Day 13 - ever Northwards

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An early start and we're at the train station by 7am for the approximately 12 hour journey to Fairbanks, Alaska's second city. This is directly north from Anchorage and is a city that owes its existence firstly to the gold rush 100 years ago and more recently to the construction of the Trans-Alaskan pipeline. The guidebook says that noone who forks out for this train journey regrets it, even those on a budget, and that is certainly true. The line crosses yet more incredible scenery with a pretty detailed commentary over the PA system of the history passed along the way. One town has a huge wooden frame painted black and white like the finishing post in horse racing. The idea is that they place this on the frozen river in winter and place bets on when the ice will break up. A siren sounds when this thing passes a point 100 feet down river from where they placed it, and the time of this determines the winner. This sweepstake sounds like an Alaska-wide event, with stagering prize money.

We arrive in Fairbanks a little early and they don't have buses running at weekends so we catch a cab to our hostel. Rubbish location. Pretty weird place too, in total contrast on the how-much-we-like-it scale from other places we've stayed in on this trip. A worrying amount of handgun firing going on which is apparently normal target practice. Our canister of bear spray might not be much of a match for them.

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