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Published: July 15th 2012
Day 97……07/07/2012 So todays the day, the only day of the whole trip where we have a specified appointment, and where we definitely have to be somewhere. The bike is loaded with a revised selection of luggage and essential items, having already discussed the needs and priority of many of the items that did not make the list. The lack of any protest by Lynne about what she could or could not take was a little concerning, but I will put it down to her having dibs on any emergency space for a few T shirts along the way. The only problem now is the fact that it is only 1100am and the ferry does not sail until 6pm, so a bit of a hang around with the kind permission of the motel owners, in their lounge. At 3pm we arrive at the ferry terminal in Bellingham where we join the queues of vehicles waiting to board, we pull up behind another motorcycle that immediately makes me shudder, caused mainly from concern, but a little from fear, it was not the bike itself a big BMW trailie, but the fact that it was carrying another set of serious off road
Bellingham dock
A little worrying those tyresknobbly tyres, this was not good. Nobody said that the road back from Alaska some 3500 miles was going to be easy, but this was way beyond the capabilities of the bike we were on, even with my new semi off road boots.
The ferry eased out of its berth and we located our luxury cabin, well when I say luxury one look at Lynne’s little face told me that it was way short of that standard, it spoke to me more of rope locker or, “even I will find it hard to lie out straight in here”. Well that’s all there is and it does have a port hole, though which we could see other less fortunate folk making their beds up on sun loungers, and would be sleeping out under the stars tonight.
Day 98……08/07/2012 The route we are taking over the next four days is known as the inside passage, and it will take us through miles of waterway between the mainland of Canada’s British Colombia and the smaller islands off that coast, and then into Alaskan waters, this will not only give us protection from the open waters off the Pacific
Ocean, but will offer excellent views of the spectacular scenery on both sides of the ship. Something that the cruise ships cannot do due to their immense size. Well all was revealed when I spoke to the chap on the dockside with the off road BMW, it seems that although he was getting off at the same stop as us, and riding the paved roads like us towards Fairbanks, that’s where the similarity of the two journeys ended. He was going to head north further into the Arctic Circle than in my opinion anyone needs to, as well as some tarmac he will have to ride 1500 miles of dirt road or no road at all to make the trip, and why because he can, so fair play to this adventurer. The rest of the day was spent sunning ourselves on the upper deck, watching some very pretty scenery go by. A shout went out from some nearby passengers as a pod of killer whales went by in the distance, and although impressive to see, they were out of the range of my little camera. The evening meal in the ships cafeteria was surprisingly good and also quite reasonable in
Tent on deck
They did have to move it elsewhere eventually. price, considering the fare and charges on the cross channel ferries, although a glass of beer was a little over the top.
Day 99…...09/07/2012 The alarm was set for 7.30 this morning as the ship was coming into our first port of call, in Alaska, (State number 24 for us on this trip, and number 49 for me, with just Hawaii to do.) The town of Ketchikan, a once thriving port during the heydays of the Klondike gold rush, now relied heavily on the cruise ships that sail these waters, the town’s numbers are sometimes swelled by up to 12,000 visitors a day depending on how many ships call in. Ketchikan has seen better days, and the walk from where our ferry berthed to the centre of town was quite run down. It was a far cry from what the passengers of the cruise liners saw when they got off in the centre of town, and were greeted by a fine harbour side, with shops to cater to their every souvenir hunting need, and who own all the shops and bars, not the locals, you’ve guessed it the cruise companies. Within just a few short hours we were
back on the ferry and underway again. By now the skies had clouded over and the once majestic views of the passing snow capped peaks were all but obscured in mist. We did see a lone killer whale completely breech the water twice, off in the distance, and at around twenty feet long it made quite a splash. Later that afternoon we were treated to the sight of four or five massive Bald Eagles performing a sort of dog fight with each other over a fish that one had plucked from the water, it’s a breath taking event when you catch sight of one of these amazing birds, let alone this many. A few hours after that the rarity of these beautiful creatures was almost spoilt when ten Bald Eagles were spooked into taking off from a large channel marker as we passed by, now I am not saying that it was not impressive, but seeing so many now, kind of ruins the mystique of this national bird. Does the UK have a national bird, I do not think so, we will have to get one, and after all New Zealand has the Kiwi and Australia has that Kylie bird.
Day 100……10/07/2012 A 5am call over the ships speakers to say that we would be arriving in the Alaskan State capitol of Juneau within the hour was not at all welcome by the occupant of the bunk below me, but we made the effort to rise and shine, unlike the weather which had completely forgotten to get out of bed. Once again the little ferry that served the needs of the local people along this massive coastline played second fiddle to the cruise ships that occupied the premium berths in the city’s harbour, in fact we had a twelve mile taxi ride to the downtown area. We had around four hours to look around the harbour area which was good, apart from the light rain that was on and off most of the time. According to the blurb Juneau has more churches than bars, which surprised us as all we could see were bars, some new some old that had served the needs of the many miners that had passed through here. We walked through the town to try and find evidence of the church claim and ended up at a Russian Orthodox chapel, in a street with
many other small places of worship. There is still a slight Russian connection here in Alaska even after so many years after the Americans bought it from them. We saw many gift shops selling Russian gifts and trinkets, especially the wooden dolls that you find with one inside the other. We took a cable car ride up the side of Mount Roberts, which was right on the edge of the harbour, and from the top gave us terrific views over the city, it was just a shame that the weather was a little dull for some good photo’s. The last port of call on our whistle stop tour of Juneau was the Red Dog saloon, a famous old haunt from the days of the gold rush, a rough and tumble bar that even had an inch of sawdust on the floor, oh what stories this place could tell. Back on board after lunch we continued north in more of the damp dreary weather, with fingers crossed that the sun would be out by the time we reached our destination on Thursday morning.
Day 101……11/07/2012 The stop this morning was in the very small town of Yakutat, and given
that we arrived at 6am there was little chance of either of us seeing any more of it that than what was visible from our porthole, and the popular consensus from those hardy folk who had made the effort to get up, get off and dodge the rain said that we had not missed anything. We followed the coast around the Alaskan Gulf for mile after mile, the sun was shining on the shore which illuminated the rugged mountains that came right down to the sea, and they were nearly all covered in snow which made for great views, we saw many glaciers that during the winter months would be depositing the icebergs into the sea. The late afternoon and early evening saw the sea state rise a little, which was swell,…….. ok I’ll get me coat again, my talent is wasted on you.
Lynne has been a little off colour this afternoon and might be catching something, her eyes have become a little swollen, so we will have to be careful with that. An early night tonight perhaps.
Day 102……12/07/2012 A 5am call this morning telling us of the impending docking at Whittier our
stop to get off, was not at all welcome, but then nearly five days on board had been a little too long for us, and had pretty much answered the question would we like to take a cruise in the future. The ferry will continue on to Homer, and Kodiak, where some young and excited new coastguards will take up their new positions. Jumping out of a perfectly good helicopter into the freezing waters would not get me all fired up like these boys and girls, but good luck to them all, they are almost a forgotten service here, with the military getting most of the adoration of the US public. A look through the round window confirmed our worst fears, oh dear it’s pouring down and the majestic views of the surrounding mountains are very nearly invisible this is a real blow to us. So we pack up our stuff and don our wet weather gear and make our way off the ship into the early morning rain. We stop and take a little shelter with a few other bikers while we wait for our turn to take the Whittier tunnel the only way passed the mountain, the tunnel
which also takes a train is at two and a half miles the longest in the US. While we wait I took what photo’s that I could of the fabulous blue-white glacier that snakes down above the port. Once out of the other side not only is it still raining but the wind is doing its best to have us off. Finally after a few miles the rain stops, and the wind dies away and the ride is quite nice, if not a little chilly. As we go along I cannot help thinking that there is something wrong with the bike, oh dear, it just does not feel right and on the corners she seems to be doing her own thing, tyre pressure maybe I will have to check. We arrived in Anchorage around ten, and visited the local Harley dealership to check out the bargains, although Harley and bargains very rarely occupy the same statement, but however Lynne did find some stuff that made her happy which was nice as she is still feeling a little under the weather with some sort of allergy reaction that has left her little face a bit swollen. The pharmacist at the local
Wal-Mart said to keep taking the antihistamines, and that’s all we could do really. We decided not to stop in Anchorage, and were also disappointed not to have gotten to see more of the Kenai Peninsula because the forecast was for rain for the next five days, so we moved onto Wasilla, where it brightened a little and we also found a hotel with a restaurant that was nice. The problem with the bike became all too clear to me as I stood in front of the bathroom mirror, it was not the bike at all, but me, I was the one that was still swaying after last night’s fairly choppy crossing of the Alaskan gulf, so this hopefully temporary human ailment means that Christine is fine.
Day 103……13/07/2012 We had spent a great evening last night in the bar talking to two brothers who were also travelling through Alaska on their BMWs, and one had spoken of his plans to spend around two years travelling the world on his, wow, I think it might be time for me to change my bike and for us join him, hold on, no I would miss work too much. We
came out of the bar just before 11pm and I thought that it seemed a little brighter than it should be, it was actually still daylight, most weird. As we left the hotel it started to spit with rain but not too bad, we got fuel and headed off towards The Denali National park just over two hundred miles away. We had been warned to get fuel whenever we could, even if you had only done fifty or so miles, this seemed like good advice considering the size of this state. The rain stopped and it started to get a little brighter as we got closer to the mountains again, but at one of the overlooks that should have revealed Mount McKinley in all its 20,320 foot glory, all we saw was low cloud. We are not alone in our disappointment as they say it is only visible 10 percent of the time. We rode on into the National park and to the fairly rough road to a point that you could only go further on a park bus which would take you into the interior of the park, 5 – 8 hours on a dirt road. Now if you
have ever visited Scotland’s Glen Coe, Great Glen or any of the other Highland’s wonders then you could be forgiven for thinking that you were back there, except that this true wilderness stretched almost a thousand miles to the Bering Sea. We continued on a further 150 mile to Fairbanks where we were told that you could get accommodation at the State University’s campus now that the students had left for the summer, so that what we did, and as accommodation in Alaska is extortionately high, we were more than pleased at the much lower rates, plus there is just a chance as we walk through those halls of knowledge that some of it may rub off on me.
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pete
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hi you two it all looks fantastic and Steve loving the humour in your words.