There’s something I never thought I’d be writing. Los Angeles Day Two. Very nice too.

Judy met us at about half ten in her very smart white Chevy. She drove us into the heart of Downtown, because she was determined to show us the Walt Disney Concert Hall. And it is the most beautiful building. It’s a Gehry masterpiece and has, inside, the most technologically accurate acoustics in the world, apparently. We didn’t have time to listen to a concert, but we used the loos, which were also beautiful! The outside is covered with reflective metal tiles, although they are matt, not shiny shiny; it is astonishingly beautiful. The tiles have been removed on one side, however, as the sun’s reflected rays were overheating the sidewalk below and the locals were complaining!

Judy then drove us to the Farmer’s Market, which now has a little open air shopping mall attached to it, called The Grove. We had lunch at The Cheesecake Factory (no queue here). I have never seen such a long menu in my life. It was 20 pages long and it took me so long to read and choose that everyone else had ordered and gone to the loo and back before I was even ready to decide!

I had chicken sliders, which were really cute little mini chicken burgers, four of them. If you’re interested in scale, they were about the circumference of a small, newly-born turtle! Dad and mum shared a small guacamole with a plate of tortilla chips as big as your head and Judy had a Chinese salad – her “usual”. All utterly delicious and with superb service. I could get used to this. Judy’s salad was so large, she split it in half before she started and filled a take home box. She also took a container of dressing separately, so that the crispy noodles wouldn’t get soggy on the way home.

We then pootled around the shops and stalls – Mum bought a hat – and took a trip or two on the little two-stop antique tram, and then sat and watched the koi in the fountain enjoying the sunshine until it was time to head back. The fountains had a display pattern and we tried to watch it all. I think the entire routine took about an hour. Because we are moored in the port, which is miles from anywhere, we had to head back to the car at 3.30 and we still only just made it in time. We boarded at 5.22 for a 5.30 sailing! We don’t normally cut it quite that fine!

The Port of Los Angeles may well be the biggest in the world, by area, if nothing else – everyone we spoke to thinks it is, but no one is quite sure. It takes over twenty minutes on the freeway (at 60mph) to drive over it to the actual water and it is, likewise, nearly twenty minutes on the freeway to drive over the top from side to side (San Pedro to Long Beach). I think that makes it about twenty miles by twenty miles, which would be 400 square miles in area. It is ludicrously huge. All you can see are cranes and containers as far as the eye can see in any direction. It’s an extraordinary sight – ugly, but extraordinary.

And so we sail. We didn’t have time to cry when we said goodbye to Judy, as we were rushing to get on board in time. But it is desperately sad to keep saying goodbye to people. Fran at San Francisco, Stewart and Julie yesterday, Judy today and still more to come in New York and Boston.

The rest of the day was just food and bed. Utterly exhausted. I was in bed by nine.

What an extraordinary day. WARNING: it starts badly. Again.

Announcements started at bang on 7am but people obviously couldn’t be bothered getting up that early, because by 8am, they were coming through the headboard speakers. We got up and went ashore just before 9. When we saw the queue, we immediately asked for a chair for mum. What turned up was not a chair, but a wheelchair, which turned out to be marvellously useful, as the port-employed pusher proceeded as far up towards the front of the queue as he could get away with. But the queue did not move. They funnelled those on excursions to the front of the queue, and we remained stationary. And we waited and we waited and we waited.

After being fully fingerprinted and photographed, we finally met up with Stewart and Julie at quarter to eleven. Yes, feel free to go back and read that again, I’ll wait here. Quarter to ELEVEN. Over two and a half hours.

We drove to Malibu where we went to lunch at Gladstone’s, a stunning restaurant right on the Baywatch beach. We watched the pelicans fishing while we ate. The food was superb. My chicken sandwich was served on challah bread!

When we left, we headed into town and saw Rodeo Drive, Grauman’s Chinese Theatre, the Walk of Fame, the Kodak Theatre and other bits and pieces of that ilk. Stewart and Julie also found us a good spot to take photos of the Hollywood sign.

We then headed back to the ship, which was completely the other end of town, over two dozen miles away through heavy traffic – rush hour here starts at 3pm – and we only got through by using the car pool lane. It only today dawned on me that the car pool lane is empty because most vehicles only contain one person. No wonder they have such pollution problems here. We went through the car pool lane (which you can only use if you have 2 or more people in your car) like a dose of salts.

We arranged to meet up with mum’s cousin, Judy, and her husband, Jerry, but they had problems with the traffic and then accidentally went to the wrong place. We waited as long as we could at a little cafe village near the ship called Ports O’ Call, despite being attacked from all sides by mariachi bands parping at us much too loudly but admirably persistently, whilst still being quite astonishingly tuneless, but eventually we had to head to the terminal. Mum was quite upset and I developed a banging headache trying to navigate Jerry and Judy’s car through a town I don’t know (although I may have a bit of sunstroke as well). Jerry eventually rang and said that they were at the terminal but couldn’t find us. After much toing and froing, we realised that they were on a different car park level to us! We found them just in time to say goodbye before boarding. In fact, we were just swapping kisses when we were informed that the ship wasn’t leaving today, but tomorrow! I had to chase Stewart and Julie’s car down the road to get them to stop and come back! On the plus side, Julie gave me some Moltrin. Dunno what’s in it, but it fixed my headache, no problem. Good stuff.

We got independent verification of this astonishing news (obviously)(like we were going to take one person’s word for that)(the lovely lady who confirmed it for us was Charmaine Brandon, the World’s Nicest Security Person) and then all seven of us went to dinner together at P.F. Chang’s Chinese restaurant in Long Beach (almost opposite the Queen Mary). The food was spectacular and we all ate till we were fit to explode. We had spring rolls to start and hot and sour soup, followed by duck – which here was served with pancakes much thicker than we were expecting, more like chapattis, and the duck was sliced not shredded. Still yummy though! Then I had a crispy honey chicken and mum had vegetable chow mein and there was steamed rice and vegetable fried rice (like EFR but with veg added). I can’t remember all the other dishes! Jerry is an astonishing fount of information on an astonishing array of topics and we all really enjoyed the evening. Eventually, we arranged to meet Judy tomorrow and then Stewart and Julie drove us back to the ship (again!). It was sad to have to say goodbye. We can’t see them tomorrow as they have to go back to work. 😦

On return to the cabin, I found a letter from the Captain explaining what had changed. The immigration procedure apparently was not completed until 4.30pm, which meant that some had less than two hours in LA. No wonder they kicked up a stink! So we are staying another day here in LA and skipping Roatan instead, to make up the discrepancy in the itinerary. No iguanas for us then.

Interestingly, the Captain blamed the slow immigration process on the behaviour of some passengers, which made the US authorities suspicious/annoyed and decide to up the requirements for everyone. Oh, and an hour-long computer crash. Right. Nothing that could be construed as pure vindictive over-officiousness by the US Homeland Security personnel then? Okay. Because a couple of mouthy passengers is plenty enough reason to force all 3000 people on board to go through a NINE AND A HALF HOUR immigration process, is it? Good to know. Say the word ‘security’ and you’re expected to just put up with whatever they feel like throwing at you. And they can throw whatever they like, you daren’t object. After all, who would argue with good security? And they are armed… Those we left still queuing had no food, no water and no toilets. Neither were they allowed back ONTO the ship until everyone had been immigrated. Goodness only knows what they went through. I have never been so glad we queue-jumped. Or so unashamed to have done so.

Today was the Gold Tier Luncheon. We were sat with some pleasant enough people but my neighbour’s breath stank, so every time he spoke to me, I had to turn my head away. I had a lovely long soak in the shower this morning, but now I feel like I need another wash!

Desperately trying to email LA people about arrangements for tomorrow. Shame there’s no internet.

The ship is packed, which is odd, considering the huge number of people who left at Vancouver. The trouble is that, due to strong winds, all the open decks have been closed since yesterday evening, so everyone is inside. The Belvedere is packed, the Spinnaker is packed. All our usual quiet haunts are rammed. I may have to resort to my own cabin for some peace and quiet. The same probably explains the lack of internet access – there’s just too many people trying to use it at the same time. Funny really, because the sea is now dead calm. The mist has come down so that visibility is down to a couple of miles at best – not enough for the fog horn to sound, but enough to hold the water down – and there is now no wind at all, not a breath, so why they won’t let us back outside, I’m not sure.

Last night was odd, though, feeling the ship moving about in the wind, reading the notice on the Passenger Information Channel about deck closures, and then turning on the tv to find a second tornado warning in Joplin, Missouri. That’s not fair. There’s nowhere left to hide after yesterday. We are obviously nowhere near the tornado belt, but the confluence of events was a little uncanny.

Some twit yesterday announced that the weather would be rubbish til we got to the Panama Canal. Really? Have you informed Mexico and Costa Rica about this sudden turnaround in their climate or are you just being an idiot who likes the sound of his own voice and doesn’t care what comes out of his mouth, as long as it’s words? LA, we’re relying on you to give us good weather. Don’t let us down – we’ve done very well so far.

Today I slept. That is all.

Those of you of a nervous disposition should look away now. This was NOT a good start to a day.

Firstly, I tried to meet up with some other passengers who were trying to go to the Turbine despite P&O cancelling the excursion from under us. We arranged to meet at 9. They left early and went without me. Thanks a bunch.

So we got off and made our way through the terminal and customs to the shore. HALF AN HOUR it took us. Now, granted mum is not the fastest mover on Earth, but there were no seats to take a break and no wheelchairs offered or available on request for less able passengers. We were just left to fend for ourselves and have to watch mum struggle for the best part of A MILE (no, really, I counted the steps on the way back and, assuming my walking pace is about three feet end to end, it was over three quarters of a mile). There were wheelchairs at the other end, but they were for HIRE ONLY and were chained up with no one in the building who knew who was in charge of them or where the key was.

When we got to the other end, the exit was far from obvious and we found ourselves in a convention centre with what felt like 10,000 plastic surgeons all trying to book in. By the time I got out into the open air, I was on the verge of a panic attack.

Luckily, said open air provided a bench for mum to have a rest, while dad and I confronted our next obstacle. Finding someone to help us go where we wanted to go. There were five tour bus reps and one welcome/information desk. That’s six people to assist, what, 2,000 people? More? There was also another cruise ship in as well, of course. The Oceanic Regatta, which no one had ever heard of*. The struggle for attention was exhausting and I eventually gave up and let dad deal with it. We eventually booked onto a free shuttle to Grouse Mountain and went to have a cup of coffee while we waited for it, in the Pacifica Hotel which was on top of the conference centre on top of the cruise terminal. Mum and dad both declared their respective drinks to be The Worst Cups of Coffee/Decaff They Had Ever Drunk. Don’t go to Starbucks on the ground floor but don’t go up to the Lobby Cafe either!

As an aside, one of the tours is the Big Pink Bus Tour (pink for Breast Cancer Research), which uses, amongst others, Routemaster buses from London (well, RML 609s, to be precise). They still say things like 23 to Tottenham Court Rd on the back!

The driver of our shuttle bus, Susan, was a delight and showed us a little of the city on the way out to the mountain. It was during the trip that we realised the bears mum wanted to see were at the TOP of the cable car, not the bottom. Oops. She did it, bless her. It was only eight-minute trip, mind you, but she wasn’t pleased.

When we got to the top, dad found her a wheelchair and we pushed her over some surprisingly unwheelchairfriendly paths to the bears. Well, almost to the bears. The path descended into mud and she had to walk the last 20 yards or so. But we got to see bears, at last. One brown and one black. Both orphaned by accidents and unable to be released into the wild. They seemed happy enough.

Then we went back into the warm and had lunch in the Altitudes Bistro. I nipped down two flights of stairs to the shop while we waited for our order. The food was superb, although not cheap. Mum and dad had bruschetta and I had a beefburger.

By the time we had eaten, it was time to go back down the mountain to catch the shuttle bus back to town. I couldn’t have gone up the turbine anyway, it was a complete whiteout – except for the 45 minutes we were eating lunch, ironically, when it all burned off and the sun came out. By the time we left, it was misting over again. Marvellous. If the Universe is that determined to make it that clear to me that I’m not going up the turbine, I can take a hint.

The cable car descent was delayed, but they kindly held the shuttle bus for us, which was amazingly lovely of them. Mind you, the next one wasn’t for an hour and a half…

Back in town, below the cloud line, the sun was shining like crazy so we walked to Gastown and paid our respects to the Gastown Clock, which is the only still operational steam-powered clock in the world. At three o’clock (well, five past, but who’s counting?), it didn’t chime the Westminster chimes, it hooted them through steam whistles! It was absolutely adorable! If only the cow standing next to me had been able to stop talking long enough for us to enjoy it fully. She even counted the chimes, one two, three. I kid you not. I have video with sound to prove it. Stupid cow. Seriously, the world contains a phenomenal number of mouth-breathing morons and travelling a lot, you meet a lot of them. A lot a lot.

We then wandered back to the ship and sat in the sun while dad went off in a last attempt to find a wheelchair for the reverse half hour trek back through the terminal. We eventually ended up with two. No, really. You couldn’t make this stuff up. The bloke from the ship first turned up without a chair and had to go back again! After the morning fiasco, this was the last straw and the Canadians were so embarrassed by the whole thing, that the terminal staff found one from somewhere. But the ship eventually sent their pusher back with one as well. We used the ship’s one, because that would go all the way up the gangplank, whereas the terminal one wouldn’t be allowed, but we felt bad for the nice man in the suit who had come down from the terminal office with one.

Back on board was 4.30. Heaven only knows why – we’re not due in LA for TWO DAYS! What’s the hurry? Why couldn’t we have left at 6, like we used to in the old days? I blame the Captain squarely for that. Like I said, he doesn’t care about us or our enjoyment. Not one jot.

Slept for two hours before dinner. Pushing wheelchairs is hard work.

New tablemates: Bill and Carolyn – Canadians from Vancouver – and John and Betty from Norwich. Judgement reserved for now. Ask me again tomorrow.

Overall, a surprisingly good day, considering, but let’s face it, it didn’t start well! I’m not sure whether I like Vancouver or not. The bits I saw were pleasant enough, but they have NO public washrooms and even some of their restaurants don’t have washrooms (which is illegal in the UK), and that, plus the wheelchair nonsense and the terminal trek and the not seeing the turbine, made for a rather mixed overall effect. On balance, not a place I would rush back to, frankly.

Here endeth Canada. Now we have to be immigrated all over again when we go back into the USA at LA. That’ll be nice then.

* When we got back and met our new tablemates at dinner, two of them had not only heard of the Oceanic Regatta, they had tried to book on it, but the offer advertised didn’t exist. Dodgy…

Sunday in Victoria. Victoria Day Weekend. Victoria Day is a national holiday. Although Victoria Day isn’t until tomorrow. Still with me?

P&O dumped us at Ogden Point, a container port, surprise surprise, outside of town. Only 15 minutes from town, this time, though, so that was nice.

We went into town and had a quick look around before trying to catch the Butchart Gardens Shuttle Bus. I got on and asked if someone on the front seat would mind moving back a row, so that mum could have a seat with more legroom. One man willingly made to stand up but the driver told him to sit down and said mum would have to sit further back. I got off and went back to the ticket booth and made a formal complaint. Particularly, bearing in mind that the front seats of all buses in Canada say “Reserved for limited mobility only” on them. It all might have been less confrontational, if we hadn’t already been standing for half an hour – fifteen minutes waiting for the bus and fifteen minutes waiting to board, while they dealt with existing passengers who had boarded without paying. What a farce. Mind you, the ticket agent thanked me for complaining. She said the driver was new and had been rude to her too! In the end, we got on the next bus and the entire queue was appalled by what had happened, so they were all happy for mum to board first and take the front seat.

When we got to Butchart Gardens, we borrowed a wheelchair and headed off into the park. We had a light snack lunch and then dad and I took it in turns to push mum around the Sunken Garden. A fellow passenger warned us to avoid the Japanese garden, as it was very steep and the rose garden isn’t in bloom yet, but what we saw was beautiful. I’ll have some aches and pains tomorrow though! We browsed the shop and then caught the shuttle back to town.

We had time for a brief wander and some shopping before heading to the Fairmont Empress Hotel for afternoon tea. Delicious. Absolutely lovely, although, oddly there was a hint of mustard in the cucumber sandwiches! I had Empress Earl Grey, Dad had Empress Blend and Mum had a decaffeinated green tea, the name of which escapes me, I’m afraid, which she seemed to like.

We then browsed some more shops in town, including several purchases in a shopping mall called The Bay. We even found an Aerosoles store for Mum. You should have seen her move! We went into a shoe store and asked if they had any shoes by Aerosoles. The assistant showed us what she had and then said “You could try their store downstairs”. You should have seen mum go! She left me and dad in her dust as she hurtled towards the lift! She bought a pair of shoes and so did I, just to keep her company, you understand…

We couldn’t find a restaurant for dinner, so we grabbed a cab to Fisherman’s Wharf, which we were under the impression had eateries. Turns out to be a houseboat village with a couple of cafes and some visiting seals, one of whom came to say hello to us. So I took lots of pictures of the seal.

We had a look around, admired the pirate ship moored there and contemplated a property purchase (420,000 CAD or about £280,000), and then caught the Harbour Ferry back into town. The Harbour Ferries are the most adorable and manoeuvrable boats we’d ever seen and we all fell in love with them. Our pilot, Mike, recommended the Flying Otter for dinner, so he dropped us there. We had a quite a wait for a waterside table, but we weren’t hungry after our huge tea so it didn’t matter!

NB. The food is very good but the refills are 50 cents each, not free! And do NOT buy a t-shirt. They cost more than dinner for three! (although not as much as a t-shirt from the Empress Hotel with real Swarovski crystals making up its logo…)

After dinner, it was simply a short but steep stroll back up to ground level from water level and we found ourselves just feet from the shuttle back to the ship. Easy peasy. What a lovely day.

Depressed. Really depressed. They’ve cancelled my Wind Turbine excursion. Not enough people. Not enough people? Surely there’s a MAXIMUM number of people who fit inside a wind turbine, not a minimum! No, the truth is, there are simply not enough people to make it PROFITABLE for P&O. To hell with the happiness of the passenger. Again.

This is the second excursion to be cancelled in two days – well, I think there are others, but two of MINE have been cancelled. Yesterday, we were informed that NASA has changed the scheduling of Astronaut Training and we can’t do that anymore. I checked the website and that actually appears to be true. The tour website now only lists Saturdays. So I suppose I’ll just have to accept that one being removed out from under me.

The trouble is that the loss of each of these feels quite substantially devastating. I’ve been looking forward to Astronaut Training for MONTHS before we sailed, and I’m not the only one. David is beside himself as well. He’s positively bereft. Now to lose the turbine trip as well? It’s just too unkind. Particularly, when, in this instance, there is no valid reason, other than the fact that P&O apparently aren’t making enough money.

I hate this captain. Every word out of his mouth is a lie. We didn’t arrive at 6.30, we arrived at 5. We didn’t leave at 12.30, we left at 10am and I barely saw the glacier, because I wasn’t up in time, BECAUSE HE LIED. If he had said, we will leave at 10, I would probably have got up a bit earlier. Lies, lies, lies, lies, lies. What would it cost him to just once in his pitiful little life tell the passengers THE TRUTH. Or, and here’s an idea, DO WHAT HE SAYS. If he says we will leave at noon, we should stay until noon, we should not be departing at 10 anything. If confronted, he’d probably say that it takes time to travel back down the fjord and we will actually geographically leave the entrance to the arm at 12, but if he says that, he KNOWS he has misled us, so even the excuse is damning. What a hateful, hateful, hateful man.

And before you say I’m over-reacting, Dad has just met someone in the lift who missed the glacier completely because they thought we weren’t leaving til 12. In fact, the people at the next table are saying similar even while I’m writing this. I was surprised when I went out on deck how few people were out there at the glacier. Now we know why. They all trusted the Captain to tell the truth and keep to the timings he gave us. And he lied. So they all missed it completely. The time is now 11.22am and the glacier is long gone from view.

For what it’s worth, the Dawes Glacier is a big, blue one at the end of the fjord. It is quite dramatic. It doesn’t have much of an ice field, so you can get quite close, but it does have some rather large bergies, the kind that, if 9/10ths are hidden under the water, are probably proper icebergs. The rest of the fjord is conifer forest on snow-capped mountains. I hesitate to say ‘more of the same’, because that sounds a bit blasé and a bit bored, but to be honest, right now, I’m typing this, Dad is doing Sudoku and mum has her head on her arms on the table and is trying to have a nap. It’s that much the same. It’s all beautiful, don’t get me wrong, but it’s the same beautiful as before. It was breathtaking and awe-inspiring and photo-taking about a week ago, and we go past this stuff REALLY slowly. Now, it’s just some more mountains and a bit more of the Tongass National Forest. Sorry.

Another early start. Oh goody. But at least this time it’s all in a good cause. We are going otter watching and if we don’t see any, we have a money back guarantee. So this should be good.

As Sitka is a tender port, the otter boat came straight to us and we boarded directly from the ship’s pontoon, which was a nice touch. It was a large, airy boat with lots of windows and a young man whose main job seemed to be to clean said windows (Arcadia, are you listening?)(spray when bumpy is a hazard of the job, it seems). It had nice loos, free tea, coffee and hot chocolate, both down in the cabin and up on the observation deck, and a little shop which sold everything you could ever need, from smoked salmon, kelp marmalade, postcards, magnets, cuddly toys, t-shirts and sweets. An astonishing array in such a small space! Every seat had a free map and a set of binoculars for passengers to use, which was another nice touch.

The guide had an excellent speaking voice and the PA system was clear and crackle-free. The boat was designed and built by the tour company and has jet engines, rather than propellers, so that it is not possible to injure, trap or damage any wildlife. It makes it very manoeuvrable although not as quiet as might be ideal.

We went out of the bay into Sitka Sound. We saw bald eagles first (two) then American sea otters (women and babies), grey whales, humpback whales and more otters (‘The Boys’ Club’)(boy and girl otters only hang out when procreating – the women then kick them out and bring up the kids together).

I finally sussed the continuous button on my camera. Some people have a sport button – David’s takes 47 pictures without stopping if you let it. Mine is continuous and, as far as I can tell, is genuinely continuous for as long as you hold the button down. I took over a 1000 photos today. It may take me quite some time to weed through these… it took nearly 18 minutes to download them from the camera onto the computer, for starters!

When we got back to shore, we walked into town and queued at the only restaurant, which was Mexican/American. When finally seated the food was lovely and the portions were huge, although the waitress, however friendly and cheery, suffered from More Haste Less Speed syndrome. Either that or she simply didn’t understand what the words “No Ice” meant. Despite repeating it several times, she not only brought us glasses brimful of ice, but she also got the order wrong – so we ended up with an extra (free) diet coke and a plate full of ice. Now, there’s not listening properly and not listening properly, but to get “two lemonades, no ice, and a diet coke, please” wrong surely takes some effort. She really wasn’t paying attention! Luckily, there was a second, less frazzled waitress, who took our food order, so that went without a hitch.

The restaurant was inside a little shopping mall of about six shops and the restrooms were in the basement. They were the least pleasant restrooms we have experienced on this cruise. I won’t go into details, but they really need a plumber.

Then we pootled our way down the one shopping street, purchasing the occasional souvenir. I went up a side road looking for something called the Tlingit village but it was quite a steep hill and I never found it. I may have given up too early, but I couldn’t afford to walk forever. That’s the trouble with tender ports, you have to allow so long for getting back that you have to ration your time ashore quite carefully.

Sitka used to be owned by Russia – it was sold to America after the Gold Rush petered out- the ‘cathedral’ is Russian Orthodox, and there are Russian reminders everywhere. The family Baranof must have had quite an influence because virtually everything is named after them. Real Estate vendors, gift shops, pharmacies, all sorts. I even found a statue, but it only said who donated it and when, not who it was or why! Turns out he was apparently the first governor of Russian America. Whatever that covers.

It took half an hour from joining the queue for the tender to get back to the ship and back to my cabin. I then spent the rest of the night (apart from dinner) downloading photos and editing. So far, I’ve got it down from 1066 to 319. I’ll have another go sometime, but right now, if I see another slightly out of focus otter, I’ll have to punch someone.

Captain’s Announcement at 16:45 today. We’re not going to Tracy Arm tomorrow, but Endicott Arm instead, same scenery but Dawes Glacier instead. This is because there will be no other cruise ships there, instead of the three other ships in Tracy Arm, and there’s also a lot of ice there, apparently, so you can’t get close to the glacier. We will enter at 6.30am tomorrow morning, leaving at midday. At 2.30pm we will lose the pilots and then head south towards Victoria, Canada.

Skagway is a very beautiful pioneer town, and looks as all as the Wild West should look. All brightly painted wooden buildings with boardwalks for pavements. It even has a brothel that still has girls in dodgy outfits to smile at you. It’s called the Red Onion Saloon. The ship moored near town and the weather was cloudy but dry. However, I will not be reviewing the shops or the restaurants or the town. I was too busy. I took TWO tours today.

First thing in the morning I boarded a 25-seater minibus covered with pawprints.

This took us, via a brief drive through town, out of Skagway and up the mountain, only half of which journey was on tarmaced road. The rest of the road was rather as though it was in the process of being resurfaced – you know when they take the top layer off? It wasn’t, it’s always like that. It wasn’t the worst ride I’ve ever experienced, but it was less than comfy.

We drove around the sides of several gorges and some indescribably beautiful scenery. I took photos, but it is so very frustratingly impossible to do it justice. I have tried, but it doesn’t really communicate the savage beauty of Alaska very well. There is no lense big enough, for a start.

When we arrived at the Mushers CampTM, there was a short walk across boggy ground, but they had thoughtfully nailed some planks in place so that we could cross quite easily. We then went up the mountain in the second mode of transport of the day. A Mercedes Ubimog, I think it was called. A very odd name for quite an odd vehicle. Sort of like a Jeep on steroids.

I must confess that, once we started the rather vertiginous inclines we confronted, I rather wished it had caterpillars instead of wheels, but, despite the cacophonous din of its straining engines, it made it up every one without incident. Having only a lap seat belt for comfort, having faith in the driver helped, particularly when some of the paths were accompanied at the sides by near vertical drops. In the end, I just stopped looking down. It seemed wisest.

We went up to several thousand feet – enough to make my ears pop and for a noticeable drop in temperature, but not quite to the top of the treeline, although we could see it above us. When we arrived at the track, which was basically a mud circle about a third of a mile long through the spruces, the dogs were already on their lines, attached to the sleds in teams of 16 and waiting, not very patiently, for us. They wanted to run and they told us in no uncertain terms to hurry up and strap in so that they could get going. All forty of them barking at once was rather loud!

The third vehicle of the day resembled a six-seater golf buggy, although with dogs instead of any engine, obviously, and we each had a separate seat with a seat belt – a very reassuring touch.

The mushers stood on the back behind us and yelled to the lead dog occasionally. They didn’t yell very loudly, mind you, because once they started to run, there was no barking and there was no other source of sound whatsoever around us, so sometimes it seemed as though they were simply talking to the lead dog (Dozer, a girl), despite the fact that she was several metres ahead of us. One of our mushers was a Reddington –grandson of the man who started the Iditarod. Sledding royalty, basically.

These dogs have been bred to run and they love it. During the Iditarod, they run 100 miles a day and eat 18,000 calories each (about 80 Big Macs a day). They food is fed to them hot, to keep them warm, although they were panting quite considerably today, because it was too hot (about 10 degrees centigrade). They prefer MINUS ten, bless them. My toes got so numb, I lost all feeling in them for about an hour. That’s plenty cold enough for me, thanks very much. The Iditarod course goes below minus sixty, which doesn’t certainly appeal to me. With the races run during the height of the winter (the Iditarod is in February), during the summer months, the dogs have to train, and so someone’s bright idea to drag tourists around in circles is brilliant. It allows them to run and train and earn money at the same time.

After the run, we were introduced to each of our dogs. I don’t think I can remember all of their names, and how the mushers remember all 300 at the site, I have no idea, although they obviously each know their own dogs well. There were Dozer and Merv at the front, Felix, Stovepipe, Bacon, Eggs, who are brother and sister (Waffles was in another team), Bert and Ernie. Dozer found my gloves very tasty (must remember to send them to the laundry!).

Then, sadly and, somewhat nerve-wrackingly (you think those inclines looked steep going UP?!), it was time to go back down the mountain to the camp, where we bought stuff in the shop, listened to some woman going on rather boringly about the practicalities of the Iditarod and had the chance to meet some pups, born only a week ago, whose eyes aren’t even open yet.

Dog sledding is a very serious business in Alaska – it’s the state sport – and there are sprint races as well as endurance runs. The puppy in my pictures is a sprinter breed, not an endurance one. Huskies are endurance, whereas sprinters are cross-bred with a more Pointer look about them.

The sledders come to Skagway every summer to swell the number of people in the town considerably. All the summer staff, who work as guides, waiters and so on, live in RVs and tents for six months. Our bus driver works in Aspen during the winter and Skagway in the summer. The actual permanent community is minute.

Said guide, Garrett, drove us back to town just in time for me to catch my afternoon tour. The train was parked right next to the ship, which made life simple! We took the White Pass Scenic Railway Yukon Route, which took us up the mountains and into Canada and back again, along the railway built for the gold rush stampeders, as they are known. It is renowned as one of the most beautiful train rides in the world. I’ll try and do it justice with pictures, because words are useless. Mind you, I wouldn’t have liked to have done it by any other method of transport, such as horse or mule. This is some of the most unforgiving territory on Earth. The gold rush stampeders were clinically insane.