We decided to have breakfast in the dining room to try it out.
We were seated at a table with others - a Mark Steyn supporter (The Steyn group are a conservative group that don’t support climate change, this lady was also a Trump supporter!!!) the others at the table were from Sydney who had far more in common with us.
After breakfast we prepared to go ashore once we docked in Ketchikan.
We went ashore in plenty of time before our excursion so we looked around the area
Checked out a few shops, picked up our free charm bracelet and charm.
We were transported by bus for our shore excursion to the rainforest, on one of the roads along the shore.
First of all we went on a walk through the forest. Our guide Ben was excellent, pointing out the plants and trees along the way
Including the skunk cabbage that the bears like to eat
There are obviously bears around as we came across some bear scat
We did see a couple of black bears down by the stream later on
Ben covered so much information about the plants and life in the forest - too much to include here but I did take notes and photos. The hollow under this tree is an example of where the bears torpor.
At the end of the walk we came out onto the stream to the salmon ladder where we saw the bear
We walked along beside the salmon ladder and into the old sawmill where there was a museum of historic sawmilling processes and machinery.
And where a totem was being carved
We spotted otters down below the window at the mill
Next we went through into the wildlife sanctuary where we were given an explanation about the birds they have in the sanctuary, which included a bald eagle with a damaged wing
Last item on our excursion was to see examples of totems of which there were many
We were then taken back to town by bus
Our first mission when we got back was to find somewhere that had wifi. We eventually found a great pub where we had a drink and a quick catch up on some internet
Our next mission was to find the Salmon Ladder that Ketchikan is well known for. We wandered along beside the creek that the salmon were swimming up. It was pretty smelly as there were a lot of dead salmon but we did see a lot of salmon swimming upstream
We walked back through the bush to the Creek Street shops in the historic buildings
We did a quick shop before having to head back to the ship before it sailed at 5:30
Great view of the pretty buildings on the waterfront as we sailed away
There was another wildlife spotting up on deck to see bald eagles. We did manage to see some but obviously a long way off in the trees.
We were also treated to another pretty sunset, especially with the clouds
After dinner we dressed up and went along to the Orange party.
Band was superb, hence we stayed longer than intended
It was almost midnight when we got to bed as the clocks were put back an hour
Not too tired to be impressed by our towel creation on the bed
No comments:
Post a Comment