Family Adventures in Alaska, Canadian Rockies in Harvey the RV and Legoland

[TraceyK90]

Day 5 Ketchikan

We arrived into port pretty early around 7am but took our time having breakfast - you guessed it more waffles. Its a very pretty town and the arrival and departure is some of my favourite scenery. I loved the style of the houses.

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I did look at the prices and quickly shelved the idea of a holiday house. They are not kidding about the cost of building in Alaska.

As we had been here before we avoided booking tours, last time we did a duck tour and caught the lumberjack show. The duck tour is an amphibious vehicle tour that takes you out on the water. They also blow these yellow duck bill quackers and then they sell them to you or your mother-in-law.....they still work five years later and I have not thrown out the last one. The lumberjack show was a fair bit of showmanship, think chain saws, log rolling, cheesy jokes.


So with our map we headed off to explore the town. First stop was the fairly new Ketchikan Fire Department, it wasn't something we set out to find but stumbled across and noticed the most beautifully restored fire engine in the windows. Lucky for us it is open to visitors. One of the first responders was happy to come and have a chat to us about the restoration project (it still gets taken out for special occasions and is in working order) and the history of the town.

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How amazing is this?

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The old alarm bell and they even had the old fire pole that was moved from the previous fire station. There is a fire hydrant where you can donate to the upkeep and preservation, so we stuffed some notes into it and headed off to find salmon.

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[TraceyK90]

Armed with our maps, including the free walking map from Visit Ketchikan Alaska - Attractions we headed off again. Next stop was back down to the main street. Nearly all of the shops offer a free token with a voucher to entice you into the store and buy overpriced jewellery. Our kids were caught up in the excitement and were keen to collect some Alaskan charms and coins. At one of the places we were told that some baby seals were being taught to hut in the creek that runs through town. It was also the start of the salmon run and although it wasn't going to be a big season we would be able to see some of them making their way up stream.

The creek that runs through the town is boarded by souvenir shops and restaurants (including ones selling Alaskan crab) and a boardwalk allowing you to wander along. We made our way along the loop stopping in to check out some of the interesting shops (you could buy salmon products of all types), Alaskan art (some even made in China) and a Christmas store. We always bring back Christmas decorations from our travel so we really enjoyed picking out a couple of decorations for the tree. Eventually we (okay make that mostly me) want to have a tree of travel decorations only.

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Okay so we could see fish in here including quite a few that didn't make it but no seals.


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Ah saw something......


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There he is! This little guy spent most of his time playing in the rapids and occasionally grabbing the odd fish.

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Someone picking up the leftovers.


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This is the boardwalk and a seal cruising along. It did stink from all the dead fish.

 

[TraceyK90]

Ketchikan prides itself on being the totem capital and there are totem poles all over the place.








Final look around before we headed back on board with really sore feet.

The next day was spent at sea and it got rough. Didn't see many people about that day, even kids club was deserted. The youngest two braved it until Miss8 got sick and left her brother to be the sole occupant. Their circus show was cancelled due to the rough weather. Dismemberment was pretty easy and even with another two large ships in Canada Place wasn't super busy and crowded. We had a little time to waste until we could pick up our campervan so headed to Starbucks for the coughpy coffee and free Wi-Fi.

 

[TraceyK90]

Now on to something new for us, our first trip in a RV! We wanted to do a one way hire from Vancouver to Calgary and only a few places would let us do this. Prices ranged and we found that we had to book about 6 months out from our trip, even then there were places with no availability. We had 16 nights in a 5 berth camper for $2700 including all the bits and bobs like unlimited km. If I had thought about it and done better homework I would have not booked the personal kits and the provisioning kit. It would have been about the same to go to Walmart and pick up what we needed and could customise it for ourselves. There are no wine glasses so we drank out of plastic tumblers, for the whole trip - classy!



We rented from Cruise Canada (Cruise Canada RV Rentals and Sales - The Official Site). They give you a time to show up to collect the camper and to be honest I wasn't very impressed with their pick up process, it was hugely disorganised and way under staffed. If people are given a window then they should be able to manage the work load. We had a quick intro to the RV, stowed our bags got in and took off. Not before the guy showing us around the RV told us a better way to get out of Vancouver and head to Whistler. Right through the CBD....in an RV. Didn't go well.

So meet Harvey the RV.











Clowns!

Inside was a gas cooktop, full size fridge, dining area which converted to a bed, double bed as well as one over the cab and a small loo and shower. The loo is really high and Miss8 had trouble working out the height, if you had mobility issues it could be a real problem, not just your family making fun of you. The grey water, black water and fresh water connections are easy to do and Mr10 could actually handle this under supervision. There was storage all around the top of the RV. We travelled with two large suitcases and each person had a large packing cell with their clothes in. The length was 24-26 feet and that was fine for us. Hubster advises that it was pretty easy to drive around and park but he alternates between being a consulting engineer and our beef cattle property so does drive his share of trucks etc. It was an automatic. If you are looking CanaDream are another good option for rentals.

 

[TraceyK90]

Whistler 2 nights

I think I already said we were doing this late in the season both for cruising and RVing, so I pre-booked all our RV parks as some had already closed for the season. This one is open all year round as it also caters to sled ridders and permanent residences. Home for the next couple of nights was Whistler RV Park and Campground (About the Park | Whistler RV Park and Campground | Whistler, BC, Canada), located on Highway 99, nice and easy to find and get into the village itself. It took about 2 hours to get here from Vancouver and it was super easy to find our spot and set up but first we headed into town for supplies. There is a shared shower and toilet block but it was bloody cold so we made use of our tiny shower. The best bit is it is nice and quiet with beautiful views. Each site has a picnic table so we'd spend the afternoon with a cup of wine and some nibbles while the kids explored and took photos.




Trying to look at the local real estate mags - you can get a lovely stone five bedroom place for 21 mill.









Still quite busy even though it was late September.

 

[TraceyK90]

Next day was spent exploring around the town and doing a few tourist sites. Being Queenslanders we loved all the leaf fall and the changing colours. Lots of walking and worth the stop in at the visitor centre, we were even given Canadian flag pins.



Lunch was at the Amsterdam Pub, it was dam good Dam Menu - Amsterdam Cafe Pub - Whistler's Best Pub It gets pretty wild at night but rather nice for lunch.





This was my pulled pork burger, I couldn't decide between the sweet or spicy version so at the servers suggestion we did both. Hubster had the Aussie burger. I couldn't finish mine so he did!



Chicken strips and pizza got a big thumbs up.

 

[TraceyK90]

The afternoon was spent wandering around checking out all the Olympics leftovers and burning off energy in a pretty cool kids playground, well we spent it watching them. The village was pretty quiet before the snow season starts.






How's this for a cubby house. We must have been asked six times why they were not in school, good thing it was actually school holidays back home. It was something that was continually asked during the trip.





This was pretty impressive. There is an area of lawn behind them that was pretty popular with people lazing about in the sun either on deck chairs or the grass itself.



Next to it is a list of Olympic events and winners. Off for some more groceries as we tended to eat out at lunch and in at dinner time and wine. This trip I tried to stick to Canadian wines only. We probably spent $150 per day in food between the five of us.

We'd defiantly come back in winter for another trip and might even get this in 2018. I can imagine how busy it would be in ski season and I don't think we'll be in a RV.

 

[TraceyK90]

Kamloops

This stop was planned so I could catch up with a family member. If we didn't have the RV we would have stayed up the mountain at Sun Peaks, Kamloops isn't the prettiest town around but it is huge and according to my cousin you can often get some good deals flying into Kamloops from Australia. Dustings of snow were starting to appear all over the place. The drive from Whistler can be done a couple of ways and we had to change our plans because of a land slide. You can see why that might happen. We followed along the Thompson River for a fair part of the trip.









Of course all that water is put to use producing lots and lots of round bails, lots better than our returns!


The RV park is on one of the main highways out of town, so we were a bit concerned with noise but turned out not to be a problem. Something to keep in mind is that some places charge for using the showers and even toilets (25c if you are wondering), this place didn't so we had long hot showers those nights. The big selling point for this place is that it is next door to a wildlife park.

Our Park | Kamloops RV Park

 

[TraceyK90]

BC Wildlife Park

The second day we headed across the road to the wildlife park, the RV park guests have a special rate but we found a family pass was a slightly better deal at $54 CAD. Home: | BC Wildlife Park Kamloops It was mid week and hardly anyone else was there, until a group of kindergarten kids showed up for their field trip, those teachers were earning their money that day. I am not a huge fan of zoos and parks but I think this isn't too bad. The visitor centre is filled with displays, literature and activities to get you started before you head into the park. Staff told us they have an injured wildlife program as well as animal rescue but it is limited due to the size requirements of some species.


This is Dawson, he was orphaned along with a sibling. There was something interesting under the rocks.



I caught up with my rellies, so did Brown Bear.





Woolly cows ??



Tucked up the back is a petting zoo area, although the signs say the lamas are a bit cranky and spit. There were lots of rabbits along with some miniature pigs, goats, donkeys and chooks.

 

[TraceyK90]

Few more photos and then it was time for a late lunch. It was mostly fried food and burgers but not too bad.

 

[RB]

My lasting memory of Kamloops is a huge bottle shop-still the biggest one I have seen, think it had 20 odd check-out lanes. Beers were not in the fridge, you placed your choice in a wire basket (bit like the type used to cook in fish & chip shops) & put the basket in the super cold running water that was piped through the Bottl O. Take your choice out of the water when you consider it chilled enough & then progress to the check-out
Looks like your children would have a great time.
The Ketchikan photos are not showing up for me. We stayed in upstairs in this building at the start of Creek St

 

[Straubs]

Thanks for the TR - one of the only ones I've read that features kids ... hope you get around to uploading Legoland!

 

[TraceyK90]

Well I am finally back into this after getting side tracked due to TC Debbie. We were lucky with not a huge amount of damage, only minor on the house and farm sheds and we are just about back on track although the fallen timber on the property will still take years to get it all cleaned up.

Our next stop was Jasper where we stayed in the campground at Jasper National Park. It was quite a lengthily wait at the gates to check in and the staff member was having a really bad day. We were warned about it being elk rutting season and they did have a bear trap out for one uninvited guest. The set up was pretty basic and we scored two days of rain. It was nice to take things a little slower as a result. The kids learnt to take no prisoners in the family uno games and that their Dad does stack the deck to his advantage.

On the outskirts of town we (along with many other tourists) were lucky to see a heard of elk near the highway. They were conveniently located near a pull off area.

 

[TraceyK90]

There were two other highlights for us as a family in Jasper. Lunch at Jasper Pizza and the massive steam train on display. Our eldest was so impressed he spent ages checking it out.