Two Drifters

The Intrepid tour was lots of fun. And the scenery and wildlife were amazing. The mountains, rivers, streams and lakes were every but as beautiful as we expected. Truly stunning. We also saw deer, elk, bighorn sheep, chipmunks. And black bears. We saw bears twice, two days in a row. Both were beside the highway eating buffalo berries. It was such a treat to see these incredible creatures. Our favourite spot on the Intrepid Travel tour was Banff. We loved this little town (as did many thousands of others!!) It was big enough to be interesting and small enough to be charming. And it was beautiful.  One evening, we had a fun experience canoeing down the Bow River and we had a beaver swim beside us and slap his tail. After Intrepid, we had two days on the iconic Rocky Mountaineer, travelling from Banff to Vancouver. I had long dreamed of riding on this train so I was very excited to have the opportunity. Once again, the scenery was spectacular and it was also a very special experience ...

  What a month this has been. Just before we left Melbourne, we had the fright of our lives with our US ESTAs being denied (after they had been approved). The email came after hours and we literally had two business days to solve the issue or miss out on our Alaska cruise. Much stress and Googling and, in the middle of the night, we received another email saying we were approved again. A computer glitch apparently. Arrrghhhhh.  We started with a few days in each of Homer and Seward. What a few days – on our first day, a moose stopped traffic (!!) then we saw brown bears (on a bush plane day trip), sea otters, harbour seals, salmon, humpback whales and bald eagles. Andrew also saw halibut which he caught on a fishing charter and we ate for dinner. Yummm!!!!! The whales we saw were on wildlife cruises out of Seward and we were lucky enough to see them bubble-net feeding which is something we had never ever heard of. Basically, the whales spot herring and all blow bubbles togethe...