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Sorry about the interuption folks, had to go off and cook dinner for the clan!
Where was I ? We travel up to the Artic Circle, following the pipeline which travels almost 1000 miles above ground traversing along the Dalton Highway - this leads up to the Artic Ocean....except you cannot go to the ocean without going on a tour of the oilfields as it is restricted. By now we have bush camped for 4 days without a shower.....I think my clothes are about to walk off by themselves.
The tour of the oilfields turns out to be the worst tour I have been on, besides being a great tourist rip off by BP, the guide didn't know his left from his right. He had the most monotone voice, which combined with being in the cold for 4 days and sitting on a heated bus put everyone to sleep!!! The tour consisted of a series of sheds and workshops!!!! At the end you could put your toes in the freezing Artic Ocean amongst the dirty snow!!! It was soooo bad it was almost funny! The photo's from the tour consisted of everyone asleep! To take revenge we all went back and
raided the food & drink. I didn't even see any Polar Bears!!!! We all sat on the truck laughing that we had just spent 4 days getting there......I keep telling myself it's the journey and not the destination that counts. If you want to recommend a really bad place to go to an enemy....Prudoe Bay is the place !!!! All joking aside the scenery was spectacular!!!!
I do long for civilisation.....this getting back to nature stuff is all very well, but a bed, clean clothes and a Starbuck's won't go amiss right now.
We saw another Grizzly bear today...he was chewing on something he had killed, a wolf came along and the bear legged it like a girl!!! I really wouldn't have expected that....one for David Attenborough!
We also went to Wiseman, some old gold mining town which appeared to have been abandonned. The cabin doors were about 4ft tall....it was really spooky....I was half expecting some psycho to come and bash me over the head like in a horror movie!!!
As I said before Alaska has some really strange / funny road sign's - the best so far has to be Deadhorse, Last Chance Highway, Farthest North Spruce and
my particular favourite Gobblers Knob!!
Everyone onboard seems ok, we are still on our best behaviour, so no one has fallen out yet (i'm sure that will change). There is a wide range of age's from 23 to 60...so a mixed bag of people.
The truck gets attention wherever we go.....American's can't help coming up and asking about our journey. We have nominated Nigel as our media representative (he's welsh...so they probably can't understand what he is saying) he's already been interviewed by Alaskan radio in a supermarket car park!!!! We are supposed to be keeping a low profile!
Our last call in Alaska before we head into Canada is a place called Chicken. The motto is 'what happens in chicken, stays in chicken'. The 'town' consists of 3 building's an Emporium, a cafe and a bar all own by the same woman. The area around the town is working gold mines and stand in the bar long enough and you will be acosted by some old timer with stories of gold digging!
The town is closed 6 months of the year because it is cut off by snow. The pub which is no bigger than a postage stamp is
covered walls to ceiling with baseball caps and underware. It appears that the local past-time in Chicken consists of the locals getting female tourists drunk and cutting off their underware and blowing them up in a cannon!!! Luckily I managed to escape this.....my knickers have to last me 9 months....i'm not giving them up without a fight!!!
This was the only pub within 60 miles and is real hicksville, where the men are men and the women look like men! Locals arrive in pick-up trucks with a shot gun in one hand and a beer in the other! Everyone was up for having a big night out in Chicken (getting pissed appeared to be the only thing to do) I ended up getting smashed on one of the local beverages a mixture of baileys, kahlua, brandy and god knows what else - all served in a pint glass appropriately titled ' Chicken F***er'. I go back to my tent and spend almost an hour trying to get into my sleeping bag....when I wake up in the morning I find I have slept on my hairbrush!!!! Remember what happens in chicken....stays in chicken
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