A Wedding in Bali

Only a few weeks after returning from Alaska, we’re off to Bali for a family wedding.  Step-niece Kylie married her long-time love, Greg, in a beautiful setting at Tirtha Chapel at Uluwatu on the south coast of Bali and the reception was at Villa Latitude, further east on the coast – both spectacular settings.  As before, we stayed at the Padma Resort  at Legian, a favourite spot where we enjoyed the company of the other Miller boys and their wives for several days.

The Tirtha Chapel is a spectacular glass A-framed structure, sitting on/in an infinity pool, overlooking the beautiful Indian Ocean.  The day was typically Balinese – a fine 28 degrees with clear blue skies.  Kylie looked absolutely radiant (as always) and her attendants, including sister Sian, looked fabulous as well, in flowing watermelon gowns.  Greg and Kylie’s children, Morgan and Anneke, wondered what all the fuss was about but enjoyed the day as well.

The reception was held in the grounds of the beautiful Villa Latitude where another spectacular view was on display and we enjoyed a great meal, some very nice French wines and fabulous company with family and friends. 

The rest of the week was spent lazing around the pool, a little shopping and enjoying some good food with brothers, sisters-in-law, some good friends and extended family.  Not a bad way to recover from our recent trip to the cold Alaskan and Canadian spring weather.

Fairbanks and Family!

We made the most of a lie-in before the last leg of our train ride – we had certainly had some early starts & full days.  At 3.45pm we were back on the Denali Star heading to Fairbanks to “meet the family”!  We had dinner on the train, another great meal, & pulled into the train depot around 7.45pm.  By the time our bags were unloaded the cousins had arrived – Ann & Jennie.  We were staying with Ann, her husband Dave, and their son John but Jennie had come up for a few days from San Francisco where she lives, & her son Brian was visiting too, so it was quite a reunion.  We were made very welcome & spent some great times over the next few days visiting Fairbanks, & catching up with Aunt Magdalen, who is the only surviving sibling of my father.  We talked a lot about the Clohertys, and looked at some great old photos, including one of my father as a small child, which I had never seen.  Ann & I made a special trip to Walmart (not as scary as I had thought!) to get a copy made.  It was fantastic to make the family connection again after almost 40 years, & we are very much looking forward to them visiting us downunder in the future.

It was very interesting to hear about life in Fairbanks, especially in the winter months.  I think we were glad to be there in the summer, even though it really didn’t get dark – the sun drops just below the horizon for a couple of hours in the middle of the night, but it’s not dark.  It’s quite disconcerting to go to bed at 11pm with the sun still shining through the window and to wake up to sun again & not have any idea of what time it might be, or how long you’ve been asleep.

Ann very kindly got up at 5am on Sunday morning to take us to Fairbanks airport for our 6.25am flight to Seattle, then to Vancouver and finally Melbourne via Auckland.  We have nothing but praise for Air New Zealand’s Premium Economy class, great food & service & lots more space than in Economy.  We were also very pleased with the results of taking Melatonin for jetlag, we tried it in both directions & didn’t really suffer any effects from travelling.

More fun in Fairbanks

The 'other' car in the driveway - Chevy Camaro

Fairbanks has a fabulous privately owned car museum - a history of US vehicles dating back to the 1890's.  This is just one of more than 80 US manufactured vehicles in one of the best collections I have seen.

Fairbanks Family Fun - out with the boys!

Citabria floatplane in Dave's hanger at the aeropark!

Couldn't resist driving the Viper V10, housed in Dave's hanger.  Stunning performance!

If you can't find a Ferrari V12, then a Viper V10 is just as satisfying!

Fun with a Polaris ATV - climbs in and out of ditches without a sweat.

The Fairbanks Family

Julie with cousins Ann(left) and Jennie(right) and nephew Brian, at Alaska Adventure Park

Jules with Aunt Magdalen, enjoying a reunion after nearly 40 years.

Reaching across oceans and generations - Ann & Jennie(top) with Jules, Aunt Magdalen and Brian.

Anchorage to Denali

The State capital of Alaska is Anchorage and with only 300,000 people, it’s not a big city.  It has a large footprint, partly because of its 5 airfields, including its international airport as well as a huge army and airforce base.  But it does house over 25% of the state’s population.  It’s quite a nice place and we wished that we’d had more time there to explore, but on our 1 free day  we’d booked a tour to a glacier camp where we were to go dog-mushing.  However, once we got to base camp at the bottom of the glacier, we were told that the upper camp (at 4000ft) was snowed in and in white-out conditions.  We were extremely disappointed, given that this was to be a high-light of the trip – dog sledding across a glacier, high up in the mountains.   Consequently, our chopper pilot took us up to a lower glacier where we took a walk on the glacier, as well as flying to another glacier to check it out as it calved into Lake George.  On our walk, we marvelled at the huge crevasses which could easily swallow us if we made a mistake and we found, embedded in the ice, the body of a frozen mouse which may have been there for hundreds if not thousands of years – photo attached.

The following day we were up very early to catch the Denali Star railway train to Denali National Park.  The train is luxurious and extremely comfortable and the trip to Denali takes some 8 hours.  We arrived in Denali (or McKinley Village) mid-afternoon to find our very comfortable lodge at McKinley Village Lodge.  Denali National Park is 6 million acres of pristine wilderness taking in Mt McKinley, the highest mountain in North America at 20,320ft.  To see it without cloud is unusual and it was true to form.  Even with a fine (but very cold) day, we could see only a faint outline of the mountain, behind the mountain range that is the Alaska Mountains.  However, we did a wilderness tour into the national park and came across many animals in the wild, including Dall mountain sheep, moose, caribou, porcupines, ground squirrels and grizzly bears, as well as many varieties of native birds, including hawks, eagles and the local ptarmigan – a ground based (but not flightless) bird similar to a bush pigeon.  The park is sensational – a spectacular landscape – and the tours are well organised and the guides very knowledgeable.  Private entry to the park is banned. 

Tomorrow we catch the train again for the second part of our journey to Fairbanks, where we get to meet Julie’s aunt and cousins, who Julie hasn’t seen since her teen years.  Much excitement!   If only we could get a good night’s sleep – the sun sets about 11pm at the moment and it’s daylight again at 4am.  It’s a little disconcerting returning from dinner with bright sunshine and a temperature of about 5 degrees.  Too cold to sit outside with our last glass of wine!

Colony Glacier falling into Lake George

Bloody cold!

Dwarfed by the glacial features.

Frozen mouse - how old is it?

Calving glacier.

Hanging out! - of the side of the Denali Star

Savage River from the rail line

Dall mountain sheep

Mountain Goat!