You are provided with all your equipment, including thermal clothing before meeting your dogs. After learning how to handle the team and lunch, you depart into one of Europe's few remaining wilderness areas. The huskies will pull your sled through the beautiful winter landscape close to the Pallas-Ounas National Park, passing through forests, across fells and over frozen lakes and rivers covering up to 40km per day.
This far north there is a great chance of seeing the Aurora Borealis and, with no light pollution, the night time sky can provide the most awe inspiring light show imaginable. After lunch on Friday, the final leg of your adventure takes you back to the Wilderness Centre where there will be a farewell dinner.
Ranch Weeks: Have you got what it takes to become a skydiver?
A weekend of training and skydiving includes a tandem jump with your instructor and your first ever assisted solo freefall.
It takes some nerves but the sense of achievement is unparalleled.
Day 1
Arrival and Transfer
Transfers from Girona Airport to your accommodation, a 3-star hotel in Empuriabrava, Skydiving’s European capital.
Day 2
Ground School and Tandem Skydive
You will start with one day of ground school training during which you will learn about your equipment and positioning yourself in the air.
Having completed the training, you make a tandem dive from 12,500ft demonstrating to the instructor your ability to fly your body in freefall.
Day 3
Solo Skydive
You are now ready for Level 1 Accelerated Freefall (AFF), your first assisted solo skydive on your own parachute. This jump is made from 12,500 feet with two instructors and a camera person. During the next 55 seconds of exhilarating freefall, you will experience body flight and demonstrate a series of freefall skills. At 5,000ft you open your parachute and fly it gently back to earth with the assistance of radio communication from the ground.
After landing, you are presented with an achievement certificate, a log book of your jumps and a video of your Level 1 AFF. You now have the option of continuing with the remainder of the AFF and becoming a licensed skydiver.
Day 3
Depart or Extend Your Stay
If this example is not exactly what you are looking for please Request a Personal Quotation or contact us and we can discuss ways of tailor-making the perfect holiday for you.
Accompany your guide to Bram Stoker's Borgo Pass. The route takes you over a succession of gentle peaks with the possibility of visiting a monastery and museum about Dracula. Overnight at Hotel Castle Dracula.
Ride over panoramic mountain ridges and through forests and farmland, then along an old Habsburg road and next to the old Austro-Hungary and Tsarist Russian border. Overnight in Ciocanesti.
Return to Lunca Ilvei with a picnic lunch by a Habsburg fortress. Admire beautiful views over the three glacial Rodna Peaks. Follow the 'Plaiul Moldovei', a medieval riding route between Transylvania and Moldavia, before descending from the mountains back to Lunca Ilvei.
Today you will have a full day tour Kyoto, beginning with a visit to Kinkakuji temple. The three-tiered Golden Pavilion, which was reconstructed in 1955, is the focus of this ‘pond-and-island’ garden. It exerts a unifying force on the expansive view of the broad Mirror Lake that spreads out beneath it, partly due to the skillful placement of crags and islands. A path behind leads through a leafy forest. You continue to Kiyomizu temple, built in 1633. Jutting out from the hillside on a wooden veranda it commands a fine view over the city. Our next visit is to Heian Shrine, a rare example of an extensive pond garden in the grounds of a Shinto shrine. There are actually four separate gardens, set around the temple building, and designed fundamentally for strolling. The gardens are designated as representative of Meiji era (1868-1912) garden design. You conclude today with a visit to the Kyoto Handicraft Centre, which offers handicraft demonstrations and tax-free shopping.
Today you are free to explore Kyoto at leisure. Alternatively, there is an optional excursion, by train to Hiroshima. This was the first city to experience the destruction of an atomic bomb in 1945 and the city is now symbolized by the Peace Memorial Park, which is included in our visit. In the Park are a museum, the Memorial Cenotaph, the Children’s Peace Monument and the Flame of Peace.
Arrive Ecuador airport and transfer to the Galapagos Eco Explorer I. Sail to Isla Lobos for check out dives and a land visit. Depart at midnight for Isla Seymour.
Four dives and an optional night dive both days. Transfer south, to Cabo Marshall, overnight on Friday.
From Kota Kinabalu in the adjacent state of Sabah, a short flight takes you to Sandakan, where you will visit the Orangutan sanctuary at Sepilok and enjoy 2 nights at a jungle lodge on the Kinabatang River in an area rich in wildlife. Returning via the hot springs at Poring to the foot of Kinabalu (4101m./13450ft), you make a 2-day ascent of this challenging peak whose bare upper slopes command memorable views across the South China Sea to the Philippines. This is Borneo at its best!
There is a couple of hours walking on the first day at Mulu, 2 to 3 hours on the second, 6 to 7 hours on the third and 4 to 5 hours on the final day in this area. Two days are set aside for the ascent of Mount Kinabalu. This is a tough undertaking and involves approximately 2200 metres of ascent and descent via the same route. The path is well maintained in places and has countless steps. It can be slippery low down in the forest and after rain. High up on the route, there are sections of bare rock slabs, with some fixed rope handrails. The route is never very steep or exposed. 
Days 3 and 4. Kiutakongas Canyon
Days 6 and 7. Little Bear Trail and a Tent Sauna!
Day 3. Diego Suarez
Ankarana has been the subject of a number of documentaries. An astonishing limestone plateau, surrounded by formidable cliffs and walls on which there are razor-sharp pinnacles or tsingy. The interior of the mountain is a honeycomb of huge caves, mostly unexplored, in places the roof has caved in and sunken forests have grown. During times of war the Antakarana people hid in the caves, and signs of their presence remain, including sacred ancestral bones. Whether it's the history, the tsingy, the caves or the extraordinary wildlife you are interested in, a visit to this area is truly an incredible experience. Leave Ankarana for a beautiful drive on to Ankify, where you will stay at Le Baobab.
Join Oceane's Dream on their well-equipped catamarans, sailing the unexplored reefs and small, often uninhabited islands that surround Nosy Be. Previously unfrequented by divers these rich waters offer easy and spectacular dives; along drop-offs, in caves or over the coral heads found in shallow water. Whilst pristine reefs, unaffected as yet by global warming, are a photographer's dream. Large numbers of reef fish as well as Barracuda, Groupers, Yellow Tuna, Eagle, Sting, and Manta Rays and Whale Sharks are waiting to be discovered, while Humpback Whales migrate past the islands from July to October. With only four double cabins, you will practically have the reef to yourself. These comfortable, fully equipped catamarans offer a relaxing mix of sailing and diving, with time to explore some of those deserted beaches.
