Dingo Beach to Alaska & Vancouver, BC Canada

Our home at Dingo Beach is in the process of having some extensions and renovations, so with our next trip looming what would we do? We decided to leave the house as is, and set out to begin our next overseas adventure. As Pat says "it will still be there when we come home."

Prior to our departure, my Mum celebrated her 80th birthday over the Easter weekend and what a celebration it was. Our family came from everywhere and met up at the Gold Coast, where our celebrations and get togethers lasted for many days. That girl of ours is full of surprises! She kicked up her heels at her party and together with her friends she gave a great rendition of Irish Dancing. A friend of ours, Col, asked Mum if she would like to go on a spin on a motorbike? "Of course, I'd be delighted" was her reply - so she had a great trip - firstly on a BMW and secondly on a Ducati! She even made the statement that she now prefers a BMW!!

Pat and I spent a couple of days in Sydney with my brother Patrick and the Kings. I reminded Anne and Pat that they were the ones who saw me off to Canada on my first trip back in 1968 - so here we were 41 years later with history repeating itself.

We decided to take a 14 hour direct flight from Sydney to Vancouver. Uncle Joe met us at the airport and then it was home to Auntie Angela and their little dog Lily. It is great getting together with all my family over here in Canada - it is so important to keep the generations in touch with each other and ensure the family group remains connected. That night my cousins and their children came over for dinner and I did stay awake for as long as I could. Antoinette and Tony had a barbeque at their home the following night and this began our wonderful introduction to Salmon dinners. Andrea and Kory set us up with winter coats for our Cruise to Alaska - we were now ready to head off.

We met up with our Australian mates Robert and Rose the following day and began our lengthy process of booking onto the Diamond Princess in readiness for our 7 day Cruise up the coast from Vancouver to Whittier in Alaska.

The cruise was very relaxing and enjoyable with sights along the way quite spectacular, particularly Glacier Bay where we were able to moor in very close to the Glaciers and watch the glacier in the process of large clumps of ice breaking away, which is called calving. The Captain said we were very fortunate as normally the large ships could not get as close as we were able to on this particular day. It was very cold but we were well rugged up in our jackets, hats, gloves and scarves.

We did have an unusual group of people on board. There were 25 Santa Claus on a Santa Claus Convention - they were on their way to Santa's home at the town of North Pole in Alaska. They were accompanied by their wives and partners and they wore red clothing most of the time.