The weather here is not very inviting - cold and wet, and partially
foggy.
We were up at 5.30am, breakfast at 6am and ready at 7am to muster to disembark. Once on our bus, we were taken by our driver, John, on a five-minute tour of Whittier. It used to be a military town, but now only 175 people live there in a multi-storey building that houses apartments, facilities, amenities etc inside. There is even a tunnel to get to the local school. The town is snowed in during winter, and very cold.
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| the whole tow's population lives in this building |
The road out of the town goes 7km through a mountain, and the train and
vehicles use the same ‘road’. They take it in turns to go through the tunnel,
and bikes have to be careful because of the rails. There are several ‘safe
houses’ along the way, in case vehicles or train have to stop for an extended
period of time. The weather on the other side of the mountain was much clearer
and dry. Pleasing to see (though this didn’t last forever!). Our bus driver,
John, was full of information.
We stopped at a creek to watch the first of the salmon trying to get to
their spawning grounds.
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| these poles are used to mark the road during winter |
From there we went to a wildlife rescue centre. A massive earthquake in Alaska I 1964, measuring over 9 on the Richter scale, caused the land to drop by about 6m in many areas, and dead trees and the remains of a couple of small buildings are evidence of this. The trees died because salt water got into their roots. The town was moved to higher ground.
The wildlife rescue centre had animals we’d been hoping to see in the
wild but hadn’t managed to yet – two black bears (one sleeping up a tree), two
brown bears (grizzlies), some elks and caribou and bison, and other critters.
It was nice to walk around here – the animals had plenty of room to roam about
(paddocks rather than pens), and it was good to see them up close.
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| grizzly bear |
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| bison |
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| black-tailed deer |
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| porcupine |
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| muskox |
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| moose |
We had lunch in Anchorage. We were only here for just over an hour so
didn’t get to see much other than what we saw while driving through. Anchorage
has an air force base – it’s the closest point to Russia and North Korea, so
strategically it is vital in this current political climate (with Trump, Putin
and
Kim Jong-un).
Americans up here refer to mainland America as the ‘Lower 48’ and this
term was used a lot. We went through Wasilla, where Sarah Palin has her house.
She doesn’t live here much now, preferring to live in the ‘lower 48’
apparently!
The bus arrived at Talkeetna, in rain, to get a (covered) jet boat up
the Chulitna River to McKinley Princess Lodge. On the way we saw bald eagles,
and jumping salmon, and trees chewed by beavers.
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| the rock strata is vertical - great upheaval here in times past |
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| a salmon (the two points middle right) trying to get up the rocks. It didn't make it, and had to try again |
The land part of our Alaska tour is actually part of the Princess mob
(same as the ship). We feel that the standard isn’t really up to Scenic’s
standard, but there isn’t much we can do about it. This was borne out
particularly here, because the power was out when we got to the Lodge (and we
knew about it before the jet boat left an hour earlier). No power at all! Just as well the sun sets
later. So, dinner was very ordinary. Instead of the 3-course meal we should
have had, we got a half-hearted BBQ effort with a bit of salad and mashed
potato. We simply couldn’t understand that a big company like Princess wouldn’t
have a back-up generator that would kick in when power fails (and this is the
fifth failure this short season). Amazing!
It is still raining, and we can’t see Denali (Mt McKinley) at all. It is
not too far away and we should have a lovely view of it. Sadly – not!
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