Last night, I decided to give up on the Tailoring skill and switch to full-time gathering. I already have my Skinning skill trained up, but I needed to now train up Mining from level 1. This basically involved going to Stormwind, talking to the mining trainer, buying a pick, then going into Elwynn Forest to look for ore veins.

Ore... is not easy to find. I ended up touring all of Elwynn Forest (thrice), Westfall (twice), Dun Morogh (once) and only managed to get up to level 25 skill. So, this is apparently going to be a slow skill to train up. But I ran across lots of new players to toss random buffs and heals at while I hunted for ore, so it wasn't a total loss.

As I left Dun Morogh and headed into Loch Modan, I decided I may as well finish up a quest that had me delivering a message to someone in Darkshore. I knew that there was a boat in Menethil Bay (Wetlands) that would take me to the other continent (Theramore Isle in Duskwallow Marsh). Beyond that I figured I'd wing it once I got to the continent of Kalimdor. I knew that Darkshore was on the northwest shoreline and that Theramore Isle was on the southwest shoreline.

(And for those of you with more knowledge of geography then me... no I didn't know that there was a boat directly from Menethil Bay to Darkshore. I was taking the "it's an epic journey" line in the quest log at face value.)

Things were pretty easy getting to Theramore Isle. I made sure that I talked to the gryphon trainer so that I could fly back to Theramore if I managed to find a friendly gryphon trainer deeper into my journey. (By talking to gryphon trainers, it's almost like making a save point for my journey. That way I can get from point A to point B without having to make the trip twice.)

Once I left the enclave of Theramore Isle (which is Alliance), I headed northwest along the only road through the Duskwallow Marsh. On every side of the road were nasty beasties so it was a lot of running and dodging and weaving until I got to the ruins of the Shady Rest Inn.

I now had a choice. I could either cut west across the Barrens towards the Stonetalon Mountains or go north up the coastline towards the neutral goblin city of Ratchet that I had heard about. Either way was going to be fraught with peril because they lie within Horde territory, making me (at level 22) a prime target for any Horde who were PvP flagged. I chose to hug the eastern edge of the Barrens (which was blessedly barren of Horde players) and try to get to Ratchet first.

Getting to Ratchet was very non-eventful. I saw only a handful of players as I headed towards Ratchet, and most were Alliance or low level Horde who didn't pay me any attention. Once again, I made sure that I talked to a gryphon trainer before heading out along the Southfury River north towards a friendly enclave called Talrendis Point that I knew was up the river.

Here it started to get interesting. Because as you go up the riverbanks of the Southfury River, the banks get narrower and steeper until you get up near Ogrimmar. Ogrimmar being one of the principal cities of the Horde and I was being funneled right past the city gates it seemed. I couldn't climb up the hills to the west side of the river, so I had to hug the left side of the path and try to sneak past a pair of high level city guards at the bridge. Alas, there wasn't enough room and their eyes were sharp, so I became dwarf paste on the road leading west out of Ogrimmar.

After a semi-long corpse run where I got the ghostly tour of Ogrimmar (because the cemetary is down in Durotar), I decided to press northward along the Southfury River. Up until this point, enemy Horde players that I had seen were ignoring me and I them. Until a bloodelf mage (level 26) passed me on the narrow banks and turned around to shoot spells at me. She had me down to half health before I realized what was going on, so I immediately shielded, healed, and started fighting back. The fight lasted about a minute, but I was winning and had her down to a sliver of health. So she turned me into a sheep and ran off towards the Ogrimmar guards. It was a pity that I hadn't refreshed my DoT spell on her towards the end of the fight, because she still might've been finished off as she ran away. But I'm content with taking a draw over a win.

From then on, I avoided the roads and other Horde players as much as possible. I managed to find my way through Ashenvale and over to Darkshore. Which is where I learned that there was a ship directly back to Menethil Bay.