Hello From Kodiak Island

Hello from Raspberry Island located within Kodiak Island, what an amazing place this remote lodge is.....Sorry this entry is going to be long, we have done loads over the last week.

From our last entry we were in Talkeetna and then headed onto Mt McKinley, it wasn't the best weather so we didn't get to see the mountain which is North America's tallest mountain at over 20,000 feet, it is amazing, we saw the lower part of the mountain from the McKinley Lodge and the top was covered with clouds, however on flying out from Fairbanks to Anchorage four days later, we got to see the top part of the mountain from the plane, it was incredible....... At least one way or another we got to see the mountain. While in McKinely we were still on the lookout for the elusive moose and on one of our walks with a lovely couple we met from the UK (hello Tricia and Mark :o) we saw some photographers and they had just seen a moose so my Mark went off into the bushes and just saw the calves from a distance and saw the bum of mum, Mark swears she was at least 8 & 1/2 foot !! we searched around for a while but any rustling in the bushes could be a potential bear, so she high-tailed it out of there.

We left McKinley and headed to Denali for a couple nights, we had an early morning Tundra Wilderness tour that takes you onto the only access road that goes for 90 miles and you can only take your car to a certain point in the entrance of the park, so it's best to do a tour. We had an excellent guide who had been doing this tour for 14 years and about 10 minutes into the tour he was saying that he had only seen a couple of wolves this season and next minute there was a wolf on the side of the road in the bushes, he was pretty stoked. We didn't get too many pictures, he was hiding in the scrub. Not far after this sighting we saw a huge male grizzly who was chomping on some grass, then a fox came along, the fox took one look at the bear and decided to take the long way around. The bear suddenly got a whiff of the fox's scent and up went his snoz for a bit of sniff to see what could potentially be lunch. The guide said that a fox is too much energy for a bear to chase so he went back to chomping his grass. We came across another young grizzlie who took off before we could get some good snaps. We did an evening ATV tour through the backcountry of Denali and it was pretty cool, we thought it would be quite tame but we got to go through rivers and heaps of mud and slush and so on. Mark was told to slow down a couple of times, but he was having fun.

We left Denali and headed up to Fairbanks which is the gold rush era and we weren't interested in doing the el dorado gold mine tour or the paddlewheeler so we had pre booked a tour to go to Barrow which is the most northern town in Nth America. You are literally on top of the world. The weather was great in Barrow it was a clear blue sky which is rare in Alaska but bitterly cold. The town is made up of 65% native and 35% imports "you name em, we got em" is how our guide explained to us, she had a dry sense of humour but was very entertaining. We spent about 8 hours in barrow and we couldn't get over the artic ocean being completely frozen with just a few open puddles. We went to the heritage centre and watched traditional dancing and blanket tossing ceremony which was used in the past to spot whales, you can actually toss someone about 15 feet.

After Barrow we flew to Anchorage which is a very pretty city and we went for a fantastic bike ride on a coastal trail which was all paved and very scenic. We picked up a hire car and drove to the Chugach Mountains to meet our mountain bike guide the next day and after an hour and a half and no sight of our guide we gave up and drove down to Seward where we were staying for the night and found out that he had left a message at our hotel cancelling the trip as the trail was closed due to snow still being on the track, obviously that message didn't get to us. We were both really disappointed as we were really looking forward to doing some mountain biking in Alaska with the prospect of maybe crossing paths with a bear. Then again I am getting used to miles here and the track was 20 miles so convert that to kilometres and maybe I wasn't that disappointed after all coz that is quite a long ride. We did an evening kayak in Resurrection Bay till 10pm because the sun never goes down ! that was pretty cool, got to see some otters and porpoise. Seward is lovely, I really liked the town, we stayed at a great Lodge. After staying in nice 4-5 star accommodation in Canada, nothing beats the comfort and friendliness of family lodges.

So speaking of family lodges, here we are in Raspberry Island at a remote lodge www.raspberryisland.com and this place is truely amazing, we left Anchorage yesterday morning and flew to Kodiak Island and then flew to Raspberry Island via a floatplane it was unreal, it was rainy and misty but stunning. The lodge is a family owned business by a young family and is a great atmosphere, there are only 6 guest in the lodge and they house up to 8, we all sit down to home cooked meal with the family and is wonderful, it makes a difference from 2800 passengers on the cruise. We went for a kayak in the afternoon and got very close to some inquisitve otters. We went fishing today with a couple of guys from Chicago who are here for a week just to fish for salmon and halibut. Halibut is a huge fish but very soft white flesh, Mark thinks it tastes a bit like chicken, doesn't have a real fish taste to it. The fishing trip turned into more of a wildlife cruise, we spotted brown bears, otters, finn whales, puffin birds, elk, seals and porpoise. Still can't get over seeing brown bears !! We are doing some hiking tomorrow and maybe another kayak and then heading off the next day on our real bear view on a sea plane for half the day with our pilot who they refer to as crazy phil, sounds interesting. One thing we have been trying to photograph is the bald eagle which we have only seen from a distance. Once we arrived at the Raspberry Island Lodge there were about 20 of them all sitting on the beach, we were stunned. They were waiting for the Gemini to return, being the fishing boat, because when that returns that means dinner not only for the lodge guests but the eagles as well. We went for a midnight walk in the sunlight last night to watch them feasting on the gizzards, yummy.

We have one final part to our trip after Kodiak Island which is staying at another remote lodge for a week in the Yukon, here we stay a couple of days at the lodge and then go off on a four day hike with a guide and pack of husky dogs who carry all our supplies in ruck-sacks. This should be lots of fun.

Hope you enjoy the pics

Laura & Mark

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