Josh's Travel Blog

The first few days in Talkeetna have been amazing so I decided to do a mini post. So our friend Larry Rivers picked us up from Whittier, we went sightseeing which went something like “See the high rise building over there? …” (the only multi-story building in Whittier), “… that’s the grocery store, the post office,  the Government Building, in fact, all of the shops and accommodation in town”. This ended the scenic tour of Whittierdrove us to Anchorage, then took us to his home in Talkeetna. During the drive, Larry also told me he would give me flying lessons!

The next morning, Sunday, I woke up to go on a flight with Robbie, his daughter, but then after a few hours of being up, I fell back asleep and missed it. Later that afternoon, Larry took me out for my first flight and even gave me the controls for some of it!

Monday morning, Robbie took me out for a fight around the mountains and the river, and we saw a sunken boat in the Talkeetna river. We also went on quads out to their log cabin and spent the day there. There I rode my first ride on, was taught how to be the steerer in a canoe, and went out a few times.

Tuesday morning, we had a gun day, and I started off with a .22 rifle then moved on to an AR-15. That afternoon we went out for a tour of a flower farm on quad bikes (I didn’t go for the flowers) and turned out only a small part was flowers and the rest was a very cool and very massive piece of land.

 

P.S Sorry photo uploading still isn’t working.

There are some photos on https://perkinsonfamily.blogtown.co.nz

 

Sorry, been a bit busy, but here’s the post from the cruise.

Itinerary:

Royal Princess	22-Jun-2019	Vancouver	Canada	07:30 – 16:30
Royal Princess	23-Jun-2019	At Sea	Intl. Waters	00:00-23:59
Royal Princess	24-Jun-2019	Ketchikan (Alaska)	United States	06:30 – 15:00
Royal Princess	25-Jun-2019	Juneau (Alaska)	United States	08:00-21:00
Royal Princess	26-Jun-2019	Skagway (Alaska)	United States	07:00-20:30
Royal Princess	27-Jun-2019	At Sea	Intl. Waters	00:00-23:59
Royal Princess	28-Jun-2019	College Fjord (Alaska)	United States	18:00 – 20:30
Royal Princess	29-Jun-2019	Anchorage (Alaska)	United States	12:30 – 20:30

So we said goodbye to our friends from Vancouver and we were off. We got onto the ship, MS. Royal Princess, which had 19 different levels, 3,600 passengers, 1,500 crew and was 1,083 feet long. We went up to our rooms and sorted our bedrooms and things. The boat took off and we went up on deck, to watch us pass under the Lion’s Gate bridge. We then went out for dinner that night at the Symphony Dining Room, and watched a movie on deck that night. 

The next day was a full day at sea. I met some cool people in the Teen Lounge and I hung out with them a bit over the course of the cruise. We had a scavenger hunt, where to get the next clue, we had to ring the teen centre through phones that were all around the boat. The problem was that they said “Call 911 in case of emergency”, so people around us thought that we were prank calling 911. That was fun. That night for dinner was formal dress and we went out to the same dining room again.

Day 3 we landed in Ketchikan, and it was sunny (which is apparently rare for Ketchikan). It wasn’t that enjoyable of a place to walk around, but there was a street that was actually a river. The houses had been built out over thee river, and it was fittingly called Creek Street.

Day 4 was a bit better day in port, as we met up with some friends in Juneau, Jim and Ruth-ann. They drove us around a bit then took us back to their house. We headed to Mendenhall Glacier for some tourist sightseeing. We went to St Therese’s shrine, then picked up three crabs for lunch and a milkshake each. We went back to the house to hang with them and their two dogs Nano and Emma while having lunch. Jim makes amazing pottery and gave us each a coffee mug. We went on an afternoon walk up the perseverance trail, the oldest road in Alaska. We went to the town centre, got some fudge, and looked at Jim’s pottery in some local shops. That night we had a meal of halibut and salads, then finished off with brownie and ice cream, before being dropped back at the cruise ship that night.

Day 5 was a day in port, at Skagway. We picked up a jeep we hired for Danika’s birthday, and headed towards the Canadian border. On the way, we stopped at a Husky puppy kennel, where we sat and played with the puppies for awhile. After two hours we left and went on our way towards Carcross, and Emerald Lake, our final destination. We made it, took some photos, and headed back to Skagway, and to the Royal Princess. That night the waiters sang Happy Birthday to Danika as she hid under the table. The song they sung became iconic among the cruise passengers, as they would sing “Happy Birthday to you, from the Princess and Crew, Happy Birthday, Happy Birthday, Happy Birthday to you.” Also the more common and slightly different song, “Happy Anniversary to you, from the Princess and Crew…” Which sounded quite interesting.

Day 6 was a day in Glacier Bay National Park, where we cruised through the icy waters, and saw little ice fall from the massive glaciers, which was a bit disappointing. We had a park ranger come aboard and had a live commentary for a good 6 hours or so and then eventually they climbed down the side of the boat on rope ladders onto waiting boats below.

Day 7, we also had another day of glacier viewing, in College Fjord. That was also a pretty disappointing view.

Day 8 we got up and off the ship quite early, to be picked up by Larry Rivers.

Altogether, the cruise was a very relaxing experience, met some really good friends that I’ll hopefully be able to see again, and would definitely recommend it!

 

*photos to come. There are a few photos on

https://perkinsonfamily.blogtown.co.nz

and

https://danikaperkinson.blogtown.co.nz

Hey guys,

We have almost finished our stay at Vancouver, I will be sad to see it go. Tomorrow we will be jumping on the cruise. In Vancouver, the first day we flew in, we were picked up by Jane and Ben Pickles, our friends from Vancouver.

https://www.imdb.com/name/nm6045993/

https://tardis.fandom.com/wiki/Ben_Pickles

Ben does special effects for movies and TV Shows, specifically Doctor Who.

Our first day we went to visit some gardens in Queen Elizabeth park, and there we saw multiple brides getting wedding photos, near a very popular wedding venue.

 

 

 

 

 

 

We then had an AMAZING dinner cooked by Tom Pickles, Jane’s wife and Ben’s dad. We had salmon and three different salads which were all incredible! (especially the potato salad)

The next day we went for a nice walk through the bush in the endowment lands.

We went for a lovely walk around the Vancouver beachfront around Stanley Park. The water was nothing like back home, it was quite brown at the start and then got bluer as we went around. There were sea planes taking off all the time, and all together, we walked more than 20 kms. I jumped down on the beach to walk while everyone else was boring and walked on the concrete pathway above.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We went out to Prospect Point to lookout over the city and had some ice cream at the top. We saw a really cute racoon climb into a rubbish bin, and then came out with his dinner.  We later saw another climbing through the river. From there we saw the famous Lions Gate bridge, looking towards The Lions, the twin peaks in the distance.

That night we had dinner on the beach with some delicious sushi. We also took some Bennett’s Feijoa Chocolate (which our friends politely told us they didn’t want any more of). We also saw some super cute squirrels.

On the way home we had a walk around the University of British Columbia and Museum of Anthropology on the endowment lands.

On Thursday, we took a bus down to Granville Island (which is not actually an island) Markets. We walked around some shops and I bought my first postcard ever. We went into an art gallery full of indigenous art. Because I am so uncultured, I started to video some of the art, to which the curator politely told me to take off my backpack and turn off my camera. From there we walked all the way down false creek towards the World of Science. There was a lot of what we thought was art, and a little island. Dad and I spent a few hours in the World of Science, which we later realised was aimed at a demographic just a tad younger than us. I went on a cool VR flight, where I was a bird flying around New York City.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Dad and I jumped onto a water taxi, where we cruised back up False Creek past all of the places we just walked past.

We met up with the rest of the group who had gone ‘Thrift Shopping’, following a random stranger they met to North Vancouver. We walked to the Cactus Club where we had dinner and watched the sunset.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Friday we went up Grouse Mountain and had some lunch up there, I had pulled pork poutine. We saw some bears up there as well.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We took a chair lift up to the top of the top of the mountain.

I then took an elevator up to the top of a massive wind turbine with a 360º viewing platform and a tourist helicopter flew past.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We took the chairlift back down, then the gondola, then drove back home.

Tom again cooked an incredible dinner – chicken adobo on rice.

The next morning we packed up and got ready to leave Vancouver. We went shopping.

Sad to see Vancouver go, but so happy to jump on the cruise!

Hey guys, I’m sitting at the airport waiting for my flight so I’m going to my first post on here. I decided to do a blog for my first trip out of the country ever. So today, I am flying into Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. We fly out of Auckland Airport at 8:15 pm 18 June (today) and arrive around about 6 hours before we leave on the same day (2pm 18 June). We are staying for a few days in Vancouver with some friends, then jumping on a cruise. The ship’s name is The Royal Princess of Princess Cruises. We spend 7 days on the cruise making our way up to Anchorage. I’ll try to upload as many photos and updates as possible.

Thanks for reading,

Josh