Denali

Dragged ourselves out of bed early to watch Australia's last game of the World Cup against Spain. Why do we torture ourselves? Went downstairs to the motel's breakfast room, then back upstairs quickly to watch the kickoff. Australia never seemed to be as threatening as we were in the first two games, and when we let in an early goal, the enthusiasm in the room waned. Gave up at half time. Good thing too. When Brendan saw the final score line he astutely commented that he would have been in a bad mood if he'd wasted the morning watching the rest of it.

Headed off in our lovely big SUV north on the Fairbanks road. We watched hour upon hour of lovely mountain vistas roll past as we caught up on each other's comings and goings over the last few months.

Arrived in the town of Talkeetna late morning, and had a wander around. Talkeetna was a prospectors town - the major staging point where the railroad from Seward and Anchorage dropped all of the would-be miners, who organised their last minute supplies and headed off into the Denali mountains to seek their fortune. It was a fairly sleepy, historical little town until 1999 when Princess Cruises built some lodges close by, and started a train bringing all of the tourists off the ships up to see the mountains. 200,000 tourists now come through in a season, and the real locals, as opposed to those who have arrived to service the tourists, are not overly impressed with the change to 'their' town.

However we were warmly received, had some morning tea, looked around the local artisan's market, went for a walk, then had some lunch. The menu had to explain what 'pasties' were to locals who had never tried them before. They think that they are strange, and this comes from people who smother peanut butter and maple syrup on a waffle for breakfast, and think it completely normal.

When we arrived at Talkeetna we found that the train had got there just before we did, and was disgorging carriage loads of tourists, most of them from our cruise. If we had done the cruise extension with Holland America we would have stayed in Anchorage last night, and headed up to Denali on this train today.

Drove on to Denali National Park in the afternoon, stopping for a view of Mt McKinley (Denali), and for Brendan and Rachel to take a selfie of themselves at the park entrance sign to add to their scrapbook of National Parks that they have visited.

We are staying at the Denali Salmon Bake, which is really a restaurant that has some basic cabins built in the grounds. Quite a contrast to the luxury hotels across the road also built by Princess Cruises. We have shared facilities, but the rooms are really quite adequate and comfortable for a national park. Had dinner in the restaurant, and then spent some time researching and debating the schedule for our park visit tomorrow.