Very full day in Juneau. It’s 11pm (and still light outside!) and I have four hours of lectures from 8 am tomorrow so not really up to making a big post, especially as it’s taking forever for my photos to load. I might have to be quite selective*
At first sight Juneau seemed to be made up of jewelry (as spelled here) shops, because there are around 30 within a stones throw of the cruise ship park (dock?) Someone told us later these shops are affiliated with the cruise lines, and in Autumn they relocate down to the Caribbean.
Once you get past those, you end up in quite a cute little town, somewhat reminiscent of the Wild West.
There was a 4th of July parade but we missed it as we were booked on a whale watching cruise. We were told by a Scottish couple over dinner that the parade was good and filled with enormous cars. Many Americans wore Stars and Stripes clothing in honour of the day.
It was a gorgeous day, hot and still, and we saw loads of humpback whales, including a mother and calf. Because the whales are all here just to eat and get fat, they don’t do any of that showing off activity such as breaching, so that was a shame. Just lots of deep breathing and diving.
Not even any of that cooperative feeding we saw yesterday. We got food and drink on the tour and I finally found a beer that I could drink a whole can of – the first time in my whole life! This could be a game changer.
After the tour we found the Alaskan brewing company that made it and bought a whole lot of merch in gratitude.
The second part of the tour was to see another vanishing glacier, this time the Mendenhall. The walk to the glacier included a free waterfall so very good value.
We also saw a porcupine hidden amongst the shrubbery that looked impressively similar to the ones at Wellington zoo. There were signs everywhere saying you needed to buy a permit to go on these walks, and we bumped into loads of rangers on the way to the glacier, so fairly quickly we chickened out and went back to town.
We had the cocktail of the day on the balcony (not sure what it was but it was bright blue) as we headed out of town, while my companion furiously tried to buy a couple of chickens on trademe (many thanks to my husband for paying extortionate rates to get us high speed WiFi for the trip) and then dinner and bed. Lovely.
Actually, I don’t want to be a downer, but this glorious hot weather is completely wrong. Alaska is meant to be rain forest – Juneau typically gets 320 days of rain a year. But this Summer is so hot and dry the salmon can’t swim up the rivers to get to their spawning grounds, which in turn means the bald eagles aren’t coming to eat them. In addition, the forests are at risk of catching fire, which they don’t normally do up here. They don’t even have fire brigades. This sort of thing is just not sustainable, surely? A real worry.
*am giving up on the photos entirely! They will follow when WiFi allows.