Adventuring
Two days in Vancouver prior to cruise and catching up with friends and one business meeting for Mark.
Stunning weather. We are staying in beautiful Port Moody on the Burrard Inlet. Caught up with Marg and Neil this morning and admired her progress and the new below knee prosthesis (osseointegration surgery) which has revolutionized her life. Wow.
A nice little trip up the coast today from Seattle to Vancouver. The early part of the trip reminded me of the drive up the Thames Coast of NZ..close to cliff edge, land either side of water, random fishing boats, beach walkers, flotsam and jetsam, driftwood and houses hugging the hills. Lots of trees but no pohutukawa!
Seattle boomed as a town with the Klondike Stampede and people stocked up here before they headed to the Yukon to find gold. Few had struck it rich when the rush ended 1899, but a rich history remains and is visible. Lots of stories and memorablia.
Spent most of the day in transit..SF to Seattle. Waiting in the airport, waiting on the runway and waiting to land! Very dry in CA, a historical drought, and certainly very brown from the air. Quite a contrast to the “Evergreen State” of Washington.
27 ° on arrival and a nice view down the street to the waterfront from our hotel door. More on that later! We have a room on the 29th floor out over the city and part of Puget Sound.
Sunny afternoon today – staying at a hotel overlooking San Francisco Bay. Nice view to the airport over the pretty little Anza lagoon and able to watch lots of planes coming in to land and queuing to leave. Enjoyed a stroll along the foreshore this afternoon in a very brisk wind. The notorious fog rolled in and out for most of the afternoon over the city way!
We are spending a few days in Seattle and Vancouver before joining a cruise along the Alaskan Inside Passage and then up to Seward and Kenai Fjords (South Central Alaska), then to Anchorage and on into Denali National Park (Alaskan Interior).
A shortish trip and hopefully not too cold up amongst the glaciers!
August 2016. Just a short trip to Townsville (via Cairns and Mission Beach) to see Chris and Ellen, living just below Castle Hill. They run up to the top as part of their boot camp training! We drove to the top for great views out to Magnetic Island where we spent a few days with them.
Townsville is a coastal city in northeastern Queensland, Australia. Pleasant enough with some nice restaurants and places to wander.We enjoyed walking along The Strand esplanade in the wind. The Reef HQ Aquarium has marine life and coral from the Great Barrier Reef, plus a sea turtle hospital- an interesting tour.
So great seeing the London crew- the main highlight.
It has very interesting to see Cambodia and Vietnam and we have met some wonderful people along the way – both the friendly and gracious Cambodians and Vietnamese and our tour mates.
The highlights on tour
*Angkor Wat
*Sailing on the Mekong
*Some new food tastes
*The markets
Mark says next holiday is resort style and doing nothing.
Short but successful visit this afternoon to Ben Thanh Market – lively and very busy and everything for sale. Did a bit of bargaining.
The city is crowded with motorcycles – 40 million they say. We did well to avoid them going every which way and navigated our way through busy intersections. The traffic does not stop.