Eastern Arathi

I'd hoped to get back out to Ashenvale to close out some of the outstanding quests but we didn't leave ourselves enough time to make that worthwhile; instead I flew from Darkshire to meet Kate at Refuge Pointe and from there we headed in the direction of the ogre-infested mine to the west. The idea was that since we were both very close to our next levels, we might as well whack a few relatively high-level mobs to get the necessary few points to make those levels, which we did in short order.

From the mine I suggested heading northeast toward the hills, with the idea of finding some ore deposits and then continuing east along the base of the hills so that we could map out more of the region.

We did find a couple of iron deposits (no gold, sadly) but mostly we just ground our way along the hills, finding an Alliance-run farm at one point and then an area with level 39 elementals and a level 42 giant - we stayed well clear of that. A little further along we found Hammerfall, a Horde enclave guarded by level ?? sentries, and again we stayed well back. From Hammerfall we followed parallel to the road and closed the circle when we arrived back at Refuge Pointe.

We were thinking of going back to the mithril-rich areas that we knew well, but time was against us by then and instead we hearthstoned back to Ironforge, where we smelted the ore we'd picked up and took care of the usual auction/bank business. I almost forgot to get my level 32 Paladin training; I got updated Blessing of Might and a new Aura, and an update to another spell (I forget which right now).

I'm hoping that we can get back to Ashenvale soon; I'd like to clear down some of those old quests but more than anything else I want to find a way through to the Barrens so that we can get to Thousand Needles.