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Published: June 18th 2017
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2017-06-11 19.20.58
Brenda and Stewart, unparallelled hospitality and friendship So finally a year later than anticipated I’m on my way, destination Anchorage and maybe further.
Anchorage is to be found in Alaska, umpteen miles away from where my bike is, which can be found in Cochrane Canada.
It's the same poor old beast that took me to Ushuaia and back and will now have to schlepp my arse up to the home of the feared GRIZZLY.
I really want to see one but from a safe distance, I’d rather not end my days as a grizzly turd.
One each leg of the South American trip I’d write down little notes to self about things to bring, being it sexy underwear or things for the motorbike, this time it’ll be easier as I will start in a country where they have things, things that are my size.
Not so easily found in SA or Vietnam.
What will be new is that’ll i’ll have to camp as it’s far between lodgings and they might be filled up with fat Americans on Harleys.
So I’ve invested a prince’s ransom( from a poor country),in a tent, a sleeping bag that is long enough to cover me from
head to toe = it’s very long.
Bit s and bobs for the bike, easily collected over some months at home, something that will probably save me a day or two, not having to run around trying to find it.
As usual a new battery and new tyres and some small improvements, heated grips.
A friend helped me make a heated vest, the weather can be fickle in the north.
The thing is that my starting point is a lot further south than my home, so if I jus wanted to hit the Arctic Circle i could do it more quickly at home.
The guesstimate for this trip is no less than 10000 km which equals to about 200 hrs riding time= baboons arse.
The bears will see my glowing arse through the cloth of my tent.
So I got to Cochrane feeling more dead than alive, 8 hrs time difference.
So the next morning I forced myself to stay in bed until 4.30 and then i went to work on the bike.
Have to make it faster than a GRIZZLY and change the oil and new tyres and and and.
Now it’s finished, and tomorrow morning I’m to to the Ice fields in the Canadian Rockies and heading north on the Alaska Canada highway, aka Alcan.
The weather is so so.
Snow in the mountains, cats and dogs here yesterday and today you can get the beginnings of some nice carcinomas.
Day 3
The bike is finished all preparations are done, now for some breakfast and off I go.
The famous Icefield Parkway was my first encounter with the Canadian rockies and a very good one at that
Lots of mountains lots of snow and ice and the sun was shining and I was happy.
I stopped at Lake Louise, a place i read about in a detective story by Dick Francis a long time ago, very beautiful and very crowded, half of China was there. The day ended in Jasper, resort town at the end of the parkway, very crowded as well and prices to boot.
I went to bed early still with lots of jetlag in my body but to compensate for that I was up with the sun.
I was heading up the Alaska highway towards Alaska
of course and at the end of the day ended up in Fort Nelson some 980 km further up the road, a long haul and maybe a foolish one but the riding was nice so it’s easy to just keep on doing it.
Also towns are few and far apart.
On the way up to Fort Nelson, in a petrol station I met up with John an American young bloke.
We rode up to Fort Nelson in what have turned from a beautiful day into a rainy and cold one.
Sharing is cheaper so we shared room at a hotel and at dinner I got the plainest pizza ever even if the menu said it was the Great White North, the king of pizzas, ’twas not, well I moaned a bit and got it for half price.
Jetlag makes for early evenings and early mornings and I was fast asleep at 9 o’clock.
The next morning it was still raining and we had far to go, to Lake Watson some 500 km up the road, I sone started to freeze and got bit wet and felt like shit warmed over, if it hadn’t been
for my pigheadedness I would have made a u-turn and gone back south, but hey who’s a pussy, not me!
My heated grips were working but you sit on the bike for hours and you can’t move so ever so slowly you get cold.
We stopped at Bumfuck or whatever the place was called and I put on my new heated vest and as it warmed up itself and me life started to smile even the weather didn’t.
I saw three black bears some deer or other and a moose, but it was still to cold to take a few layers to pick out the camera and you don’t stop to close to a black bear to take a pic and say hello.
There were herds of Bison along the road as well but the only thing i my feeble mind was to get to Lake Watson as soon as possible and find a nice warm room.
Wet feet and wet hand and a toasty torso was not enough.
I basically had all my clothes on, so many layers that I could have impersonate an onion.
Lake Watson home of the Sign village
and nothing more.
The saddest thing was to see all the Indians coming into the hotel that also served as a liquor store to buy booze, looking rather worse for wear when they came in.
John and a British guy named Luke had freeze dried food left over so we had a cook out in the parking lot.
Not a culinary delight but we got a few laughs out of it.
The next morning it was rain and cold, what a surprise.
I had a hearty breakfast, the epitome of unhealthy food.
No wonder that people are fat.
I converted my self yet again into the onion man and we took off to Whitehorse and it did not rain to much, it was just cold.
In wWhitehorse the biggest nasties black cloud ever seen by man hung over the city and dropped a shitload of rain just before we came.
The cloud moved way and we followed it as it was to early to tuck in.
The day ended in Haines Junction a place wit a beautiful mountain range, partially clad in snow.
Oh I forgot, not so much
wildlife today, just a mama bear and three cubs roaming about in the ditch and porcupine to boot.
Sorry no pics those bears either.
Another little trek up to Fairbanks through horrendous weather, a small matter of 800 kms or so we even had snow on the ground.
My overboots are falling apart, my gloves leak ,the plug for my heated vest and my heated grips have gone FUBAR, so much for preparing.
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