The Flying Explorers

We had a number of open quests in the Howling Fjord, mostly out of Valgarde but also some in the area east of there, across the river. Mostly they were the usual take-down quests but there were a few that were particularly interesting: in one, you disguise yourself as a robot so that you can gather data crystals; in another, you control a hawk as it gathers eggs; and in one you shoot flaming harpoons to destroy enemy buildings then finally ride one of the harpoons to land yourself in Valgarde.

After running all of the quests Kate was about eighty-five percent of the way to level 77 - ahead of me by about twenty percent. I spent some time in the area of Crystalsong Forest near Dalaran, knocking down high-level baddies to try to catch up, but I found that I was spending more time running around looking for baddies than I was actually fighting and getting points. I decided to move on to the Sholazar Basin because the cobras and crocalisks are thick on the ground there, especially in the marshy area west of River's Heart, and even though they're lower level than the ones in Crystalsong it didn't take too long to get level with Kate.

Once Kate joined in we started running quests in Sholazar - a couple from questgivers in River's Heart but mostly the ones from the Nesingwary Base Camp to the west. Some gathering quests, of course, but with a couple of more interesting ones thrown in. For example, one involved being a co-pilot in Pilot Vic's plane to run a reconnaissance mission, and you end up having to fly the damaged place back to a safe landing. In another you have to take down a level 77 elite by using a magical item to reflect his attacks back on him - we failed miserably, twice, so we'll have to go back to that one. One small chain of quests has you locating a plane engine and some parts, and at the end the plane is rebuilt, creating a new flight point at the Nesingwary camp.

Thanks to the quests we finally hit level 77 and shortly after that we got our cold weather flying training from Pilot Vic - and so at last we can fly in Northrend!

We finished up a couple more quests in the area then went flying - first to get to the two last areas of Sholazar that you can't get to on foot, finishing our mapping of that region, and then continuing into Icecrown. I went a bit too far south at one point and entered Wintergrasp, which resulted in a warning that it's a no-fly zone and I was about to be automatically dismounted. I turned back north as fast as I could.

We mapped all of Icecrown from the air, only dropping to ground level for two flight points that showed up on the minimap. That left only the Storm Peaks to map, so as late as it was getting we went for it. Again, we found a couple of flight points in the south and got our first glimpse of Ulduar on the north coast. But the highlight was when we finally hit the area called Narvir's Cradle; this was the last area we needed to finish exploring the Storm Peaks, and Northrend, and the World! We now both have the title 'The Explorer' attached to our names.

It doesn't mean we've explored every corner of the world, of course - there are a lot of areas that aren't part of the achievement and so we're always finding new places that are on the map but we just never got close to before.

We're both just around halfway to level 78 and as far as I'm concerned the next major milestone will be to gather the five grand we each need to be able to get the next level of flying training and buy our epic mounts.