18.7.13

Our Next Adventure - Canada and Alaska

We started planning this trip in March, and it's finally here.  Our friends, Ruhani and Gary, have joined us on this adventure.  After two 10-hour flights (Sydney-Seoul-Seattle) we arrived in Seattle to have one night's stay before flying on to Fairbanks, Alaska.  We had a brief look around Seattle to check out Pike's Market and the area of the Space Needle, and I have to say I'm so impressed with the Seattle transport system.  We stayed out near the airport, and used the light rail to go into the city - cost us $5 for a day ticket which covered all light rail and bus systems around the city.  Although we didn't have a lot of time there, we got an idea of what to have a look at when we return to Seattle in August for 3 days before coming home to Canberra.

The next day we caught an Alaska Airlines flight to Fairbanks - around 4 hours.  We arrived around 10.30pm and contacted Allan, our host at the Downtown Log Cabin, to pick us up and take us to our cottage for the next 2 nights.  He was a great host, and had lots of interesting stories to tell, having moved to Alaska many years ago with his wife, Verna and four kids, to work on the Alaska Pipeline.  They own a couple of properties which they rent out during the summer, and we had rented the Hall House, a two bedroom cottage.  It was very comfy and cosy, and had everything we needed - including lots of supplies to make our own breakfasts over the next two days.  We got ourselves organised, and watched the sun 'set' just after midnight, only to 'rise' about 3 hours later.  Very strange, trying to sleep in daylight - even after 24 hours of flying time. 

Trevor and Gary had booked a trip to the Arctic Circle the following day, while Ruhani and I were left to our own devices.  They were picked up around 7.00am, and Ruhani and I had a chat with Allan who suggested a walk into town along the Chena Riverbank, have a look at the Fairbanks Visitor Centre and grab some lunch, then he would drive us out to the Riverboat Discovery Tour.

The Visitor Centre was very good, with excellent displays of Alaskan Native culture, and information on the Alaska Pipeline and Mt McKinley (Denali).  We had lunch at the local 'Diner", which was not great - I ordered eggs benedict, and they came out covered in lumpy yellow sauce which was not terribly appetising and looked awful - you win some, you lose some.

We headed back to our cottage and Allan drove us out to the Riverboat Discovery Tour.  This was excellent - well done, well organised, and the young people (mostly students, and many of them Athabascan Indians) were very knowledgeable about their culture and history.  The paddle steamer took us down the Chena River past many amazing and some 'creative' homes, log cabins and mansions.  We stopped at the Dog Mushing property of Susan Butcher, four-time winner of the gruelling Iditarod Dog Sled Race.  We watched a demonstration of the dogs pulling a quad bike, and they were just amazing - they were so excited and keen to get going, they were nearly jumping out of their skins.

Next, we paddled up to where the glacial river, the Tanana, meets the non-glacial Chena River - it was quite obvious where the silt-filled glacial river met the Chena - two totally different colours and temperatures.  On the banks of the river were fish traps - large contraptions which scooped up fish and dumped them into a central bucket.   

We stopped at an Athabascan Native Village, with presentations by some of the young students about their way of life as nomadic indians who have now adapted to a more western style of life while still keeping their own identity.  The skins of wolves, wolverines, arctic and red fox, muskrat, beaver, and bears were on display, as well as salmon drying and smoking huts.  We returned to the Riverboat Discovery centre and had our photos taken in the '40 degrees below' room.  Quite chilly!

Ruhani and I finished the day by having dinner at 'Big Daddy's BBQ' then returned to our cottage to find that Trev and Gary were home after their big day out at the Arctic Circle.  So Trev has crossed that off his bucket list now.  Next morning, Allan drove Trev and Gary out to the airport to pick up a car rental.  Trev gets to drive on the wrong side of the road again!

We did a bit of shopping at Walmart, had lunch (a very good Thai meal) then headed out to Chena Hot Springs, about 60 miles away.  It was a lovely drive, and we had our first moose spotting on the way out there.  Chena Hot Springs Resort was lovely, with plenty of activities available, but unfortunately we got out there a little late to do many of them.  But we did have a dip in the very hot springs - lovely.  Headed back, moved to our new Hotel, the Wedgewood Resort, did a bit more shopping at Fred Meyer - where you can buy your guns along with groceries, then dropped the car off at the airport and returned to Wedgewood for the next part of our trip - the start of the land portion of our Royal Caribbean Cruisetour.

1 comment:

Emilio Fernandez said...

Good morning how are you?

My name is Emilio, I am a Spanish boy and I live in a town near to Madrid. I am a very interested person in knowing things so different as the culture, the way of life of the inhabitants of our planet, the fauna, the flora, and the landscapes of all the countries of the world etc. in summary, I am a person that enjoys traveling, learning and respecting people's diversity from all over the world.

I would love to travel and meet in person all the aspects above mentioned, but unfortunately as this is very expensive and my purchasing power is quite small, so I devised a way to travel with the imagination in every corner of our planet. A few years ago I started a collection of used stamps because trough them, you can see pictures about fauna, flora, monuments, landscapes etc. from all the countries. As every day is more and more difficult to get stamps, some years ago I started a new collection in order to get traditional letters addressed to me in which my goal was to get at least 1 letter from each country in the world. This modest goal is feasible to reach in the most part of countries, but unfortunately it’s impossible to achieve in other various territories for several reasons, either because they are countries at war, either because they are countries with extreme poverty or because for whatever reason the postal system is not functioning properly.

For all this I would ask you one small favor:
Would you be so kind as to send me a letter by traditional mail from Australia? I understand perfectly that you think that your blog is not the appropriate place to ask this, and even, is very probably that you ignore my letter, but I would call your attention to the difficulty involved in getting a letter from that country, and also I don’t know anyone neither where to write in Australia in order to increase my collection. a letter for me is like a little souvenir, like if I have had visited that territory with my imagination and at same time, the arrival of the letters from a country is a sign of peace and normality and an original way to promote a country in the world. My postal address is the following one:

Emilio Fernandez Esteban
Avenida Juan de la Cierva, 44
28902 Getafe (Madrid)
Spain

If you wish, you can visit my blog www.cartasenmibuzon.blogspot.com where you can see the pictures of all the letters that I have received from whole World.

Finally I would like to thank the attention given to this letter, and whether you can help me or not, I send my best wishes for peace, health and happiness for you, your family and all your dear beings.

Yours Sincerely

Emilio Fernandez