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).