Alaska

On the way up to Anchorage we saw a couple of mountains that resembled those of the Black Cuillin on Skye. This is a photo of one of them taken on the way back. Those who have experience of Skye and who have had parts of their anatomy rubbed off by the rock will recognise the similar features here. If it’s not gabbro then it must be something very similar.As the weather conditions around Denali were better today than on our trip North we couldn’t help stopping to try and get a better view of it. We stopped several times and captured a few decent views although we only realised that we had missed perhaps the best location after we had passed it. There are not very many places to stop for lunch between Denali and Anchorage so we had a picnic lunch of left over pizza from last night’s dinner. Weather again was lovely. To see a panorama of Denali taken from this picnic spot click this link.Eating again. This is the hotel we are staying at near the airport. It is next to the world’s largest float plane airport. Nice watching them take off and land.Hector was a bit put out when he read this notice.

The ship arrived in Whittier in the early hours of Saturday. We disembarked at 8.45 am (very sad) but our train to Anchorage was not until 6.40pm so we had a few hours to kill. We spent the morning looking around Whittier which is not very big so didn’t take long. We had booked a trip on a catermaran leaving at 12.30 so didn’t have too much time to fill. The trip was great. The cat. travelled at up to 40 miles an hour and promised us 26 glaciers in a day which they achieved. Again the weather was good. The route of our trip can be seen by clicking this link (when you click the link, click “Map” in the top right of the map and select “Satellite” to get a better idea ot the terrain).and we saw an abundance of sea life. The cutest were the sea otters. There were lots of them and many with babies.

We also saw humpbacks and seals which were sitting on the ice floes (not the whales). The glaciers were great and we got up really close because the boat was an ice breaker in disguise and was able to get through the brash ice which most of the other boats are not able to do. We again saw some of the glaciers calving. The train journey was lovely with most of it following the coast (when you click the link, click “Map” in the top right of the map and select “Satellite” to get a better idea ot the terrain).
The scenery was lovely but there were many places where all the trees had died. This was after the earth quake in 1964 where the ground sank about 12 ft and allowed the sea water in which has gradually killed a lot of trees and shrubs off. They say it will take about 100 yrs for the ground to recover. Well, will finish now. Hope you enjoy.

We have arrived in Anchorage and are now back in the land of wireless. The Wireless on the ship was extortionate and very slow so it wasn’t worth paying for. We will try and catch up with things over the next few days.
The last week has been wonderful. We have had lovely weather. The ship was really nice, the food out of this world and we have eaten far too much. We were both quite sad to leave today. We have seen so many great things, both living and scenic which we will bring you up to date with over the next couple of days.
We are picking up our car in the morning. Just been outside eating supper (10.40pm here). It is really warm. Everyone is saying how exceptional the weather is. We have been really lucky so far and hopefully it will continue that way.
Hector is having a great time and there have been many photo opportunities which we will also let you see in the blog. Just a couple for now. Going to bed now. Talk tommorow. x