My last couple of excursions...

It's my last week here, and in the past few days my aunt has still been cramming in plenty of things to do! The day after my day at the dog kennels, we took a train and boat tour. Firstly, we took a train, leaving Anchorage at 7am, to Seward - a coastal town which almost reminded me of home. The train trip itself was 4 hours long and not your average boring train journey - it was more of a touristic trip; it was a pretty luxurious train, with a snack bar and a dining car serving posh food, and on the trip there was a kind of commentary on the scenery. And the scenery included glaciers, gorges, rivers...

As well as moose!

When we got to Seward, we went straight to the docks where we boarded the boat for a trip out to Fox Island, a small island nearby, where we ate lunch (Alaskan salmon, yum), and then came back with a tour of the bay. Here's a photo of me and the boat out at Fox Island:

The whole thing was about 6 hours long, and I must admit I did start feeling a little bit seasick near the end - the boat was reeeeally rocky. I did see puffins, sea otters, sea lions, and... a humpback whale, which is a rare sight so I was pretty lucky!



The train journey was pretty much the same on the way back, but with some spectacular sunsets as it approached midnight:

The next day, we got up bright and early (again...) to leave for another camping trip! This time it was just Fran and I, and we were driving up to Denali National Park, which was only a 5 hour drive - a short drive compared to what I've been getting used to out here! We camped there the night, this was our little camp:

And the next day we took another touristy trip, this time an 8 hour bus tour of the park on this cuuuute bus:

The roads were those narrow ones that twist around the mountain, when you look out the window you’re so close to the edge you cant see the road, just the drop. It didn’t help my nerves when people kept seeing moose or bears in the gorge down below, and every single person on the bus ran to the side nearest the edge… It was difficult to get the right angle but you can kind of get the idea from this photograph:

And this picture pretty much summarises the quality of the road:

The weather was pretty crappy so we didn't see much wildlife, apart from an awesome grizzly bear and a few herds of caribou, but they were too far away to photograph - probably a good thing with the grizzly though. But the scenery was still amazing, and just to prove it IS cold here even though it's supposedly summer:

So don't listen to the online weather reports which somehow suggest its not that much cooler than England. It's not! Summer is already over, its already autumn here, and the first snowstorms should be expected in a month.

Fortunately, I'm coming home before then - I'll be arriving back in England on Saturday morning! Yay! I'm getting pretty homesick! And I reeeeeeally miss my doggies!

(Although it will be weird when I come home and all the shops, lodges, hotels and bars don't have antlers all over them for decoration. This is a typical one, it's a cafe/gift shop but they all have them - this one has 8.)

Not long now and I'll be back ...as Annie Lennox said: it's alright, baby's coming back! :-D