May 16, 2015 – Grey Nomads Travel and Cruise

Today is a transit day. We are realising that the boarding of our ship is not too far away now. The Coral Princess holds 1950 passengers and collects them at Wittier to cruise down to Vancouver. Those 1950 passengers are all touring around Alaska at the moment. They are staying at Princess Cruises properties for a week before boarding. The Coral Princess is currently en route to Wittier with 1950 passengers on board. They will take our place and start touring Alaska when we board the ship. Now, all these passengers have to be carted around Alaska. Each motor coach carries about 50 people. That means at least 37 coaches are involved right now transporting people around Alaska, going to the 4 major destinations that Princess Cruise passengers visit. Almost all of the drivers, baggage handlers, day tour hosts, hotel hosts, souvenir shop assistants, waiters, cooks, hosts at various tourism providers, are employed from southern states just for the summer when there is no freezing conditions, maybe for just 4 months. What a mammoth task, just so we can see parts of Alaska; and we are only one tour group within Princess Cruises. There is also Holland America Lines, Celebrity, Carnival and others.

The young female driver we had, did a splendid job of transferring us to Denali. She has come up for the last 3 vacations and got her motor coach licence after a vacation working in the office and claims to have driven Fairbanks to Denali, “hundreds of times” already. We arrived around 45 minutes early just prior to mid day and were able to make a booking for tonight’s “The Music of Denali” show where the waiters and waitresses become the singers/performers of the show. The meal was real country style food. The show was a bit ‘twangy’ for me although Lyn enjoyed it.(I had two naps during it). We sat with a bunch of Texans that were quick to employ their southern humour. Also, we have met up with a couple from Sydney who are travelling for 90 days. They are celebrating the soon-to-be commencement of retirement. It’s was quite interesting coming out of an evening show with the sun still up, knowing that it won’t go down for another 2 hours or more.

A tour of the Denali National Park is on our plans for tomorrow morning. We have booked a helicopter flight to Mt McKinley in the afternoon. The weather promises blue skies so we will accept that as a sign that it is ‘going to be a good day’ indeed. Lyn will be firing away on the still camera while hopefully I can get the front seat to grab some great video.

I need to mention that the word I was wanting to use in the last post for frozen ground is ‘permafrost’. The ground is so cold that the oil pipeline couldn’t be laid in it, and the possibility of earthquake could shatter the pipes. The whole pipeline ‘rides’ on a cushion of rubber to withstand any earthquake of over 8 on the richter scale.

Now for today and what a glorious day it is too. Blue skies, no wind and a little warmth.

After a quick continental breakfast (not as good as a normal Scenic Tours breakfast), we filed into a ‘motor coach’ for a short transfer to a wharf where a paddle steamer was waiting to carry over 500 guests on a cruise up the Chena River. There were many surprises coming our way. The Discovery III is a 4 level old style paddle steamer that takes tourists on an adventure and an education of things that happen in Alaska. Available on boarding was free coffee and blueberry donuts.

After a U-Turn, we ventured downstream for just a short while and to stop and have an interview and demonstration from a sea plane pilot. The sea plane took off from the river in a very short distance to get into the air and fly over us and land again in the river. The pilot was a well known Alaskan and the interview with him was innovative and informative. At the main Fairbanks Airport, there are two parallel runways, between which is water for sea planes to land and take off. The sea plane is a major form of transport for many of the residents in the frontier of Alaska. The number of lakes is enormous.

While travelling further downstream, various houses of famous Alaskans are pointed out with some of the residents coming out of their homes and waving to us as we sail on by; politicians, sports people and just well known persons of the area. We were a moving audience floating past different stages. The Discovery III sails on towards a sled dog property. This is the property of a girl who won the marathon dog sled race 4 times before she was diagnosed with leukaemia. Her husband was there to be interviewed about the dogs that we could see very active in their kennels as well as about his wife’s achievements. He then gave us a demonstration of the power of 8 dogs pulling his 4 wheel bike around the property. As each dog was released from their harness, they rushed to the river to cool down as if it was their reward.

Downstream further, we come to another site. We disembark and walk around, listening to talks about the way the local Eskimos make clothing and prepare smoked salmon. Moving 500 people through the various little theatres was so well accomplished without a hitch. This is not the place for animal liberationists as animal skins form a major part of the clothing of the people. It was interesting to learn that the hair of the animals are filled with air and the animals’ temperature warms the hair and becomes insulation for the animal. This also enables the animal to be buoyant if they need to cross a river.

Coming back to our departure point, we were treated to a snack of family made salmon dip. We didn’t try it. I am a hater of fish and seafood and the smell nearly makes me &%^&*(%$. On arrival back at base, we file 500 of us at once, into a large dining room and are served a 3 course buffet meal. All done without waiting. An achievement indeed.

Of course, the common gift shop is just outside the exit doors of the restaurant where they also have a room to experience -40F. We tried it and within a few short minutes, the clothes became very cold – why would anyone live in that temperature for 6-8 months of the year?

Our afternoon is a visit out of town to the Gold Dredge 8 site for a gold panning experience. After a talk about the oil pipeline that goes through the property, a train took us to a large 64 bucket gold dredger for an informative talk about the methods used here for gleaning gold from the ground. We were then taken to a large area where we were each given a sack of dirt to experience panning for gold. Each participant was guaranteed to find gold in their sack of dirt. At the completion of the panning, our ‘find’ amounted to just $14 worth of gold, which Lyn had put into a little fridge magnet. So don’t go stealing from our fridge if you ever come to our house.

Some of the fellow tourists have been very friendly and want to know more about Australia. Some have it on their bucket-list so we may see them again one day. It’s interesting here that you normally pay for your meal as you finish rather than having it charged up to your room account. I suppose that’s to enable the ‘American tip’ to happen for the table servers.

Friday, we are off to Denali Park where wild life is supposed to abound. I hope you come along with us.