29 July - Friday - Cruise Day 7 - Inside Passage to Vancouver

G'day All,
Well the cruise is almost over and it has been a great adventure. Today was a cruising day en-route to Vancouver so the day was filled with ship activities and repacking. We went to bingo to try and win a seven day cruise for two and the odds were good as there were only 50 in the room but alas it wasn't to be. We tried bingo again later in the day but came up sort again. Penny ducked out to have a look at the towel folding demonstration, where they show you how to fold all the towel animals left in the room after each room service, it was a fun presentation. We caught up with two couples we met on the Rocky Mountaineer; Bill and Dot the Scottish couple and the Kiwi's Mary and Keith, we swapped addresses and had a good laugh before heading our own ways. Penny and I went to the last cruise stage show and they had a couple of very good singers and the show was quite good.

On our way to Vancouver in the morning so it was time to repack. We decided to do the quick exit in the morning and take our own luggage as we have to meet the transfer to Victoria in the morning and didn't want to have any luggage go missing again. This turned out to be a good strategy as there was minimal line up and the pick up for the transfer to Victoria on Vancouver Island was 8:30 am and not 10 am as the transfer voucher indicated, which was good as it meant minimal waiting time for transfers.

Cheers
Gay and Penny

28 July - Thursday - Cruise Day 6 - Ketchikan

G'day All,

We arrived at Ketchikan at around 10 am, we had breakfast before docking and headed into town for some more trinkets and a browse around town. We were told that this was the town for Alaskan carved soap stone, which was something Penny wanted as a memento from Alaska, so soap stone hunting was on the agenda for most of the morning before we had to meet to go on the Cultural Tour at 1 pm. We found a great place for Soap stone called Alaskan Fine Art and found a couple of pieces to bring home. The sculptor / carver (Eddie Lee) was on site and greeted us at the counter, he has been sculpting for over 30 years and is very proud of his work.

Ketchikan harbour and township.

A unique thing in Ketchikan is that the stairs are actually streets.

We caught the bus to the Ketchikan Cultural Centre and received a full history and description of local totem poles and their meaning. Interesting stories and nice to know what the meaning is behind each pole.

Despite what Penny thought this guy is holding a fish in his left hand :-)

From there we visited a re-creation of a typical First Nation village and told about the building construction and village lay out.

First Nation handiwork

Art work on a traditional hut

Main hub for a village

Internal decoration of the main village hut

One of the many totems.

The tour finished up at around 4:30 pm and we set sail again at around 6 pm. Time got away on us and we missed main service for tea so ended up at the pizza bar for tea and had a nice pizza with a refreshing drink (rum and coke). This was our last land stop before we head back to Vancouver on Saturday morning.

Cheers
Gary and Penny