Day 55 Anchorage Whittier
Trip Start
May 07, 2008
1
66
205
Trip End
Nov 22, 2008
Whittier,
Alaska,
United States
Wednesday, July 2, 2008
We collected a travel worn Marian at 1:30am in the morning, from her epic journey, Sydney Brisbane, Los Angeles, Anchorage, a journey of around 24 hours on the trot.
She did manage to take time out at LA to take a day room at the holiday inn, freshen up for a couple of hours and a quick tour of LA, taking in Venice beach, Santa Monica, Hollywood boulevard and the Chinese theatre. Not bad for a first transit stop!
Well after a cuppa and a catch-up we fell into bed at around 2:30 - 3:00am. I don't believe the trains disturbed many of us at all.
Well a little slow start this morning we chose to make use of the hire car and head to Whittier.
This is a small township on the Prince William Sound.
Earnie trying out the Kayak on the lake
Once very isolated without a lot of visitors or easy access.During WWII the American Army created a 2.5 mile tunnel through rock to create a train line to assist supply a "secret army base". This township was left by the army in around 1964, but some hardy souls (called POW as in Prisoners Of Whittier) stayed on.
It is a port for the Alaskan Marine highway that brings supplies and vehicular transport, and a tiny fishing village.
The tunnel was opened to private traffic in around 1994 with a toll ($12) through the one way railway tunnel that opens on the hour one way and on the half hour for the return. This sealed road was one of the side benefits of the oil spill from the EXXON, some of the compensation moneys ($15mil) paid the cost of the highway.
The small town of Whittier is simply that, a small fishing village, with a few feed places, we sat and had a lunch looking at the water of the Sound, a beautiful setting and beautiful day. This would have to be the best sunshine and warm day we have experienced since arriving "up north"
The scenery and mountains, snow and waterfalls are in places just required to be absorbed by the eyes and unable to be described in words, just an experience that is a reward for a lifetime of being and waiting to enjoy
Marian has arrived and so has the great weather
.We stopped off at a visitors centre built at the 1911, terminal of a glacier, this glacier has retreated back as have most glaciers.
The information centre was of a high standard, with information about the glacier moraine and local wildlife.
We assure you the water is cold and the mini iceberg that had "calved" off the glacier would require a very large glass to fit into any persons Martini or Scotch.
We looked at the time and decided after our lack of sleep and tiredness we would head back to Anchorage and take in a bit of the history and a movie of the Earthquake (1964).
From there it was to the grocery store to stock up and head home to cooked a baked dinner for Karon's birthday (Happy Birthday Karon)
So from Sunny Anchorage Alaska the Travellers four are learning the new steps to dance in the castle as we had learnt the dance of 3 in the small space, and now to test us we are to dance in a quad system, but gee we are Australian we can do anything.
Tomorrow is another day around Anchorage area and then off to the bears, so there will be an update tomorrow and then a couple of days without, do NOT panic, we were told to be careful of the bears, Earnie has already suggested previously to Karon to run and he might make room for her under the Castle as she dives in for safety, Rick has his solution worked out, he plans to simply be a gentleman and allow Karon to go first, we have yet to ascertain what Marian's strategy is but I am sure she will arrive at some clever solution.
