no bears only a bare bum!

Thursday 19th June

Our last day in Juneau.  We have organised a 2pm checkout as our ferry doesn't leave till 5:15pm and we don't have to be there till 3:15pm.  So we walk downtown and go for a ride up Mt Roberts on the tramway.  We walk to the top of the mountain, crossing over snow four times and it is a fairly strenous exercise glad we didn't run this morning!!  We are walking along the track at one point and come up over the hill to be confronted...not by a bear but a BIG bare bum!!! an older woman has not tried to hide the fact that she is relieving herself right beside the track....really!!! there are children on the track!! 
We come to a patch of snow on the track and at first we think that a person has walked across the snow but then we see they are quite obviously bear tracks not sure if you can make them out in this photo

bear tracks in the snow

On the way back down the mountain we are passed by heaps of people running up the trail.  And we see eagles soaring above the tramway station.  I buy a cute pair of jammie pants at the gift shop as the ones I bought with me have very, very loose elastic.

We buy lunch at a little street cart the food is good but I am stunned by the selfishness of some people namely those who smoke.  We are literally in the middle of our lunch and a man smoking comes and sits right next to us and continues to smoke his cigarette!!!!!  A lot of butts are left lying arpound too it makes me so angry that people think it's OK to leave them lying around.  Rant over!

We pack up after lunch and have decided we'll do a drive by of Mendenhall Glacier and get some petrol before going to the ferry terminal that way we won't need to stop for 160 miles or so at 2am when we disembark in Prince Rupert.  We ride out to the glacier and it's amazing it comes right down to the water and there are huge chunks of ice floating in the lake.  When we get to the terminal to collect our tickets the woman behind the counter says "they will be loading in about 30 mins"  we thought we would have to wait at least an hour or more.  Once in the ferry queue we get talking to a couple who are riding a canary yellow Goldwing and towing a trailer the same colour.  Rick and Paula (who looks uncannily like Betty Cowie my Mum's friend) are from Texas.  It's not long before we are loading.  David has to tie down the bike himself (on the Spirit of Tasmania they do it for you) and we had to provide our own tie-down straps.  We settle into our cabin and then we go looking for John and Terry we know they are here because we are parked behind their bikes.  We can't find them so we end up sitting on the deck talking to Rick and Paula some more.  It's so nice to finally have a female biker to talk to. 

Terry and John find us on the deck and we all go into the bar for a drink and they introduce us to Harry and Carol a couple who are riding a yellow Can-am and towing a camper trailer.  They live in Smithers BC we all end up eating dinner together and chatting till late.  The beds are fairly comfy although bunk beds.  I grabbed the bottom ha ha