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Published: July 28th 2013
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A beautiful sunny day as we sail out of Vancouver for our seven day cruise of the Inside Passage to Alaska - stopping at Juneau, Skagway and Ketchikan. After the chaotic checkin including keys to our room that would not work and a safety briefing where you could not see the demonstration because of the number of people on deck, we settled in. The day got better as we found our way to the pool deck, where a BBQ and the cocktail of the day - Margaritas - were calling us. Sitting in the warm sun as we sailed away was a great end to the day.
A sailing day the next day looking at the magnificent scenery and bits of ice floating in the water.
Day 3 a stop in
Juneau. The bus took us from the ship port to a helicopter business where after some video safety training from instructors we put on our ice boots and were placed onto waiting helicopters and flown over, and then land onto, the Mendenhall Glacier for a half hour tour of the surface. What an eye opening and jaw dropping tour it was, as the scale of the glacier was
explained to us. The day was clear and we could see across to the far mountains.
Next day we were off to
Skagway and a trip to the Yukon aboard the White Pass rail (and bus).We took an excursion out of Skagway that included a bus ride up to White Pass (the track that most miners used to get to the Yukon gold fields). turned around when we got to BC, Canada and then took a train down the mountain. Lots of snow-capped mountains, frozen rivers and lakes here. You could imagine yourself back in the gold rush days trying that trail with pack mules - good thing they built this railroad. The scenery is breathtaking. The bus driver and train guides fed us lots of information on the gold rush, the building of the tracks and showed us lots of special locations along the way.
Glacier Bay A truly magical day sailing up through Glacier Bay. With commentary by a park ranger who had come on board we listened for noises in the ice and looked for the subsequent falling ice. Brilliant sunshine made it even better. It is difficult to get an accurate perspective of the
glaciers as we were standing on the 10th floor of the boat and Merjorie glacier is 250 ft tall, 100 ft below the surface and 1 mile long. It is neither retreating nor advancing, and is in a state of equilibrium, but moves 7 feet per day.
Ketchikan our last stop is only accessible by air and water. Walking from the boat to explore the town, apart from being assaulted by tourist shops you can see the restored buildings from the gold rush days. People were also fishing off the wharfs for salmon which you can see jumping out of the water. Our excursion was a float plane ride to the Misty Fjords national park and was great fun. Really beautiful! Mountains, waterfalls, fjords! We landed right down on the water and were invited to get out and stand on the floats. Out of my comfort zone - absolutely.
Back to Vancouver for the flight to Montreal
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Sue
non-member comment
WOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Great blog and photos!!! Looks like you and I are eons apart weather wise!!! Mind you I love your photos, especially the drinks!!! Have enjoyed many Spritz's, beers and prosecco's plus a wine or 2. Currently in Bergamo, a wonderful find after an extremely hot and unbelievably crowded Venice. Still an amazing place, as you know, 35 years after my last visit. Still far better than Florence, for the same reason. I can hear you asking why cannot you see anything from me? Well when I went to add photos to my well detailed travel info upto mid Portugal discovered that my Olympus camera software missing!!! Sorry, can only attribute to Leon and I saving to spare hard drive before my departure!!! Looking forward to returning to Australia after tracking down George!!! Hope you are both well. Pleae let me know what date you return. I may be in Canberra around mid August, Jenny and David are looking for someone to look after their 'boys.' Perhaps a chance to see everyone??? Have fun, send my well wishes to Dean, guesing you may see him before returning??? Love sue xxx