Three or is it four days left, I can’t remember.  Yesterday was Skagway, one of the far out posts in Alaska and the place where the Klondyke gold rush started in 1898.  This place has to be seen, it is like stepping back to that very time.  The original houses still exist and the atmosphere is spoilt only by automobiles and modern clothes.  We went to a wild west show about a guy called Soapy Smith (look him up on Wiki).  He was the number one gangster Mafia type of his time.

The Klondyke and Yukon are approx 500 miles away  from Skagway and the intrepid gold hunters had to endure a mighty struggle to reach the gold in Dawson City.  Of the 100,000 potential gold diggers only about 30 of these managed to keep their loot and make a comfortable life, most of them never made it to their destination having to cross glaciers and snow filled mountains, with the  snow sometimes reaching a depth of 100 feet.

There are no doctors in Skagway, if you are ill, tough sh**.  There is only one major food store and the place is cut off for some months during the winter.

At the moment we are somewhere in the north pacific having recently visited Glacier Bay, an awe inspriring landscape if ever you saw one and we were also duly entertained by a couple of Orcas (not the beasties from Lord Of the Rings), killer whales as you may know them.

Just finished one of my JD and cokes and potentially going for another. The cruise part ends on Saturday, we will be travelling up Prince William Sound and College Fjord tomorrow.  Saturday we will disembark in Whittier and after some sight seeing move on for an overnight stop in Anchorage.  A flight to Vancouver and then back home to good Old Blighty.  Then  a little later a beer or two down one of the locals, probably yours Mike to spin a few yarns and spit into the spitoon.

After that, I, we have to sift through many photos and about 3 hours of film to condense and put together my DVD epic and to upload the photos to Flickr.

TTFN