On the road again.........

Fairbanks to Dawson City via the Taylor Highway/Top Of The World Highway

View Larger Map

FIRST THINGS FIRST

THANKS TO EVERYONE WHO HAS POSTED A COMMENT, SUE AND I REALLY APPRECIATE THEM. PLEASE KEEP THEM COMING.

Local novelty, a sign without bullet holes

So I'm stood at the petrol station this morning filling up with gas (sorry about the Americanism) and there's an old boy in a beat up Toyota pick up looking across from the other pump and eventually his curiosity gets the better of him and he wanders across, and the conversation goes something like this. "Izzis yuur mowdersaarkle" now quick as a flash I should have replied "no I'm just wandering the streets with this helmet on hoping to find one with the keys in it!" but kindness got the better of me, and also I wasn't going to get sarcastic with someone who lives in a place where people can pick up a gun with the weekly shopping! (not really) so then we had a nice conversation with me trying to convince him that Bee Emmm Durbya really did make mowdersaarkles and no it wasn't like a Harley Davidson (apologies for the bad accent)

Today was the day to get out of Fairbanks and head south, the last two weeks had been arduous for both Sue and, I and we knew that the two weeks we had lost fixing the bike had to made up somewhere along the road

The view over the Alaska Range leaving Fairbanks

We were blessed with good weather again and riding the road South was like a breath of fresh air. Delta Junction was the first stop of the day, this is officially the end of the Alaska Highway (also known as the Alcan) it was originally 1500 miles long and built in 1942 by 10.000 US troops and completed in eight months. For us Delta Junction was a breakfast stop before heading for the turnoff to the Taylor Highway on our way to Dawson city.

Excuse me, would you mind taking our photo?

"Go on Sue, just lie under that mosquito, no you won't look ridiculous"

More stunning scenery

Local wildlife

We stopped at the town of Chicken which was originally a mining community, and now exists purely on the strength of a silly name. When the original population arrived they wanted to call the settlement Ptarmigan after the bird, but they couldn't decide if the name started with a P or a T so called it Chicken after the ptarmigan's local nickname.

Downtown Chicken

The name says it all

This is the inside of the Chicken Saloon, visitors originally left hats nailed to ceiling, and now it has progressed to hats, caps, flags, and unfortunately used undergarments!!. Needless to say with my height I stayed outside and had a drink!

Oh, we love these gravel roads..no really we do.

The Taylor Highway eventually terminates in a place called Eagle (it's a bird thing) but we continued on the Top of the world Highway to the Canadian Border and Dawson City. It's called the Top of the world highway because........oh just watch the video.

This shot deserved to be in black and white

The US border with Canada

Crossing the border into Canada was painless, they wanted to know if we were carrying the usual contraband, drugs, alcohol, guns, and if not would we like to buy some......only joking Canada.

The officials were really helpful and we were into the Yukon in minutes.

Isn't she pretty, what a guy!

"I love that gal of mine"..... Shut up and get back on the bike Graham!

The Top of the world Highway is another classic ride through true wilderness, and whilst some sections are paved, the majority is good old gravel! We did manage another one of those dodgy tankslapping moments on the rough stuff, (due to the time we've lost Sue said I'm not allowed to crash again until we're at least in Mexico) other than that the biggest hardship was the dust from the bloody RV's. Once you're into Canada the road surface improves and it was getting late in the day when we reached the Yukon crossing ferry.

The free ferry across the Yukon to Dawson City

This log cabin turned out to be out most expensive accommodation of the trip so far.

Dawson City of course is famous for being the centre of the Klondike gold rush when gold was discovered in Bonanza Creek in August 1896 nearly 100,000 prospectors battled north to seek their fortune. By 1898 Dawson City was a modern city of 40,000 and the largest city North of San Francisco.

Dawson City, they still have dirt streets and boardwalks.

Dawson City today is a thriving tourist town with the usual tourist attractions and tacky souvenirs but get off the main street and there are still things worth seeing.

This is what happens when you build your house on the permafrost. As the house warms up the footings melt the permafrost......damn!

This has to be the ultimate mobile home

These buildings looked like they hadn't been touched since the gold rush

There really are no modern buildings in Dawson, so in that respect it still retains all the heritage of the original city, but as the tourist summer season only lasts approximately 90 days it makes you wonder what the locals do for the rest of the year when the place is only accessible by dog sled or snowmobile.

This was the best kept building in Dawson

Dawson City has been immortalised in the works of Jack London and the poems of Robert Service. The opening verse of the Spell of the Yukon was painted on the side of a building in downtown Dawson, read the full poem here.

http://www.geocities.com/Heartland/Bluffs/8336/robertservice/spell.html

Prospector's graffiti

A Fortnight in Fairbanks

This Blog was intended as an insight into our lives on the road for the next twelve months, it would also hopefully provide some useful information for travellers looking do a similar trip, with that in mind here's a couple of really good tips:

1. Try not to fall off the bike

2. If you do fall off make sure you have good insurance cover..repeat good cover.

We arrived back into Fairbanks on Friday afternoon so sorting out the insurance was not going to happen until at least Monday, we were already booked into the University for that night, but now had to negotiate staying much longer. The people at reception were really helpful and gave us the room for a further 10 nights so that took the pressure off us having to look for alternative accommodation, Sue of course was just glad to get off the bike for a few days and I could at least use the internet and phones to get the repair of the bike on the go. The insurance company had a 24 hour helpline so I was able to log the accident claim and have a contact to ring for first thing Monday morning,

All the comforts of home, if your a student!

Next day I had the chance to clean the bike and see the full extent of the damage sustained in the crash. The robbing B£%$"$% at the car wash charged $1 for 1 minute with the pressure wash, my first attempt at cleaning BOB cost me $20. The pics below show the mess that Calcium Chloride causes, and the stuff on the exhaust header pipes had to be chipped off!!

I find it hard to look at these photos without swearing

I also called in at the BMW dealer which is attached to the main Harley Davidson agents in Fairbanks, they had a look at the bike and we made a list of the parts needed to get BOB roadworthy, as it was a small dealership most of the stuff would have to be ordered from the main importer in California. After looking round the bike it appeared nothing had escaped the gravel but the important thing was to get a comprehensive list for the insurance assessor, so it went something like this:

Windscreen and windscreen mounting frame - headlamp assembly - both front indicators - mirrors - hand protectors - right and left panniers - front mudguard - tank bag - exhaust header pipes - rear mudguard and all the fixings for the aforementioned items. Including shipping and labour the total came to $5300......at this point I was hoping that my insurance policy was watertight!!!! Roll on Monday.

Sunday morning was Father's Day so we went to a local roadhouse for breakfast. We got talking to Mark and Ann, a couple of friendly locals who must have taken pity on us as they invited us round that evening for dinner. Mark works for the local water company delivering drinking water and Ann works as a teacher, their house is located a couple of miles out of Fairbanks in the woods, it was a superb spot (apart from the mosquitoes!) Mark is a boilermaker/welder by trade and had a workshop almost as big as the house itself. That night it was great to relax and forget momentarily about the troubles of the past few days and those to come.

Alaskan hospitality

Mark and Ann were both bikers, and evidence of their love for collecting bikes could be found in the yard.

Monday morning I was up at the crack of dawn (which was strange at there is no dawn), our insurance was organised through a company in Denver which was 2 hours ahead of Alaskan time so it meant phoning them from the university at 6am. To our relief within 10 minutes of talking with them they assured us we were fully covered and would they give priority to getting us back on the road ASAP, I did detect a small gasp when I mentioned the estimated bill but they were really good about it. They were originally going to arrange for an assessor to come and view the bike but in the end relied on photos of the damage and the advice of the BMW guys, all we had to do now was wait for the parts. NOT THAT SIMPLE!

While we were waiting for the parts to arrive we did some of the usual touristy things around Fairbanks, one day we visited the Museum of the North which has museumy things in it!

Architecturally aesthetically pleasing

I didn't realise it until now, but look at the expression on the bear and then look at Sue, and if you look quickly...bear-Sue-bear-Sue....uncanny!

For most of the next week Sue stopped in our dorm room and tried to relax whilst I spent most of my time at the Harley dealership checking if the parts had arrived and chatting with fellow travellers.

Errr wrong dealership.

The news of our spill up north had preceded us and most of the travellers I spoke to knew more about it than I did. Here in the motorcycling fraternity your notoriety is measured according to the scale of the accident or occurence, so currently we were at number 3 right behind the guy who sadly died at Gobblers Knob and Keith who had hit a caribou and drove 200 miles with a broken collar bone! Sue had been hailed as the hardcase who rode two up to Prudhoe Bay and survived the crash, I was just the dumb guy who took his wife to Deadhorse! hmmmm.

Note to self...must get more stickers.

Michael from San Francisco..he runs a motorcycle touring company and for the right money will take you round the world. His bike had more gadgets than Ewan and Charlie! Note to self...must get more gadgets.

One night, Mark and Ann took us to the Golden Eagle in Ester, this was a real saloon straight out of the mining days, the only thing missing were spitoons! Ester is quirky community populated by academics, retired hippies and various artisans.

Wipe your feet on the way out!

Check out the front door

Make mine a Bud..

We took a trip out to the hot springs at Chena for a bit of geothermal therapy, on the way there we had the usual run in with the wildlife. This little fellow was stuck in the road after mum had hopped over the armco barrier in front of us, he was all legs and had no chance of following. In the end mum returned and they went back the way they came.

Muuum!

Get over this barrier now!

Right.. just wait till I get you home!

The hot spring were hot, bloody hot! but just the thing to get rid of the aches and pains.

Isn't she pretty, what a guy!

On the way back I had to stop and photograph these old bangers parked at the side of the road.

No...when I said old bangers...I meant..errr, never mind!

We also went to the town of North Pole, Alaska which as everyone knows is the home of Santa Claus..really. totally tacky and cheesy, and you wouldn't get me posing in front of a bloody 40 foot Santa.

Doh!

This really was Santa's house, it said so on the sign

And here's the North Pole...Yuuk.

The Parts for the bike eventually arrived and to cut a long story short, I spent a day and a half getting BOB back into shape using the facilities at the Harley workshop, which shaved a bit of the bill.

BOB stripped down before the refit

Ready for the road.

So after almost a fortnight we were ready to hit the trail again, we really were ready to go but at least the people of Fairbanks had made our imposed sojourn bearable.

To Mark and Ann we will always remember your hospitality and kindness (oh and your mosquitoes!)

Before we left Sue had time to practice her cross stitch. Ouch!....shut up you big baby