Cochrane, Grose family and Tuscany School Visit

I have just spent the last 2 nights with Cathy, Rob and Lauren. You may recall I saw them at Baptiste Lake at the start of my journey...
They live in Cochrane, just outside of Calgary in Alberta and Cathy teaches at Tuscany School. I spent the afternoon meeting the students and showing them some of my pictures and talking to them about Australia. About 45 of them had done an online project with some of our students from CFS [1/2 Leitch and 4/5 East] earlier this year and after we spent some time together they all went online to update their own blogs and to touch base with their CFS friends.

So after bidding more farewells I am heading to the airport at 3am......off to Hawaii for the last week of my fantastic trip!

 

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Vancouver to Calgary - am amazing drive through the Rockie Mountains

We docked early Sunday morning and after disembarking I arranged a taxi to my hotel in Vancouver. It was a rainy day so after checking in I caught up with some sleep. Then after heading down town for an afternoon walk in the light rain I spent the rest of the afternoon catching up on my blog.....

Monday morning I collected my new hire car and headed out...I was driving from Vancouver to Calgary...about 1000kms through the Rockie Mountains...the most beautiful country...even at the end of Summer.

Check out some of the Scenery from along the way!

 

 

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Ketchikan: The Salmon Capital of the World

Well we docked a tad later today so I managed a sleep in and then I had time to wander the very interesting streets of this town. They say there are about 14 000 people that live here...making it the 4th biggest town in Alaska. The main industry is tourism from May to September and they too estimate they have 1million visitors per year. In fact today 5 cruise ships were pulling in which meant 9500 people to visit the town and spend money. They say that the other 25% of their income comes from fishing!

 

I took a town tour first today...on a duck....a vehicle that went on land and in the sea. It was a great, quick way to see around.

 

One of the amazing things I learnt today was about the 'Stair Streets'...these are streets that are actually hundreds of stairs going up and houses along the way....no other way to get to the house..a heck of a long way to carry groceries, furniture etc. In the winter time the Council have to clear the snow from the stairs as they are considered streets!

I learnt lots about Salmon fishing and the different types of boats they use to do the fishing. We even saw a harbour seal when out in the duck BUT I was too slow with the camera.

 

After some more time wandering the shops and picking up a few more knick knacks I made my way to my afternoon experience....the Great Alaskan Lumberjack Show...wow are they strong. Check out some of the activities they did. They had the audience in 2 teams...half supporting Dawson Creek (I was in that team) and half supporting 'Mill'.

The people in the show are professional lumberjacks who compete across the world in competitions. Although for this last show of the season they also had 3 people from our cruise ship (our Cruise Director Kelsey, Location Guide Lance and Party Host Reggie) in the team for Dawson Creek. The other team had 3 staff from another cruise ship!

 

The night show tonight was 'Rocking Around the World'...the dancers and singers did a terrific job. The next day I was doing my laundry [boring I realise] and met one of the star singer and dancers Mum...she was from TEXAS and was on board for the first time to see him in action. She said he had already been in a live show of Shrek and a live show of Sesame Street!

Then late into the night I was in my element...on Deck 9 Reggie the Show Host ran a competition 'Country music - name that tune'. I did really well and impressed many people with my knowledge of country music! The prize was milkshakes!

The following day was on our final day on the boat! I started packing and was amazed at how many extra bags I had accumulated from little shopping trips throughout the week. Another trip to the Post Office coming up to send some things back to Australia.

In the afternoon I went and played BINGO and was very pleased to win one of the games and take away $393 US Dollars!

 

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Juneau: The Alaskan Capital and more boats and busses!

Today pulled into another town - this time it was Juneau which is the Capital city of Alaska. The population is 30 000 - so much less than in Anchorage. The other really strange fact is that the road in and out of town is 42miles in total distance but it just ends at both stops in the middle of nowhere. The only way in and out of Juneau is by boat or plane.

My first activity was to head up the mountain in the local tramway....the view from the top was quite serial But first I encountered a fierce looking grizzly.

Next I met the Bald Eagle that lives there.....he did not seem impressed by all the attention.

I then joined a tour for the day and our first stop was at Mendenhall Glacier......amazing scenery once again!

This is a shot of a Pink Salmon swimming upstream....I found out there are 5 types of Salmon:

1. Chum

2. Pink

3. King

4. Silver

5. Sockeye

 

 

 

I was not sure why they were out in the freezing cold water but I caught sight of these 2 guys dressed for going in the water) chipping away at a huge chunk of ice just a few metres away from the Mendenhall Glacier! Better them than me...clothes and aall......NO WAY WAS I GOING IN THAT WATER!

 

 

In the afternoon I went on a Whale Watching tour....we saw many Humpback Whales...mainly just coming up to breathe....hard to see in these pics but got quite a few sightings of them flashing their tails and surfacing then going back down.

 

Just as we were about to head back into the harbour we came across a whole group of sea lions...have to say they were quite noisy and a tad stinky!

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Haines...off to the Yukon and Skagway. Boats, trains, busses and boats!

We docked this morning in the town of Haines. I dismebarked with many others and after being greeted by a 'local' I headed off on an adventure.

The weather was awful - rainy, cold and windy! The ferry that came to collect about 50 of us was called the 'Fairweather Express' - a tad ironic.

Anyway we journeyed from Haines over to Skagway [Gateway to the Klondike from the Gold Rush era] - about 45minutes and mostly foggy. The guide advised us it would be an awful day as nearly every day in this area it rained! However we were really lucky and the sun came out....it was glorious!

 

This is just one of the many waterfalls we saw along the way.

 

 

This is the engine that pulled the train carriages.

This is one of the carriages from the historic train that carried us over the pass to the Yukon...as we travelled along we saw the harsh territory that the people seeking gold 'Smers' travell;ed by foot so many years ago! I have to say it looked much easier to sit in the train than make the climb over the mountains.

We travelled for about 90mins in the train - that took us 27miles to Fraser in Britich Columbia, Canada.

The story goes that in the days of the Gold Rush over 100 000 people [99% males] attempted to travel from Skagway to the Ykon to find Gold...they called the initial climb the 'Golden Mile. About 40 000 actually made the trek and only about 4000 in total actually found Gold.

As we travelled up the Mountain and then back doiwn again on the bus we crossed the borders between the USA and Canada a number of times.

This is known as International Falls, the waterfall flows down the mountain and to the left heads into Alaska, USA and on the right heads into British Columbia, Canada.

 

This a suspension bridge we drove across in our bus on the way back down the mountain. It is only fully suspended on 1 side and VERY loose on the other.....

 

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Cruising Glacier Bay

Thank goodness the sea was calmer today as we were mainly in inlets in Glacier Bay! I was feeling much better and was looking forward to meeting the Park Rangers and Alaskan native who came on board to tell us about the area.

The most amazing place was John Hopkins Glacier...check out the pictures.

 

As I spent most of the day on the outside / viewing decks I met many other passengers including a heap from Australia....even a couple of people from New Zealand! Many of the other passengers could not distinguish a difference between the Australian accent and the NZ accent - but I kept reminding them they just needed to ask us all to say the number 6!

 

Lots of fun on the decks today including continual refills of the 'Eskimo Kiss'....hot cholocate with a little something added, pea soup on all decks + the very special 'Polar Bear Jump'........quite a large group of people took up the challenge and put on their bathers and then chanted an Alaskan ritual and then women the men jumped into the outdoor swimming pool - now you all know I DO NOT like cold water so I gave this a miss BUT I have been in the hot tubs on the Lido deck twice so far.

Each night when I came back to my cabin my cheeky cabin steward 'Eddy' would have made a different character from towels....check out this really cute creation!

They ran lessons on the last day teaching the passengers how to make these from towels...but I was too busy to attend! It will remain a mystery to me......

 

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All aboard! The train and the boat - off I go!

Wow I had to get up specially early this morning to board the scenic train [Coast Cruise] that would take me from Anchorage to Seward where I would find my boat. I left the hotel at 5:30am and we then checked in and boarded the awesome train...I travelled in Gold Class which was upstairs...the whole side and top of the carriage was glass so we could see out and we were also allowed to walk about in including to the outside observation deck.

I was stunned by the scenery and we even stopped the train for a while and watched a pod of Buluga [white] whales and they played just near the shore....I found out that the baby Bulaga's are dark colour when they are born and change to white as they get older....sort of like my hair I guess going from brown to grey...not yet of course though!

We saw many glaciers, rivers, lakes, mountains and even some people camping and fishing for salmon...they must get soooo cold!

 

 

 

Many say this is the most scenic train trip in Alaska - easy to see why they would think so.......

 

 

 

 

 

 

The actual train finishes next week as it is not able to operate in the winter months once the snows starts falling.

 

 

 

This is the train conductor - he was very proud of himself for having a kangaroo in his pocket to show me once he realised I was from Australia.

 

 

 

 

 

After 5 hrs we arrived in Seward and we were collected by an old yellow school bus...just like we see on American Tv shows...the bus took us on a tour of the small town and then to the cruise ship.

 

My boat is the MS Zaandam and is operated by Holland Cruiselines. Theere were 1256 passengers [although they called us guests] and over 600 staff employed the look after us all for the next 7 days.

 

I had been upgraded to a higher deck...i was originally on the Dolphin Deck but now i had a stateroom on the Main Deck...this was Deck 2 and the ship goes all the way to Deck 9.....that is the Sports deck and they even have a tennis court and soccer court there. On deck 8, the Lido deck they have 2 swimming pools and 2 hot tubs.....

So I had the afternoon to settle in and find my way around as we were not sailing till the evening. I explored the ship and only got lost a few times, lucky there are maps on the walls in a lot of places and they gave me a map for my pocket.

They have events running all the time in various locations on the ship so that first afternoon I attended a session where they told us all about the trip and introoduced us to the Captain and the Cruise Director as well as the Shopping Guide and the Location Manager. There are such great shops on board, I have been looking at some special jewellery.

They even have a special lady called a 'techspert' and she offers computer lessons 6 times a day for anyone who wants to go and learn new things. I went that afternoon and learnt a few more things about Windows 8 [My computer at home has this and I am still learning how to use]...this session was really good.

Just before we sailed the Captain called us all to the deck for a safety drill...just like the fire drills we have at school. BUT imagine trying to get nearly 2000 people accounted for. They had a roll call and each person had a special card telling them what 'LifeBoat' station they had to go to. A few naughty people did not come to the drill so the Captain called them over the PA again and said if they did not come straight away he would get them off the ship and they would not be allowed to sail.

You can eat at many places on the ship for breakfast, lunch and dinner or just a snack so each they the cruise team put a special information newsletter in your room so you know what is happening the following day.

Each night there are special live shows on and people singing and dancing in various rooms on the boat. That night I went to a live shows called 'Listen to the Music'....the singers and dancers were fantastic.

The next day we were at sea all day and night and it was ROUGH! Many people [myself included] were quite unwell and did not do much that day......I did manage to go to the movie theatre ad watch the movie 'White Fang' which was filmed in Alaska and was about a boy and a half dog / half woof that met while he was mining for gold!

That night I could not face dinner (due to queasy tummy from the rough cruising at sea) but did attend another live show...'Northern Lights' which tells the story of the Alaskan climate and night sky.

Thought I would share a few shots from around the boat! This is the pool on the Lido Deck...sometimes they had the roof open above this pool and sometimes it was closed to keep it a tad warmer!

 

 

 

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