Canada Hols - Anchorage

On Sunday we disembarked the ship at Seward. Buses almost immediately took us to our McKinlay Explorer Train, bound for Anchorage. It wasn't long before we were spotting Moose, a couple of Bears, a Beaver Dam, an Eagle's Nest, and Eagles sitting on the shoreline. Our train guide was quite a character. At one stage the train slowed right down, and it turned out that 2 Moose were holding up the train by running on the tracks in front of it. It turns out that this area of Alaska was explored by none other than Capt James Cook, in 1778. In Turnaround Arm (named by him) we saw the tidal bore coming in. Captain Cook appears to be held in just as much, or even more, esteem than we hold him. Around 11:30am, after 4 hours on the train we arrived at Anchorage. They seem to be growing vegetables, like cabbage and silverbeet, in the public gardens, alongside beautiful dahlias. We went for lunch at the 5^th Avenue Mall shopping centre, having Ribs and Wings, then wandered down to the Sunday Markets, and checked out the different types of goods available there....wooden canoes, Ulu, which are the Alaskan knife, all sorts of gems and jewellery, wonderful photography, T-shirts, bags, furs, processed salmon, and bought some almonds, plain and wasabi, for snacking. We were being put up in the Westmark Hotel, so checked in. Darryl went for a wander down some further streets until the characters around became so seedy he decided it was actually unsafe and headed back. Later we checked on the net, and this is the 5th most dangerous city in the US. In the evening we walked to The Bear Claw Pub & Grill for dinner. I opted for Ribeye Steak and broccoli and it was really nice to have normal food after all the variations, (but just basic foodgroups), on the cruise. As we had to get up early for our next train, we went to bed, but at around 1am I got up and it was light enough out on the verandah that I could have read a book, but they still had the streetlights on.

(this one above is not my photo)