Spring is here in NSW

We are still getting use to seeing the beautiful changes to the seasons here in southern NSW.  We took a moment to enjoy the blossoming trees, and acknowledge spring, as it is still very cool at night.

“hey bear”

When we were on land at Great Bear Lodge, the mantra was “hey bear” to ward off any lurking bears in the woods!

Here are a few photos taken by Julie from Bundaberg who had a zoom camera lense.

Julie and I spotted this bear frolicking in the water,  he walked back and forth across the stones....I am sure he caught a fish

Alaska by Sea

For the next 7 nights we were able to unpack, and settle into our cabin on board the Island Princess as it cruised from Anchorage, through Glacier Bay for 2 days, and onto the small ports of Skegway, Juneau and Kitchikan in the Inside Passage, and then squeezed alongside Vancouver Island and the Canadian coastline back to Vancouver.

After a slow start for both of us as far as our stomachs were concerned, the highlights were plenty, especially the great sunny clear weather, (which we were often told was unusual) the glaciers, the isolation of the towns, the cool breeze and scenery we enjoyed from our balcony. 

We were last aboard.

This was our 10th cruise, and turned out to be one of the most relaxing, as it was more about the continuous daily scenery of fiords and glacier mountains, rather than the daily destinations and actvities available in port. We made our own plans in port.

With only 1700 passengers the ship was a perfect size


People swimming.....this was Alaska not the Caribbean






Party night....last night

Happy 61st Birthday Derek!


Back into Vancouver, 6.30am

Vancouver Postcards

This post is a little out of order, as we over extended our stay at Great Bear Lodge due to the smoke, and didn’t get to have our third stay in Vancouver City, only an overnighter.  So to sum up....  Canadians pride themselves on their politeness, and we felt very safe walking our suburban streets at night.

On our second stay in Vancouver at our Air BnB, we enjoyed getting around like a local, bike riding this time to Granville Island near Downtown, and rode the bus heaps of times...back into the city, and to the Baseball and Queen Elizabeth Park.

We were staying between 2nd and 3rd Ave, on Trimble St, the bus stop was on 4th, 10th and 16th. We rode our bikes along the beach front or 4th.

Granville Island is now a great food market, specialty shops and Marina, 

Our lunch room for the day

Hudson Bay store shop windows, Trimble St Air BnB, and street food

 found myself “smelling the roses”, at Queen Elizabeth Park, finally think we have got the pace right

Seat bench plaque

we stopped at the QEPark before the baseball game.  Vancouver Canadians played Tri City Washington,  it was a nail biting game.....tons of fun

They play each team 4 times over 3 or 4 days, to get a more accurate assessment of who the winning team is.

We had a great spot, and a foot long hot dog.

Fabulous city, but we missed out on visiting Grouse Mountain, Capilano Suspension Bridge and Lynn Canyon,  all just 1/2 hour north of the city in the mountains. Three great reasons to go back.

Glaciers and more Glaciers

We were not allowed to continue on to the ship with our tour bus group, via Valdez and a catamaran boat trip. We had our own driver, and took the 4 1/2 hour scenic trip via Anchorage. No time to stop for photos, we made the ship with 40 minutes to spare and we were the last to arrive.  We were on a Princess land tour, so the cruise knew we were coming.

The scenery was exceptional.  The trees don’t grow tall as the soil is still frozen in summer.

Alaska, just passing through

It is the end of a short summer, autumn colours are starting to show, and in only one month winter will be here again. It is a small window through which to see some of the vast landscape of Alaska. The weather has been cool and mostly clear, locals say we have been very fortunate considering we only had 6 days.

The red is our alternate route due to my stomach bug.

Train from Anchorage to Talkeetna, a small back country town, bit artsy crafty, but a great lunch stop.

We stayed at 2 different lodges in Denali NP (area of 6 million squ miles). At the first, Mt McKinley Lodge, we saw the rare sight of Mt Denali next morning, (North America’s largest Mountain).  Its name was changed back to Mt Denali in 2008.

Centre of photo below and still snow capped.

Beautiful lodge




At our second lodge Denali Lodge we went a distance of 110 km deep into the Denali N Park and were fortunate to see an abundance of wildlife. We upgraded to the Tundra Wilderness Tour from the historic cultural tour, and pleased we did with the amount of Bears - a large Grizzly plus 3 sets of mum and cubs, Moose, Caribou and Dall sheep we saw.

Heaps of Caribou

Grizzly, the mother bears were further away and hard to capture,  but oh so cute!

Female Moose, right beside the road

They loose their antelas and regrow them,

Moose antlers

Caribou antlers

The Polychrome Pass was my favouite scenic part as we weaved our way up higher and higher into Tundra country, the colours were spectacular

Denali was a lot more commercialised as the lodge was just outside of the NP.

Following this we travelled on an 8 hour drive east through wilderness land,

and stayed at the third lodge, which was smaller and quieter, at Copper River where we saw Mt Drum, and could only gaze at part of the largely unexplored and largest of all American NParks, Wrangle-St Elias which is over 3 times bigger than Denali).

I got terribly sick with a stomach virus, so we both stayed in our room and missed the great walks.

Mt Drum, and NP, another perfect day