Alaska

Our last blog. Very sad. We spent the day exploring Stanley Park. Great place. Very big with something for everyone. Hector had a good day and met a few feathered friends along the way.Having a chat with some Canada Geese.Fraser and Hector enjoying a bit of lunch.This is the Beaver Pool. Absolutely covered in lilies. There was a beaver lodge in the middle.
Hector made a real friend here when he shared his lunch with this red winged blackbird.We saw three different kinds of squirrels. This one, and black one which was a lot bigger and a red one.We got a much better sighting of a racoon today. This one was good enough to pose for us. I think it was half asleep as the weather was very warm and they really should be asleep during the day.Barbara is very chuffed to have captured this picture of a woodpecker.Fraser and Hector eating again at the beach this time.See you all soon. Hope you have all enjoyed reading about our holiday as much as we have enjoyed being here. xxxx

Another good day. The weather turned out to be lovely. The best day so far this year according to our driver who took us on our tour of Vancouver. We definitely are taking the sun with us as we travel. The first stop on our tour was Stanley Park. A very large park so we didn’t see too much of it. We are going to walk there tomorrow for the day as it is supposed to be nice again. Lots of lovely totem poles.Hector getting closer to this one.The next stop was at the Capilano suspension bridge. This was good fun and a long way down to the bottom of the gorge. 70 meters.Hector and I posing half way across.This is the tree top walk which took us all in amongst the forest.
This is the cliff walk. We didn’t have a lot of time for this as we needed to get back to the bus so not so many photos taken here.Hector and Fraser on the cliff walk.View from Prospect Point. We saw a racoon here but only fleetingly.Hector admiring the view from our hotel room down to the harbour.Great excitement. They were filming Godzilla in the middle of the town. This is a lorry crash. Now you know how they made the smoke!!!!

We are now back in Vancouver. This is Hector waiting for the plane out of Anchorage. We were all sad to leave. We had such a good time in Alaska. A few of the carvings in the airport at Anchorage. This one is a carved whalebone.Eskimo dollsWalrus tusk carving. There were many more and all just as impressive.Cruise ship in Whittier (centre of picture) taken from the airplane. Track of 23 glaciers in a day trip shown.
College fjord. Track of 23 glaciers in a day trip shown.Vancouver city centre with cruise ship terminal in the centre of the picture. No ships in at the time.Hector getting comfy on the chaise longue at our home for the next 3 nights. Cloudy when we landed but still warm.Off on a city tour tomorrow so hoping the sun is going to shine. x

Some shots from a quick walk arond town.
Similar view to that from our hotel room but from street level.
The electrical power connections seem very archaic.Old bus on city tourAmazing mix of architectural styles.

An early departure form our hotel turned into a not so early departure when Barbara realised after we had set off on the bus to Heathrow that she had left her glasses on her bedside table. The very nice bus driver told us to get back on the bus as he did his next trip as he would be the fastest way of getting back to pick them up and back again to Heathrow. At the hotel they remade a key for the door so I could nip up and rescue them. We had a nice easy checkin and bag drop but a wrong choice of queue in security had us waiting for ages as an old couples bag was shuttled backwards and forwards through the scanner. They then had it put aside to be gone through and sadly my rucsack had to do the same. By the time their bag had been emptied and my rucsack had been emptied there was very little time to get anything for breakfast.

Once on the plane we had a great flight. The lad we were sitting next to saw a cruise guide book I had put out to read and asked which line and which boat we were sailing on. Turns out he is an engineering cadet who was flying out to join the same ship.

We flew up over Scotland, Iceland and Greenland before heading west then southwest over Canada. There were a few clear bits over
Iceland
and Greenland with lots of snow/ice covering rocky terrain.