Sunday
It was bucketing down with rain when we woke VERY early this morning. Whittier port looked a little dreary! We had been allocated a disembarkation time of 6.40 am so we were up at 5.30 to have time for breakfast and to be ready to go when our group was called.
Once we left the ship we collected our luggage and sat down to wait for about an hour until our bus transfer would arrive. I’d booked us on the Alaska Cruise Transportation Big Bus to take us to Anchorage Airport, where we had rented a car. There was a guide on the bus who gave us a really interesting ( and funny) narration during our trip. Whitter is a fairly unique little town, it really just exists for the port and is only accessible via a one lane tunnel that opens to each direction once every half hour. Our bus was ready to drive through for the 9am opening from our direction.
It was raining steadily through the entire drive to Anchorage but we did get a view of a Beluga whale surfacing briefly and also a surfer riding the Bore tide. But I didn;t manage to get a picture of either of them!
By the time we had collected our car and started to head south again the rain had stopped and the sky was starting to brighten. We drove along the Turnagain Arm inlet heading south of Anchorage towards our hotel at Cooper Landing. We stopped at Beluga Point which had a pretty view and a cute sculpture of beluga whales.
As we drove on we saw more glaciers up high and eventually reached the Kenai Peninsula.
WE were both feeling VERY tired, I was struggling to stay awake but by 2.45 pm we finally pulled up at the Kenai Princess Lodge in the tiny town of Cooper Landing. We are here for two nights. While we waited for the room to be ready we tucked into a tasty flatbread pizza in the bar and eventually gained access to our nice big and very woodsy room.
After a little snooze on the lounge we went down for dinner in the Rod & Reel restaurant before heading back for an early night. It was still light but we were really exhausted. We needed a good sleep before our day in Kenai Fjords National Park tomorrow.
Monday
We were glad to sleep until it suited us this morning. It had rained again overnight but the morning was brighter and we dressed and went down to the restaurant for breakfast. It’s a very rustic, woodsy space with a HUGE chandelier mde of antlers. Quite the statement!
After breakfast we headed off for the roughly hour long drive down to Kenai Fjords National Park. Along the way we stopped at Tern Lake to see the reflections of the mountains. We were headed to the Exit Glacier area of the park.The Exit Glacier comes down from the huge Harding Ice field. It was exciting when we caught our first glimpse of the glacier and also the entrance sign for Kenai Fjords National park – we have had MANY photographs in front of these iconic park entrance signs but this is the first time we had one with a glacier in the background! We found a spot in the parking lot and after a brief stop in the visitor centre we set off up the trail to the “Glacier Overlook”. We’d been interested driving into the park to see signs along the way marking the extent of the glacier since the late 1800’s . It had retreated so far! We stopped at the 1961 point, now in forest and carried along the trail. It’s not possible to walk right to the terminus of this glacier but we still had a great view of it from various points on the trail
From the Glacier we drove another 20 minutes down the road to the town of Seward. Seward is a major port town and it’s other big claim to fame is it is the Mile 0 location for the The Iditarod Trail. The Trail is the only winter trail in the National Trails System and the only Congressionally-designated National Historic Trail in Alaska. The Iditarod National Historic Trail system is comprised of a 1,000-mile main trail between Seward and Nome, and an additional 1,400 miles of side/connecting trails that link communities and historic sites, or provide parallel route. The trail is a symbol of frontier travel and was once an important artery of Alaska’s winter commerce, it served a string of mining camps, trading posts, and other settlements founded between 1880 and 1920, during Alaska’s Gold Rush Era. It’s not to be confused with the Iditarod Dog Sled race which runs from Anchorage to Nome in March every year.
We enjoyed the sunshine some more, particularly after we chatted to a nice Alaskan couple who told us how unusual the sunny day was. This is normally rainy season. We drove back to the lodge and went for a walk down and along the beautiful river that runs below the lodge- the colour is a pale aqua, as it’s full of glacial silt.
We’d decided on a two-meal day today – a big breakfast and an early dinner. it was a gorgeous afternoon so sit on the Rafters Lounge deck. The burgers were really good and we had a good view down to the river. Back to the room and another early night – tomorrow we head North!
