Alaska overland and oversea

Skagway & Haines

From Juneau, it was a short hop to Skagway, and another four cruise ship day, but this time in a town with only one street... one word: chaos. We managed to avoid the crowds flocking to the jewellry stores and souvenir shops and found ourselves a great Thai (yep, Thai) restaurant on a side street, and then we headed across to Haines on a fast boat to play golf (yep, golf). Shame it was tipping with rain... But we had a great afternoon of hit and giggle!

The White Pass Train, built after the gold rush:

On the main (and only) street of Skagway):

Every form of tourist vehicle from horse and cart to trolley car:

In front of a massive rotary snow plow!

A memorial to the mad gold-rushers:

Yep, Fairbanks is where we are headed!

The massive Princess Cruise ships back to back... some reverse parking job!

Golfing in the rain... with the biggest golf umbrella ever!

Annie in her rain gear:

Annie setting up a shot (not actually taking it, with umbrella in hand, although that is what it looks like!):

Me and Mum in the rain!

Mary Poppins? Note the nice black sand bunker...

Check out the size of my umbrella! It was branded "Hummer" for good reason...

Despite the rain, smiley faces all round!

Trying to capture some rays of sunlight on the distant mountains:

Watching some rescue training... bear in mind that the water is about 2 degrees centigrade...

Ah, the dirty underbelly of cruising... all the dining room staff having to sing O Sole Mio in Italian to us... the things they will do for tips... I didn't know whether to cry, or run screaming from the room... And I don't think they did either...

Juneau

From Ketchikan, our next port of call was Juneau, the capital of Alaska (bet you thought that was Anchorage, everyone does!). In the morning I headed off to do some walking on a glacier, while Mum and Annie elected to explore the town instead, but in the afternoon we all went on a float trip down the Mendenhall River... it could be called rafting if there had been any real rapids, or if we had been required to paddle! But instead we just sat there while we got paddled along! Hardly an adventure sport, until we got stuck, and were required to "shimmy" or "bounce", but fortunately we never had to go "high side"!

The Radiance (as you can tell, we were quite attached to the ship!). Our balcony was two cloors above the bright yellow life boat:

Mum looking back on the five cruise ships in on the day we were there!

Annie, at the naffest saloon we have come across so far (although we have not been trying):

The interior decor of the Red Door Saloon:

On a helicopter flying to a glacier!

Landing and taking off from the glacier:

Looking sexy in crampons and full survival gear on a glacier:

Yep, walking on water!

More beautiful glacier views, spoiled only by me!

Looking amazing in our rafting / float trip suits, with Mel and Andrew, a honeymooning couple from Sydney who know some of my brother's friends! Small world...

The Mendenhall Glacier, not a bad backdrop:

Floating down the river, huge mountains in the background:

Iceberg, dead ahead!

Say what you will about cruise ships (and believe me, we have said plenty!), the service can't be faulted. Every night, as they turned down our beds, they would leave us a little present in the form of animals made from towels. The sunglasses were our own addition after a couple of drinks in our favourite bar...

Ketchikan

Our first port of call on the ship was Ketchikan, apparently the wettest place in the south-east of Alaska, but happily sunny for us! It was a day of eating and sightseeing, and we had a fabulous day!

The float plane to the crab fest, the only way we could get Annie on a float plane, but in the end, she loved it!