M - Sitka Sunshine

Well the boat ride was mostly uneventful, except for the usual problems of motocycles on a surface that moves around. We had checked in earlier in the day, and specifically asked did they have tie downs on board to secure the bikes? Yes of course! Well they didn't. One of the crew pulled a bit of string off a roll and handed it to Josh. Being climbing type folk however we had a few slings and bits of webbing so were able to make do. I tied my bike to some shelves, and Josh tied his down to a handy pipe of some kind! At least on the Interislander there are chains running across the floor you can secure to.

We arrived at 8ish in Sitka after a fairly boring trip. We did meet some nice people, and saw whales a few times too which would be the highlight. Jeff Kelly, an old family friend of the Groom's met us at the terminal. We are staying in "The Cottage" a great little building right next to Jeff and Deb's house. The house itself is rented, and Jeff and Deb live on Long Island which is about 20mins boat ride away. So since then we have been exploring around Sitka, seeing Josh's old house which Donn built (it's very square and straight but I like it!), the island, dong a bit of sea kayaking and looking at totem poles and museums. Every few days the town goes nuts as 100's of fat middle age people pour in off the cruise ships, like today there are two cruise ships and a sternwheeler in town.

We are hoping to do some fishing and see some more puffins before we leave town on Thursday for three days on the ferry...

Sitke is known for it's wet climate

M - Historic Haines

A very exciting thing which has nothing to do with our trip. You should know that before I came away on this trip I was coaching a group of teenagers for competitive rock climbing which is called Sportclimbing. Well, three of my group were selected for the NZ youth team, and they are now in Zurich, Switzerland preparing for the big competition in Austia. You can read their travel diary and see some photos www.nzsf.org.nz

Well done to Bob, Annika, and Georgia, your hard work is paying off and I'm sure you will do great in the Champs! Bob went last year as well but for Annika and George this is their first trip. I'm very jealous seeing photos of you in Switzerland, I would really like to go there again.

Anyhow, back to our trip, since my last big update we have been all over the Kenai Peninsula. We had some great weather as we travelled down, staying on the beach in Ninilchick (see photo with dead fish) visited the carnival gone mad which is the Homer Spit and more great weather in Seward. So great that we stayed 3 nights in their rather nice rather cheap town campground. We went on a cruise in Ressurection Bay, the main objective of which was to see Puffins! Yay Puffins! Seward is pretty, it's touristy but copes well with it. The upper part of town where you drive in and out has a nasty fish cannery smell however.

We also went up to Exit Glacier and hiked our way up to the Harding icefield which caused all sorts of comparisons to the Fox Neve which is not an easy comparison to make as the Harding Icefield is flat. We would have loved to jump up and stomp around on the ice but running shoes are not suitable for this sort of shenanigan so we had to restrain ourselves.

Then we drove up intending to visit Whittier. I had read something about tunnels on the way to Whittier. We stopped briefly along the way and chatted to an American woman who told us some interesting things. There is indeed two tunnels to Whittier, one of which is a toll tunnel and only open for 15mins every hour - and it costs $12 ea and in her words "They don't like anyone coming in who doesn't live there" AND everyone there lives in a single big apartment block. This we have GOT to see. And it all come true, and would you belive we went to a cafe cos it was so cold and rainy and Josh bought a esspresso which was easily the best coffee we have had in the USA - In Whittier!!! Josh said it was the best coffee he ever had in his life but he was very cold. We met a couple of interesting people there, Mike and his daughter Tracy, and Brian who are living on their boats, and would you believe it the very next day they were all heading off to Sitka, so we will try to catch up with them there and we might even get to do some sailing. Brian is single handing, and hopes to sail all the way to NZ following the same route the Grooms did.

Then came Valdez, town of a thousand RVs. The interesting thing there was going into a cannery to buy some fish and having to walk right through the canning floor. It didn't smell as bad as Seward. Also we met a fishing captain who showed us his boat and as we walked away we realised he must have been a Kiwi but he didn't say...

In the last day or so we have ridden back along a section of the AlCan we already rode on the way in, back into the yukon, then we turned south at Haines Junction and now we are in Haines, which is Alaska again! On the way through, you must pass through a little town named Tok (pronounced Toke) which has the dubious distinction of being the coldest place in Alaska. It's a cool little town (indeed!) and it has a motorcycle only campground the Thompson's Eagle's Claw where we stayed on the way in and now out again. The Thompson's gave Josh a "Grown in Alaska" sticker which he now has proudly on his helmet.

I'm liking Haines, it has a long history and heaps of Victorian buildings. There are a lot of little galleries and native arts here. This afternoon we visited an antique cannery, which has possibly the only remaining examples of the machines which were used up until the late 70's. They are all operational, but have been converted to electric from the old steam system, and slowed down X10 so you can actually see what is happening.

We have to stay up all night tonight, and at 4am-ish we will board the ferry to go to Sitka. This is a big part of our trip, going back to the place where Josh was born. So we will be on the boat all day tommorrow, landing in Sitka at 8:30pm - Alaska is big!

This post is very rambling as I am rushing as I run out of time yet again!

J -Rainy old Valdez

We are here in Valdez the end of the oil pipeline. They say that Valdez is beautiful and judging by the 700 (Merewyn's guess) RV's that are crammed in to this tiny town it probably is. The rain is here however and you can see nothing. They say that Valdez is surrounded by mountains and having been to some of the other ports in this area I am inclined to believe them. They also say that the drive to/from Valdez over the Thompson Pass is the finest in Alaska, again I will have to take their word for it. It was only cold.

Onward to less rainy places.

J - Some pictures

For some of these you might need to rotate your head. Sorry. Thanks to Sylvain Ducasse, our friend from Quebec for use of his computer, and thanks to someone across the street for free wireless internet access. It is a little slow thought guys maybe you should upgrade :)
























Dead fish at sunset.

















The sign forest at Watson Lake in the Yukon

















Typical Alaska scenery, mountains, overcast, still water, fireweed by the roadside and a sign with bullet holes in it. Every single road sign in Alaska has bullet holes, except when you are inside the major towns. I should know we have ridden 90% of the roads now.

















Contrast Alaska and Canada :)

















baloony adventures

















Me and Bryan sing to the other tourists. Mostly Bryan.
































Merewyn gets wet at the Glaciar National Park Montana
















the smoke blotted out the sun for 150 miles

J - Climate Change

Climate change is pretty noticeable up here in Alaska and Northern Canada. All the locals that we speak to, at least the ones that have been here a while, it's the same story. 'When I first got here it would go down to 60 below and stay there for 3 weeks but now it only goes down to 40 or so.' Some think it's a great thing :) The national parks all have these amazing shots of glaciers tumbling into the sea or just generally looking big and impressive. If you walk out to see them however the are usually looking a bit sick. The most obvious sign though is the pine beetle which gets under the bark of the pines and in 2 years turns them a bright red, in 3 years kills them. There are some huge patches of this around the place. The cold winters kill the pine beetle and they have been quite warm recently.

This might mean a bit more people move to Alaska in the long term if the winters keep getting milder.

M - Northern Exposure

We have arrived in Fairbanks, likely the northern most point of our trip. It is light here until after midnight, and the sun shines until about 10.30. The longest day was way back on June 21, but we have been travelling north so quickly that until now the days have been getting longer not shorter.

To finish my previous post, we had a great camp next to Lake Dease on the Cassiar Highway, and heard a large animal in the night. It appeared to jump into the lake, and then wade out again. After seeing the bears fishing we were convinced it must have been a bear ( a black bear in my imagination - less dangerous) but several people have said it was more likly a Moose. That is really annoying as I have yet to see a moose!

The very next day we are riding along the Alcan Highway, and right there is a baby Grizzly next to the road. We stopped a fair way back and waited to see if Mum was about before we tried to go past. This cub was all alone however, and it seems likely that Mum was killed by a car a few days earlier. He wasn't scared at all of cars and big motorhomes going by, so we rode past slowly and he freaked out and ran away! Funny how animals ignore cars but motorcyclists are identified as people/animals. I hope the cub is ok, the survival rate is only about 1 in 3 on average.

Along we rolled, and then we saw a very huge pickup truck with an enourmous caravan attatched, and similarly large amounts of white smoke billowing about. They had a cell phone, but that isn't much use in the back of Alaska. So we carried on until Jake's Corner and phoned a tow truck for them. I hope the tow truck came (we saw a likely looking vehicle heading that way) and I hope it didn't bankrupt them.

The next day was feezing cold, so we stayed a night in Tok, at the Thompson's Motorbike Campground which was quite neat. There we met two people from Washington, Jim and Clover and two Dutch tourists, Franz and Richard. Richard is travelling in a Subaru Leone which is hardly a motorcycle but we liked him so that was ok. Besides his Leone has done over 400,000km and he is planning to drive it to Panama yet!

Once we got to Fairbanks things warmed up, and we (Josh and I, and Richard) are now staying at the Go North Base Camp which was reccommended to us by Franz and is very nice. There is a group of 10 Kiwis here who all sound like Lyn of Tawa.

Almost out of time (again) so it's happy birthday to Christine, and to Christopher, I had reason to vistit the post office today (hint, hint).