Caught up with good friend Alex at Rain City Grill English Bay. Great food with such fresh local produce. The evening went so quickly and it reinforced how much I have missed her. Alex always makes a difference to everyone around her. Enjoyed hearing about her new role and the opportunity it brings for her to make a difference on road safety. Hard to believe her 2 boys are now 7 & 5. It only seemed like yesterday Kirsten and I visited her in Sydney after the...

Really warm day here in Vancouver. It is 25 degrees C and we had planned for the forecast of 17 C. It was an easy check in to the Pan Pacific which is right at the end of the cruise terminal. Very helpful and friendly. However our room was not ready until 2pm so we explored Gastown ( the original part of the city) and the trendy Yaletown. Kirsten remembered visiting Gastown and the Arena where she went to watch a game of Ice Hockey last time she was here. We rem...

Spent day at sea today as we entered British Columbia on our way to Vancouver. Relaxing and lazing around with no rushing to keep a time schedule or fixed activities. Each of us caught up on our reading. Michael finished the book Toys by Janes Patterson, Jacki finished Don Watson's book American Journeys and Kirsten is into the second book in the 50 Shades of Grey series. We will have to pack shortly so we can leave our bags out for collection tonight. As we c...

Last port as we get into Ketchikan at 10am. It is the warmest and sunniest day we have encountered on our holiday. We walked around the town that grew from logging and timber mills until this was stopped for environmental reasons. We were able to have short sleeved shirts and no parkas or layers today. We saw more totem poles than we have seen anywhere else in Alaska. Midday we met our tour guide to go snorkelling at Mountain Point. Strange going snorkelling wh...

Sailed into Juneau around 5.30am this morning. It is Alaska's capital although their Congress building just looks like a large office block , awarded the least impressive looking legislature building in America! It was described to us as being this way so it doesn't detract from the local beauty of the environment. The population is around 30000 people living mainly in the valleys. Juneau was founded in 1870 . It grew to be one of the hubs of large scale mining a...