MONDAY SEPTEMBER 14, 2009
Right and below:After our 3 day Dalton Highway adventure we headed back to "civilization" at Fairbanks, namely the town of North Pole. I'm sure you all know who lives at North Pole. We went to Santa's House, but as you can see from the photo on the right, Aiden was keeping Santa's seat warm for him, while he was taking a holiday before the mad Christmas rush began.
Look at this cool swing we found at Pioneer Park, Fairbanks. Here I am having a swing on the reindeer antlers. The swing was way up high for me.
TUESDAY SEPTEMBER 15, 2009
The next morning we spent on the Eldorado Gold Mine Tour near Fairbanks, which started with
a steam train ride. This whole area was a gold rush area in the early 1900's and a little gold can still be found around these parts.
Right and below:
On the tour, the owner of the property showed us how to pan for gold the old fashioned way.
Then we all had a go at panning for gold. We ended up with about $47 US all in little specks - and we got to keep it!
WEDNESDAY SEPTEMBER 15, 2009 We parked our RV at a campsite about 27 km into Denali National Park - that's as far into the park as you can camp with a vehicle. If you want to see more of the park you either hike in or take a converted school shuttle bus. The National park has planned it this way so the wildlife aren't disturbed too much by so many visitors. As you can see by the following photos we saw plenty of wildlife, so the National Parks plan is working. These photos only show one type of animal, but we saw many more of the same, as well as a lynx, an owl and a hare on the 11 hour return bus ride through the park.
Above: This was our first sighting of a real moose, not like the one at Pioneer Park in Fairbanks.
Left: A golden eagle.
Left: A golden eagle.
A mother grizzly and her cub looking for lunch.
These animals are called Dall Sheep, although they really look like some sort of goat, especially as they love walking around on rocky hillsides, just like goats do.
For more information this type of sheep go to:
A herd of caribou relaxing. Caribous are reindeers, except they are called caribou when they are wild and reindeers when they are domesticated.
Here is the converted school bus I was telling you about that we travelled on through Denali National Park. The original school buses, used all over North America, are bright yellow. When they need to stop to pick up, or drop off, school children, flashing lights and a little stop sign pops out the drivers side window to tell the other drivers that they need to stop and wait for the children to get safely onto the footpaths.
THURSDAY SEPTEMBER 17, 2009
Mount McKinley is another reason why this area was declared a National Park. Mt McKinley is the highest mountain in North America at 6,194 m above sea level. That makes it nearly 3 times taller than Australia's highest mountain, Mt Kosciusko.
You too can become a Junior Ranger just like Aiden and receive a certificate and a badge. All you need to do is fill in an activity book for your age while travelling around and exploring Denali National Park.
Denali National Park has a dog mushing kennel. Park rangers have a 30 min demonstration on this traditional way of travelling over all the snow and ice found during the Alaskan winters. Mrs Cooke and Aiden are pretending to mush with these Alaskan Huskies.
FRIDAY SEPTEMBER 18, 2009
Our one day visit to Anchorage, one of the larger cities in Alaska, saw us discover some interesting sights, like the grass covered log cabin that is the visitor information centre. A lot of similar cabins were found around this area in the early days of Alaska.
A hot dog stand with a difference, in downtown Anchorage. Reindeers are farmed for this rather sweet tasting meat.
Totem Poles , like this one found in Anchorage, were common amongst the North American natives. They were carved from large tree trunks and used for many reasons, including tombstones, signposts or like our billboards of today. They tell true stories from the past or legends.
This is a statue of Captain James Cook looking out over Cook Inlet, Anchorage. In 1778 Cooks third expedition took him on a mission to find a northwest passage from Europe to the Orient (Asia), across the top of North America. This is when Cook sailed along the Alaskan coast. Cook didn't find the northwest passage, instead travelled south west for the winter to Hawaii, where he died a few months later.
The Inside Passage (along the Canadian and Alaskan coast from Vancouver to Anchorage) is a very popular cruise ship route. This photo was taken from the fishing port of Seward as the cruise ship was setting off into the sunset.
SATURDAY SEPTEMBER 19, 2009
Seward has a fantastic playground. The whole community helped to pay for and construct and paint this large playground. This fire truck was only a small part of this large area.
This 4 km tunnel (called the Anton Anderson Memorial Tunnel) was a train tunnel, but is now also used by vehicles. It is only one way so it's only opened for 15 mins and then closed for half an hour before it's opened again on that same side. You have to make sure of opening and closing times so you don't miss the ferry on the other side (Whittier), like we almost did. There are a lot of rules when using the tunnel like the speed limit is only 40 km and you have to stay 50 m away from the car in front.
This is the pretty little fishing village of Whittier on the other side of the tunnel. It was a beautiful sunny day on this side of the tunnel, not like the foggy weather we had on the other side of the 4 km tunnel. Notice another cruise ship docked in the port.
While we were waiting for our ferry we watched a helicopter practise some rescue techniques in Whittier harbour.
Mr Cooke waiting for our ferry, that you can see in the background, in Whittier.
Getting onto the ferry with our RV. This ferry carries vehicles underneath and passengers on the top 2 decks. We used this ferry for our 6 hour trip from Whittier to Valdez (which is the sea port where the Trans Alaska oil pipeline finishes). These types of ferries are used on what are called the Alaska Marine Highway systems. The waterways along the Alaskan coast are used as highways because the coastline is too mountainous and too icy (with glaciers) and snow to build roads.
The next 4 photos show some of the many glaciers and icebergs we saw from the ferry.Our ferry had to navigate through lots of icebergs, that have broken off the glaciers closer to the water. When you see the top of an iceberg, you are only seeing a little bit of it. Most of it is still under the water. When we got home we made some "icebergs" (plastic bucket of frozen water) and put it into our bath, then we could really see how much of the "iceberg" was under the water.
Apart from lots of glaciers and icebergs we also saw lots of seals who love these icy waters.
MONDAY SEPTEMBER 21, 2009
On our trip home we stopped at the town of Watson Lake to stretch our legs. We found this old playground with this merry-go-round thing. Mrs Cooke remembered playing on one of these when she was a young girl. I don't think they exist in Australia anymore. Have any of you seen these in any of the playgrounds you play in?
The small town of Watson Lake is famous for it's Signpost Forest. This is a large area where people from all over the world have put a sign from th plce that they come from. We didn't have time to go through all the signs but we did manage to spot a few from different parts of Australia. It started when one man put up a sign from his home town, and at lst count there were 62,000 signs - but that was over a year ago Can't even imagine how many there are now.
The next 3 photos show just a few of the many black bears and bison (which are sometimes also called buffalo here) that we came across on a small stretch of the Alaska Highway. We thought we'd seen all the wildlife we could on this journey until we stumbled upon all these beautiful creatures. They were just strolling casually along the highway scratching around for food.
After a long drive, it was great to find this place. Liard Hot Springs can be found in northern British Columbia where 2 pools of natural hot water (ranging from 42 - 52 degrees C) can be found in a natural setting. Apparently moose often stroll around and eat the plants around the springs, but we arrived fairly late to see any wildlife here.
WEDNESDAY SEPTEMBER 23, 2009
These are oil rigs that can be found on farming properties all over the provence of Alberta. Alberta's economy relies on oil. The capital city of Alberta (Edmonton) has a national hockey team called "The Oilers".
WEDNESDAY SEPTEMBER 30, 2009
The last days of September saw us all back home where we bought some ice skates so we could start practising for the coming winter season. Here I am trying my ice skates for the first time. It's a lot slipperier than it looks. Hopefully with lots of practise I'll be able to skate around soon without falling over too many times.
Living on our three and a half acre block, one of our favourite things to do is to go "quadding" all over it. Mrs Cooke thinks it's great becasue she has never lived on acerage before.
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