Monday 29th

Today we left Mt McKinlay Princess Wilderness Lodge and headed north to Denali Princess Lodge a 2 1/2 hour coach ride. Denali is the tallest mountain in North America standing 20310 feet high, it is easily visible from many locations along the Parks Highway. The landscape changed as we headed north, the trees began to change colour with their leaves changing to a yellow orange and the landscape showing signs of previous glaciers and the tree lines where the tundra meets the forests. It is still warm.

The Denali Princess Lodge is set on the side of the Nenana River. Across the road are food outlets, gift stores and tourist outlets.

Our accommodation block, the rooms are only relatively new.

After settling in we took the free shuttle to the Denali National Parks Visitors Centre. Denali is a large park, and we only get to see a small part of it. But it's size allows for an ecosystem where wild can wander, unafraid of humans. This will give us an opportunity to see wild animals closer than anywhere else in America. This includes wolves, caribou, moose, sheep and bears, they say you only have a 25% -30% chance of seeing Mt Denali on your trip, which we did - but a 95% chance of seeing a bear so here's hoping tomorrow when we venture into the park.

We went to the Wliderness Access Center where all tours leave from and also where you register with the Park Rangers if you are going to camp in the park or climb Mt Denali. We watched a movie on the first explorers into the park and also the first tourists it was very interesting, you are amazed at what they achieved in the early 1900's.

We then walked the trail to the Denali Park Visitors Centre.

Me sinking into the tundra, it was so soft and squishy.

At the visitors centre we looked at the exhibition and watched another movie on the park in winter time. In the winter the park rangers still patrol the park using sled dog's, as well as skidoo's.

The display is so lifelike.

Tonight we went to the Music of Denali dinner show, it was disappointing, the food was average and the show was also average, so we ended up at the Lynx Creek Pizza and Pub for nacho and bourbon, they had some local entertaining which was far better than the show.