Mears survival guy. Having been in an ex Russain army van for a hour whilst we drove to the sledge track he let the dogs out and they went wild - lots of yellow snow around us! He hooked up four to a sledge and with Karen on the sledge and me driving we headed off into the woods. Unfortunately, the dogs went at a quicker pace than I realsied and when we hit a bump and made some air I came off and left Karen in the sledge being driven by a pack of mad dogs with no driver and no way of stopping. As she got nearer and nearer to the van I realsied that she was going to hit it, but luckily she just missed it. We joked about how she was lucky not to get abother break travelling - oh the irony.
After that we got the hang of sledging and made the most of teh vodka to keep us warm as we headed through the Russian woods. We had lunch made for us on an open fire as we trecked up a hill and had the most picturesque and coldest wee we will probably ever have.
Another train trip followed.