Sadly, we are on our way back to Vancouver.

All good things must come to an end and we only have one more night before we disembark in Vancouver tomorrow morning.

Despite the weather we have enjoyed the cruise and seen lots of things that we will remember for a long time. Our last stop was in Ketchikan and once again our ship towers over the town. We see other cruise ships along the way as it is very busy during the Alaskan cruising season which only runs from May to September. Other times it is too cold and icy.

The crew have been magic and it was topped off at lunch yesterday (See photo) when they gathered around to sing a wedding song for us to help celebrate our marriage. It was quite moving but a lot of fun.

Every evening our cabin steward would leave a chocolate and a animal arrangement shaped from a towel on our bed. It was fun guessing what animal would be next.

We have met a lot of nice and interesting people who enjoy traveling like we do and we have had a lot of laughs. I would say that at least 95% of people that we have met have been great to talk to and are very interested in Australia.

Tomorrow when we leave Vancouver we will be flying back to LA to catch our flight back to Australia. After 6 weeks on the road we are looking forward to catching up with family and friends and we want to thank everyone who has followed our journey and who have sent us comments of support for the blog and congratulations on our wedding.

We counted 18 floatplanes lined up along the town of

Ketchikan.

Parked in the main street again...

The view of Ketchikan in the mist from our balcony.

Our waiters singing to celebrate our wedding.

Our cabin steward surprised us every night with a

animal arrangement like this made using towels.

Kerry found another furry friend...

Glaciers, Rain, Whales & more rain! (That's Alaska)

Our excitement on entering Glacier Bay was tempered by the fact that the rain had followed us from Skagway. We were excited at the prospect of seeing our first glacier from the ship but it would have been much better had the sun been out.

Our ship got a lot closer than we thought it would and we found the best viewing was from our balcony as there was no glass to hinder the photo's. The ship floated around for about 20 minutes then did a 360 degree turn so everyone could get a look before it headed back down Glacier Bay.

We kept an eye out for wildlife on the shores but didn't see anything but we managed to see whales again before we hit the main straight.

Overnight we headed back down south and tomorrow we will dock in Ketchikan for a six hour stay.

The Margerie Glacier

The ship gets pretty close to the glacier...

Our train trip up to Whites Pass at Skagway.

This train snow plough was actually used until recent years

to clear snow off the train tracks. It had a steam engine

driving the blades which spun the snow off to the side of

the tracks. It was pushed by another steam engine.

One of the old buildings in Skagway.

kerry loves her bears!

Near the Johns Hopkins Glacier (It was very cold!)

You have to wake this horse up to get a ride...

Our ship parked in town... Where is the parking meter?

Finally, a whale saying goodbye as we left Glacier Bay.

Alaska - The journey continues!

We feel lucky that having picked our cruise ship over the internet that it could not have been better for us.

The crew are so friendly and happy and they cannot do enough for us. The food is divine and we have so many choices to pick from (Big diets coming up). We have a choice of restaurants, some we have to pre-book and others are very casual depending on the mood. As an example we had a four course lunch today which was divine. We tend not to eat between meals even though the crew do their best to tempt us with coffee's and cake etc. We generally eat at 8PM in one of the more formal restaurants.

Its a sight to see the military precision with which all shore excursions are done once we are in port. The options for shore excursions are numerous depending on one's interest. As an example, in Skagway we went up to White's Pass by train to see how the gold diggers made their way over the mountains in extreme cold weather to make their fortune.

One can also do a crab catching trip on a real crab boat, do a floatplane flight to a small lake to catch or see salmon.

Cruising can be quite addictive as it is so relaxing and it is nice to be pampered.

Kerry dressed to kill at one of our formal nights.

Other ships docked in Skagway. 3 of them.

Beautiful small blue icebergs...

Honeymoon shot?

Sailing in to the Tracy Arm Fjord...

Check out the colour... Taken from our balcony!

What a magnificent specimen... The hills of course.

We love our private balcony!

Married in Alaska - Memories forever!

Despite months of planning & organising when we woke up yesterday morning we knew that it was probably going to be plan "B".

Our original intention was to be taken by helicopter up to the Mendenhall Glacier along with a marriage celebrant and photographer and be married up the top of the glacier in bright sunshine with the helicopter pilot and the photographer as witnesses.

Little did we know that all the helicopters in Juneau were to be grounded because of the inclement weather. Plan "B" meant that the limo driver who picked us up from the ship and took us around to the courthouse to get our marriage licence had to drive us to the vantage point at the bottom of the glacier for the ceremony.

We met the celebrant and photographer there who had arranged for the ceremony to be held in the covered viewing area with the glacier in the background. This also meant that we would have an audience of fellow tourists who had decided this was as good as watching the glacier.

At the end of the ceremony the tourists clapped and cheered which made us feel like we were not alone but sharing this special day with our family and friends.

After the photo's, we were taken back to our ship while sipping on champers.

We proceeded to celebrate at a beautiful restaurant on the ship.

Unfortunately our photo's of the day will not be ready until we get back to Australia so we only have 2 photo's to share with you.

The happy couple in front of the Glacier.

Celebrating back on board the ship.

Finally Cruising to Alaska!

What an exciting day! We boarded the Holland American line cruise ship MS Zuiderdam at 2PM prior to our 5PM sailing. The weather in Vancouver has been in the mid twenties C during our stay and today was just as good. It took us over an hour to get through customs and immigration to get on to the ship and were pleasantly surprised to find out that we had been upgraded to a verandah stateroom instead of the ocean view room that we had booked.

We sailed out under the harbour bridge and headed north between Vancouver Island and the mainland. The views were stunning and we were pointing our camera's in all directions to take advantage of it.

As we had did not have time to unpack before the ship sailed we turned our attention to getting this done before dinner. Our cabin is perfect with good views from the large windows leading out to the balcony. We can see that we will be spending quite a bit of time taking photo's from it.

We awoke this morning to see a huge group of dolphins swimming alongside the ship and a whale breaching in the distance... what a way to start the day.

The food and service is fabulous and I think that we will have to address a serious diet when we get back home.

Tonight is a formal night which we are looking forward to and tomorrow we will be arriving in our first port of call which is Juneau so stay posted.

Sailing into the sunset...

Kerry has found the perfect bar!

She has also found some friends frolicking in the distance.

Taken from our balcony.

Sunset on the first night...

Going under the harbour bridge leaving Vancouver.

My first Margarita for the cruise...

Kerry's first cocktail of the day...

Following another cruise ship out of Vancouver harbour.

Vancouver Canada

Well, we have a few days to cover since we left Las Vegas.

We hightailed it back to LA from Vegas and rebooked in to the Ramada Plaza Hotel at El Segundo. After 22 days of faithful service our GoldWing was handed back to Eagle Riders in the same condition as it departed. Now we can focus on the next phase of our trip.

Don and Carolyn are in LA on business so we gave then a call and we caught up with them that evening for a great meal at a Italian restaurant on Century Boulevard at Marina Del Ray.

A fun night was had so we decided to do the lunch thing the next day at Malibu so we spent the day together touring around in Don & Carolyn's car (Thanks guys) We visited Santa Monica, Venice Beach and off course we lunched at Malibu.

We had to head off early next morning so it was time to say our goodbyes and retire for the night.

We flew LAX to Vancouver the next morning and booked in to the Holiday Inn on West Broadway.

After seeing so much of the desert and canyons on our bike trip it was so nice to be in a beautiful green part of the world. Vancouver is such a great city and it has beautiful harbour views from most parts of the city.

I was keen to have a salmon steak meal as I remember from previous trips here how good the salmon is and we found a great restaurant on the water and had a lovely meal and a few wines. The salmon was just as good as I remembered.

The following day we went up to see the Capilano Suspension Bridge and the beautiful gardens and forests that surround it. The scenery was spectacular and we wandered around taking photo's and lapping up the beauty.

We then continued up to Grouse Mountain which overlooks Vancouver and to get there you have to take a cable car up to the top. We were fortunate to have a near empty one so we could take photo's from all angles on the way up. The views over Vancouver and the harbour are spectacular.

On the top of Grouse Mountain there is a Bear enclosure so we wandered over to take photo's and there were two bears just feet away (Behind a fence) munching on the green grass. Kerry was thrilled to be able to be so close and take photo's.

After the excitement of seeing the bears and the views we decided to finish the day off with dinner at the top along with a couple of wines. This gave us the opportunity to see the sunset over the mountains and the lights of Vancouver on the way down in the cable car.

We arrived back at our hotel around 10.30 pm very tired but happy that we had such a great day.

Tomorrow morning Kerry is having her hair done then at 1 pm we are going to the cruise terminal to board our ship for our Alaskan cruise so the next time we post a blog will be from the ship.

Some photo's of our stay in Vancouver.

The view from the Capilano Suspension bridge

in Vancouver.

A friendly bear at the bear enclosure at Grouse Mountain.

This one is friendlier...

Beautiful flowers at Capilano.

The suspension bridge.

The Capilano bridge gardens.

We can't help ourselves...

Catching up for lunch with our good friends Don & Carolyn

at Dukes Restaurant at Malibu while we were in LA.