  We spent two really lovely days in Whitehorse with Ken and Wendy affiliated with Warm Showers. They have travelled through New Zealand and North America extensively. We were treated to home cooking, new recipe ideas, settlers of catan (oh yeah!) and ping pong. Our first day in Whitehorse was spent doing chores and looking around the town, which is a very funky cool place, especially Phillipe's bike store and the Alpine bakery. We are now in Marsh Lake (40km out of Whitehorse) staying with Peter (also from Warm Showers) in a beautiful log cabin which is right on the lake. It has been the perfect peaceful haven with wonderful hosts to have a day off after a couple of busy days in town. Some video footage now on... 08/27/2009
Ok so we've managed to upload three videos now. It's a start. To view them go to the Dalton Highway blog and the Fairbanks to Whitehorse blog. No guarantee of the quality of actors hired. Knotty Boy Video is here! 08/25/2009
You can also see this video and a wee write up about us on Knotty Boy's website - click here to view their page. Give me my Timmies and no one gets hurt 08/25/2009
                    It feels like we are well into our cycling tour now and can say we’ve been on the road for one month. It was a bit of a milestone passing across the Alaskan border into Canada (especially for Roland). We are now in Whitehorse and will spend the next two days here resting/re-supplying/volunteering/and hopefully a bit of sight seeing too (we are tourists after all). We’ve already visited one of Roland’s favourite hangouts, Tim Horton’s which is the first we’ve seen since Vancouver. We have just met with Shannon and Jeff who run the Salvation Army in Whitehorse and hope to do some work on Wednesday. So we will keep you posted about that and we will try really hard to take photos this time!So the last nine cycling days have gone really quickly. It feels like we still only just left Janet and Robert’s cabin at Murphy Dome (just out of Fairbanks) and their super generous and kind hospitality. It was such a cool cabin, very rustic and beautiful. We were treated to wonderful meals, rest and good conversation. We truly felt rejuvenated after staying three days with them. The ride between Fairbanks and Whitehorse seemed like a breeze compared to the Dalton Highway. For most of the way we really just appreciated being on paved roads! Again, it was very remote with us only passing through a few very small towns (North Pole, Delta Junction, Tok, Beaver’s Creek, Haines Junction). Every town had something special but we really liked Haines Junction the best. It had a busy little hub with a super yum bakery and visitor’s centre. The locals were very friendly and we got a shower at the swimming pool. We had a mix of weather, with two particularly cold and windy days, one day of rain, one day of sunshine and the rest overcast. Although the quality of the roads, rest areas and government campgrounds in the Yukon are not the same as in Alaska (which are excellent), the scenery certainly makes up for it. We have had the pleasure of passing by some stunning mountain ranges (Elias) and super large lakes and rivers (Kluane, Takhini), which by bike you really get the time to soak it all in. In terms of accommodation we stayed two nights with people through Warm Showers and Couch Surfing (thanks to Lara in Delta Junction and Mike in Haines Junction). The rest of the time has been primitive camping next to rivers, abandoned lodges and free government campgrounds and one free night at a private campground (which was so awesome!). We’ve had three showers in the past nine days so looking forward to some clean clothes and a shower tonight! We have met a lot of cyclists on this leg, which has been surprising (even some going north). Good to know there’s other over-enthusiastic people out there hoping the summer will hold out for us. In the first couple of days out of Fairbanks we cycled with Scott (who was the guy that we thought was a bear on the Elliot Highway). The two days heading into Haines Junction we spent some time with Solomon. He was a free spirit ,cycling his own way and in his own time. We got some competition playing three-way crib and also some good food swapping going on. The most dramatic thing that happened during our time with Solomon was that he crashed into us from behind. Once we were sure he and his bike were ok, it was a tad funny. He thought we were further ahead and so he decided to look down and check on his tire (that we had fixed a few miles back down the road) and then next minute there was a loud bang and shudder and looking behind he was on the ground. We hope to see both Scott and Solomon somewhere in the States again. Once again we have met so many great people along this segment. A highlight for us was last night (which was rather chilly and cold) meeting Bob and Dot from Vancouver Island. We pitched our tent close to their RV on a turn-out next to a river and they kindly invited us in and offered us supper and somewhere warm! The next morning we had breakfast with them and warm drinks before facing the cold. It’s these gestures that you don’t expect but when they happen it’s a little bit of magic. We have quite a few videos that we want to share with everyone but are having trouble uploading them. So hopefully we will work that out very soon. It’s tough trying to summarise everything that’s happened but hope that this gives everyone reading this a small insight into our experiences. We love reading your comments and maybe soon we can reply to some of them. They really do put a smile on our face! Crib Score: Roland ahead by two: 15 to 13 What did we find on the side of the road?
                     We did the Dalton Highway and we're still alive..... we'll judging how our bodies feel today only just! We left Fairbanks last Monday with Carlile Transportation, who very kindly offered to take us up to Prudhoe Bay with one of their loads. Our driver was Jim who had been working this Haul Road for about three years, winter and summer. Our bike was strapped to the trailor and we all got there in one piece. It was a super fun experience riding in the cab. Roland and I would take turns at having "bump sleep" in the sleeper behind the driver's seat. We had a stop at Cold foot which is half way up and got to eat at the 'trucker's table' and leave a food parcel there for us to pick back up on the way through on our bike (a big thanks to George who helped us with that!). Which out of interest we have named........ BIG BIRD! Well, it's yellow and big and like New Zealand's national bird it's flightless! Sadly, Big Bird had a fall and now has a bent handle bar but only cosmetic. We arrived into Prudhoe Bay about 3am (it was still light) and so we pitched our tent at the start of the Dalton Highway and had a few hours sleep. We started off our first day with a cracker lunch at the Prudhoe Bay Hotel (boy the workers up there get fed well) and then we were on our way. The landscape changed considerably during this leg of the trip. It started out with the tundra which it gets too colder for anything but small shrub like plants to grow. After the Atigun Pass (4,800ft - yeah that's right!) we hit the tree line where trees start growing - kinda weird really! Sadly, the first spruce tree at the line has been vandalised and as a result died but it is still standing. We were lucky to get through Atigun Pass as we heard only two days later did it snow and people were having trouble getting over. We met a german cyclist heading that way so we wonder what happened to his plans? The fireweed, which flowers a pinky purple colour was seen everywhere and yet very striking against the green. Sadly, during most of our time on the Dalton our views were restricted due to the smoke. Alaska has had many long lasting fires this year. However, we did have two really clear days at the end so could appreciate the landscape a bit more. The Dalton Highway follows the Alyeskan Pipeline which transports oil from Prudhoe Bay down to Valdez which is 800 odd miles down south. Which is quite a feat! The highway is actually an industrial road only and has only been open to tourists for about 15 or so years. The road is pretty tough at the best of times with gravel, mud, pot holes, and a bunch of really steep hills (i.e. 12 percent grade) that had cool names i.e. the beaver's slide, the gobbler's knob, finger mountain, connection rock, and the rollar coaster. This highway is pretty remote in terms of services. However, once we hit a restaurant after 240 miles we couldn't be happier. Boy, have our appetites grown! Not only was Coldfoot camp a great stop, so was the Hot Spot Cafe near the Yukon River with their famous hamburgers and flower gardens and the Hilltop cafe (on the Elliot Highway close to Fairbanks) which is renowned for their homemade pies. Belinda tried hugs and smooches icecream for the first time there - scrummy! We knew about two british cyclists that started two days before us, who we had been trying to catch up to. It was like a treasure hunt because we would hear word from other truckers/tourists about their progress and would also find written messages from them along the roadside. We did finally did catch them on our last day at the Trading Post. It was a cool little warm store run by the Carlson family. They had free coffee and lots of scrummy things to stock up on. We spent a little time with Alex and Fin and hope to have a meal with them before we leave Fairbanks. Again, meeting lots of cool people along the way was a massive highlight. So man stopped and chatted with us, encouraged us, offered us food and places to stay in Fairbanks if required. One lovely lady gave us a feast of snacks just after the Atigun Pass that put smiles on our faces for the longest time afterwards. We even met two New Zealanders from Christchurch (Jo and Kevin) doing a mammoth road trip around the world. Wildlife seen along the roadside:
That Artic ground squirrels (they are so cute) hiberate during winter. Their heart beats about 3 times per minute and they drop their core body temperature to aout -3 degrees.Crib score: 12 games each - Belinda has evened up the score with her awesomeness! What's next? We will spend a few days in Fairbanks. On Saturday we are planning to do some Volunteer work with the Salvation Army here. Then we will push on towards Whitehorse. Hopefully our bodies will have recovered by then!                 The first week has truly been amazing. Although both of our bodies are in absolute shock from all the cycling, we have been so fortunate with all the wonderful people we have meet and stayed with this week. We have felt super spoiled with the generousity the Alaskan folk have shown us. We cycled from Anchorage to Fairbanks which is 576km/358miles. There were some serious hills to climb particularly through the Broad Pass (approx 2400ft) and the never-ending upward climbs from Nenana to Fairbanks. Our longest cycling day was yesterday when we rode into Fairbanks, which ended up totaling 83miles. We had a couple of short cycling days in the middle to rest and also take in the surroundings of the Denali National Park. This is where Mount McKinley/Denali is located; the highest mountain in North America standing at 20,300ft. Apparently only 10% of people passing through the park get to see a clear view of the mountain as it's so big it creates its own weather patterns. We also got to see some wildlife including bears and their cubs from afar, a wolf, fox, heaps of caribou (wild reindeer) and dall sheep. What's fascinating with caribou and reindeer is that the velvet on their antlers shed every year once the necessary growing is complete. It looks kinda gross though as it has a circulatory system so when it's falling off you can see blood and vessels hanging off the antlers. On day four we had planned to camp out somewhere along the road, however as we were starting to look for the ideal spot we came across an abandoned lodge. It came up at the perfect time. We were able to stay in one of the cabins that was still structurally sound and tidy and even had a lock on the door. It was not until day seven that we actually had to put our tent up for the first time. We heard about a Bluegrass Festival that was taking place in Anderson so to get a touch of local culture we swung by. It was definately quite the shin-dig but Roland couldn't quite identify with the song 'Road Kill Stew', however it was a bit of fun and watching the dancing (with hula hoops included) was a sight to see. In many respects we have become to the tandem style of cycling very quickly. We are puttig systems in place to easily communicate our intentions on the bike. Our bottoms are feeling rather tender and our legs a tad heavy but already starting to notice new muscles forming. Something we are noticing is that we draw quite a bit of attention. Not only is our bike bright yellow, but a tandem and has a trailor so it is a very good conversation starter with strangers! We would like to put a big massive THANK YOU out to all the wonderful people we've meet this week:
What did we find along the road:
Roland beating Belinda winning five games to three......Belinda happy she has at least 51 more weeks to improve her score. People of NZ: Did you know a leeming is an actual animal and not just a cute character in a computer game? |  Roland and Belinda
|
RSS Feed