Ketchikan, Alaska.

Our first stop on the cruise was the town of Ketchikan...beware, lots of photos to follow :-)!

We woke to find that the ship had docked while we were still asleep...the view from our cabin. It felt so surreal. After 1 1/2 days sailing, we were in Alaska...all misty, with the air so fresh and clean and it was so eerily quiet as we looked out.

The view from the other side...

 Standing on the wharf...it was a mite chilly.

 I wanted a photo taken near one of the many big pots of petunias that dotted the wooden sidewalks.

We wandered along the streets...a tribute to miners...

 Everywhere, signs proclaimed Ketchikan as the 'salmon Capital of the World'; including this big arch!

 Looking back towards the wharf...

 Looking along the appropriately named Dock St.

 We wandered past shops selling souvenirs, jewellery and a number of stores selling clothing made from fur, including... ahem...fur underwear!

 I declined the offer to have a closer look at these items...we walked on!
An old wooden church...

 We saw an arcade and decided to walk through...DH found a bear.

 At the end of the arcade was a Taxidermist's shop. He had samples of his work on display...

 We were working our way to the large totem pole pictured in this next photo. Apparently just beyond this totem pole was a shop called The Hive...a yarn shop.

 While the others checked out a bookstore I browsed the yarn shop shelves which had brands we see in Australia such as Noro...the lady working in the store directed me to a shelf of hand dyed in Alaska yarns...that was what I was interested in.

I bought 3 skeins...two as gifts for friends and those 2 have already been given away. I was thrilled with my purchases as the yarn is gorgeous. 

Next stop for all of us was the museum.

Naturally I had to stop an admire more potted colour which was outside the museum!

Just a few photos of some of the exhibits. Totems from the local area...

A lovely old cot quilt in crazy patchwork...

There was a large historical display of the local fishing industry and I loved the motto from the old cannery; ' We eat what we can, and can what we can't'.

After our visit to the museum, we went for a walk along the wooden boardwalk along and over the creek which flows through the town. It was rather exciting as we could see salmon in the creek.

Then we noticed that some of the fish were dead. Some were in the water and others were left high and dry on the banks of the creek.

I found out later that the dead salmon are a natural part of the cycle...they swim upstream to spawn and then after that, they will die. But look what swimming upstream entails...

After a while at this first stop in Alaska, we started to piece together the major elements of the history of the area...gold mining, fishing, timber felling, lots of men living a tough life...lots of drinking and the inevitable 'red light district'. Yep! A lot of the history of Ketchikan concerned some of the women who ran these houses...it would seem some became quite rich and reasonably powerful. Along the boardwalk were the old brothels, now shops etc.

More views from the boardwalk...

 We saw a funicular but it wasn't running...

Now making our way around to the waterfront again...

It was time to board our ship again...

 The Coral Princess was moored behind us...

And the Volendam was in port also...

Later, as our ship was leaving port, DH took some photos...

And that was our first taste of Alaska.

A quick overview...

I'm back! I'm back home in Brisbane and I'm back in Blogland after a little break. 

I know some of you have been waiting to see photos from our Alaskan cruise, so in this post I will just quickly give an overview of some of the places we visited. I plan to do more detailed posts as DH and I go through all the photos we have on our SD cards...it's a few! 

Boarding the cruise ship...

The first and second days were sea days...just sailing along.

The next day was our first stop...Ketchikan. There were 3 other cruise ships moored at the same time as ours...so lots of tourists descending on this town...

The next day we stopped for the morning at the town of Juneau...

The next photo shows some of the buses parked ready to take people from the cruise ships on excursions to the local attractions. We had chosen not to pre book for any of these, instead opting to get a shuttle bus into the town from the dock and 'do our own thing'. Ironically a number of excursions had been cancelled due to the weather.

Yep! It was raining. The girls and I went up in the Mt Roberts Tramway...it was a bit windy and the 'car' blew around a bit as we neared the top.

That afternoon turned out to be wonderful. The itinerary for the cruise was to sail the ship into an area of glaciation. The weather caused a change of plan as there was a storm in the planned area. But the Captain took us to another area. I will write a post just on the glacier/s but will share a few photos now.

Mid afternoon, I looked out of our cabin and saw blocks of ice floating by...

As we continued sailing we noticed the floes had become larger...

It was getting colder too so I gave the family a laugh when I got my hat and scarf out of my suitcase...I hadn't needed these items before this on the holiday!

Eventually I got my gloves out too...the family may have laughed...but I was at last warm! 

The first glacier we saw...

A glacier meets the sea...

The next day the ship docked at Skagway...another charming town. The next photo is at the dock...not the charming town.

It was rather windy at the dock...and cold!

The township was a 10 minute walk away or you could take the shuttle; we did the latter. We were delighted to find that it wasn't windy in the town and we walked around there for a few hours.

We even found an old steam engine near the town hall building.

Luckily, it wasn't part of the train we would catch that afternoon. But more about that in a later post. 

So that's just a short introduction to the 3 Alaskan towns we visited.