Two Months In North America

6^th July

MP3 Track of the day: Archery – The Young Victoria

Weather - Cloudy with spots of rain

Due to lock out at the hostel at 9am I got up, got ready, and headed out to the ferry terminal. Funnily enough the same lady I met at the bus stop two days ago was also leaving, and so we went to the bus stop together. She got off at the airport (she's a flight attendant and so gets all of her flights free … damn, wish I could) and I stayed on the bus until the bus driver told me that he was at the closest stop to the ferry terminal.

The bus driver gave me directions and I headed off, with my pack, for the 1 ½ to 2 mile walk to the terminal (I still can't believe that there is no public transport). The walk was actually not as bad as I thought, and after 30 minutes I arrived at the terminal hot and a little tired (I awarded myself with a cold can of Pepsi and a Twix for 2 dollars, making it 3 dollars and 50 cents to get here). I picked up my ticket and just waited.

The ferry terminal waiting room was pretty cold but the seating area was okay; there was internet access but you had to pay for it. Speaking of paying for stuff; I checked my average spending amount and it has jumped by £10 … to £62.00 per day! I couldn't believe it but I know where the money had gone; the Trekk America trip had cost me over £300.00 more than I expected and I had taken a flight (£150.00) and about to take a ferry journey (£100.00) all within a week … I need to get this back down if possible, or else I might need to find some work at home or maybe cut my second trip down a little … I needed to get out of Alaska as it's killing my budget. On the plus side though my cost calculations are based on the pound being worth 1.4 dollars and since my trip has started the pound has strengthened to 1.5 (god bless David Cameron)… hopefully my costs are a little high but I doubt it will make that much difference.

In the waiting room there was this American lady who must have been on her mobile for hours (I reckon she opened her phone book at 'a' and just called everyone she knew) and she sounded like she actually didn't want to be in Alaska … the amount of time on her phone reminded me of my mum.

I got on the ferry and found a locker to store my bag (50 cents each time I wanted re-lock the locker … must make sure I only go in when needed) and headed out onto the back of the ship. There is a area on the top deck (called the solarium) with all bar one end being covered; there are heaters and this is where I think I'll be spending the night with my deck chair and my sleeping bag (so I can watch the sun set and see the stars come out … lovely). I sat down and just stared out into the water passage ways; this is a 30 hour trip and at this point I felt like it would have been nice for some company … still can't have everything and I have been chatting to other passengers on the ship.. This place is really beautiful with mountains and islands covered with trees on each side of the water. The water is so calm here that the boat is hardly rocking allowing me to go inside. After a few hours of staring into the abyss the captain announced that there was a whale on the left hand side of the ship, another hump-back, which was lovely to see. After this I headed down to the dining area to have fish and chips plus a chocolate cake all for $12.50 … bargain.

I'm going to go back to the locker and change gear to night stuff (sleeping bag etc) and then head to the top deck with my book and just watch the sun go down … its not a bad life this.

Toodle Pip!

Juneau ... pretty but a little boring

MP3 Track of the day: When we were young - The Killers

Weather: Spitting, it's spitting!

Last night I went to sleep at around 2am and I had to get up at 7:30am so I could be out before lock-out at 9am. Tory (a very good looking Australian woman), John (Another Aussie), Jeff (An American) and Chris (another American) invited me for a hike up mount Roberts. They had also invited me to the Independence Day celebrations (you know, the day the British realised how bad the USA was and decided to leave) last night, but I was quite busy so I didn't make it; therefore I decided to take them up on the offer of the hike and so I headed into town, for breakfast, and then met the group back at the hostel.

The trek was very muddy but beautiful; the mountain is covered in a huge forest with breaks in the trees for views of Juneau and the surrounding area. Once at the top the view wasn't the best as the clouds were low; we spent a little bit off time up there before trying to board the cable car back down. If you catch the cable car at the bottom of the hill it costs $28.00 for a return trip, but if you hike up the mountain you can spend $5.00 in the restaurant / souvenir shop and ride down for free. None of us wanted to spend $5.00 and so we tried to blag ourselves onto the cable car but it wasn't to be ... therefore we went to spend $5.00.

I have never had so much trouble spending $5.00 (£3.50) in my life. The restaurant was closed and so we headed to the souvenir shop which had the tackiest selection of souvenir's ever; in the end it was a toss up between 2 pens with my name on, 20 postcards or an Alaskan coin ... I decided to opt for the coin (which actually cost me $6.25 due to tax ... gurrr) and I had never felt so ripped off in my life (well maybe the £28.00 for the underground train in London at the start of the trip was worse). The other guys bought small stuffed animals, taffy (basically a box of sugar sweets) and a small water bottle. It was a good laugh and when I get home, I will look at the tacky coin souvenir with fond memories.

After this we walked through town but there really wasn't that much to do, Juneau is beautiful but there isn't allot to do in the city. The hostel has a curfew until 5pm and so we killed 3 hours in a coffee shop talking (which was great, getting to know other travellers). At around 4pm we headed to the local grocery store and I bought some snacks for the ferry tomorrow and a frozen curry for tonight's dinner.

Tomorrow I head for the ferry terminal and I'm on the ferry until Thursday; I don't think there is internet on board and so you won't hear from me until Thursday. I'm off to go and cook my curry ... errr .... I mean warm up my curry.

Toodle Pip!

I'm Back!

MP3 track off the day: Open your eyes - Snow Patrol

Weather: Very cloudy and raining

Okay so it's been two weeks since my last real blog; I'm slowly writing up my two weeks with Trekk America and I will post the whole lot up in one big go (currently only done day 1 so it could be a while). The only thing I need to say is that I've had an amazing time and, to add to my previous post, that I've seen Hump-back whales, sea otters and heard a glacier crack and seen parts of it fall into the water ... still more detail will be available soon.

Waking up today I felt better than the previous night (really gutted to say goodbye to the group of friends I had made) and got ready for my trip to Juneau. Today is the 4th July ... Independence Day and a Sunday, therefore I wasn't really looking forward to the 'no bus service' and horrendous taxi costs I was about to incur (if I had thought about it, I would have stayed in Anchorage for another two days and then travelled ... doh!). Still a stroke a luck occurred, when the previous evening at the Anchorage hostel, the owner said that he would give me a lift to the airport for $15.00 (£10.80) and so I took him up on his offer as a taxi would be $25.00 easily.

Arriving at the airport early I stopped in McDonalds for a pancake breakfast before getting on my plane. The journey was pretty uneventful and only lasted about an hour and a half.

Once I arrived at Juneau I could see why they say that Juneau is one of the prettiest state capitals within the USA. The airport was small and a little run down, but there were huge mountains located around the airport and, even though the weather was cloudy and raining, it still looked beautiful. Once out of the airport I had been told that, due to it being Independence Day, there may not be any bus services going from the airport ... However I decided to give it a whirl and I walked 20 minutes away from the airport to the closest bus stop (my plane arrived in Juneau at 2pm and my hostel didn't open until 5pm ... so loads of time to kill).

You won't believe this but Juneau has no bus service, on weekends, to the airport which is 14 miles away. It also has no bus service to the ferry terminal (the closest stop is 1 1/2 miles away) which is 40 miles away ... and these are the only two ways into the capital, how stupid is this?

I got to the local bus stop and met someone else awaiting for a bus ... maybe the buses were running after all. We had a long chat and I found out that she was a air hostess and that she was trying to visit every state capital within the USA (she had already done 23 capitals including Hawaii). She was really nice and we talked and talked until we realised that no bus was going to come to pick us up. Strangely it turned out we were both staying at the same hostel and so we decided to share a taxi (bonus ... instead of costing $26.00, it was $13.00!).

We arrived at the hostel with 40 minutes to spare; as we had our luggage with us we decided just to wait in the covered way outside the hostel. The hostel is lovely; it's owned by a woman and it seems to be apart of her house ... it only costs $10.00 a day which makes it really cheap and helps with the taxi costs. The downside is that you have to do a chore (which only takes 5 minutes so it's not that bad ... especially after cooking, washing-up and van cleaning from the Trekk America tour) and there is a curfew; you have to be out at 9am and cannot return until 5pm. Also you must be in by 11pm.

I unloaded my stuff and went into town to find something to eat; it being Independence Day the first few restaurants were shut ... infact everything was shut except the McDonalds, a beer store and hundreds (and I mean hundreds) of jewelry stores (all located for the tourists which visit via the cruise ships). I found it ironic that I could get drunk, buy hundreds of diamond's and have a BigMac but could not have anything decent to eat. I walked the entire length of the main street and turned around ready to head to McDonalds for tea (great) however, on my way back, I saw a Chinese restaurant and I went in there. I had a massive meal all for $18.00 which I thought was really good (might pop back tomorrow as they do lunch specials).

After this I headed back to the hostel; I might pop out later to see if there are any Independence Day celebrations but I doubt it (it's getting late). Tomorrow the plan is to walk around the city a for a while and just take a few photos.

So today didn't turn out to badly on the old wallet; $28.00 dollars on taxis, $10.00 on accommodation, $23.00 on food equals $61.00 (we shall forget about the $210.00 plane journey for now). I've booked my ferry to Prince Rupert ($141.00) and then there will be another Ferry to book to Vancouver Island ($170.00) ... budget is looking really bad at the moment (need to start camping again!).

Finally; as it's Independence Day here is a link to the greatest speech of all film history ... enjoy!

Toodle Pip