A round trip of 3200 km, the purpose of this trip at this particular time of the year was to avoid the tourist crowds which we did! However, it limited some of our activities and we missed one leg of the trip due to everything being closed down after the Summer season. But this trip was all about the scenery and the wildlife as we were told that there is wildlife at every bend.  

Arrival date – 24^th September.  Our guests arrived on the afternoon of the 24^th and we put on the weather for them a balmy 11 degrees with a little cloud, they definitely had to find their cold weather gear.  After a quick dinner and a discussion regarding the route we all settled into the accommodation for the evening excited for the adventure ahead.

Day 2 – Haines Junction to Tok

Beautiful morning zero degrees and snow – Oki has never seen snow so it was a bit of a treat for him especially as we drove in the snow for a couple of hours.  We stopped off for a coffee and muffin, the great thing about Sue and Harland’s van was that it can seat 6 so we all bundled in to get out of the rain.  Only wildlife we saw was a Hawk but we are happy if we can get a wildlife shot each day.

Day 3 – Tok to Fairbanks

Minus 9 degrees, yes that is minus 9 this morning, I had stated earlier to Monique that if she wanted blue sunny skies than the price to pay was chilly mornings but this was ridiculous.  Oki and Monique were pretty right as they had purchased an electric heater and had that going all night, the bonus with having all the bells and whistles is that you can get pretty comfortable.  The problem is that when they got to the fuel station that’s when they paid for comfort nearly double the amount of fuel we used in the car.  

It got a bit cold in the car and I had to put another layer of clothes on, what was surprising was the amount of ice on the rubber seals inside the car, had to do a quick wipe down before heading off, but all were happy to get in their cars and crank up the heater.

Into Fairbanks for a hot shower we again missed the main RV parks so settled for one that offered showers, wi-fi (very limited) and power.  Oki was on dinner duty so cooked up some pizza’s and apple pie and ice cream.  We looked at our options for things to do in Fairbanks and the possibility of doing a quick trip to the Arctic Circle (another 200 miles north) but it would have been another whole day of driving so will try and do that another time. 

Digby and Harland stayed up to shoot the Aurora they had a little bit of success but it clouded over so not as bright as they would have liked.  I went with the boys but I was asleep in the back of the car so didn’t see anything. 

Day 4 – Fairbanks

Fairbanks is a surprisingly large town, with a military base and large university, there are several different activities to do but you need to be here during the tourist season.  It has a great history on the gold rush.  The Trans-Alaskan Pipeline System is pretty amazing and the pipe runs for 800 miles from Prudhoe Bay to Valdez, Alaska.  It is all built above ground and has some amazing technology which keeps it stable.

We attended the Ice Museum which was interesting especially once they opened up the sculptures and the temperature dropped to -20 degrees to stop them from melting.  It is a quirky museum but a little bit of fun.  Did some local driving around the town and then went to a college ice hockey game, not as much biffo in this match as it was their A team against their B team so no injuries for the first match of the season.

Day 5 – Fairbanks to Anchorage

Weather app predicted 80% chance of rain at 8 am and it was right, so we hit the road early and pretty much had rain all the way to Anchorage which was a shame as there was some great scenery shots but couldn’t get the full effect.  We did get to see a black bear cross the road in front of us but it hightailed it out of their pretty quick. 

Colours in the trees starting to come back as it is still pretty warm (8 degrees) in Anchorage so some different landscape shots again.  Got into an RV Park which was only open for the two days we were there so again we started to see things shutting down.

Day 6 – Anchorage

The task for everyday is to find some Alaskan wildlife which definitely wasn’t stacking up to the brochures, but we were told that there usually is wildlife everywhere but it was also hunting season so were a little scarce.  The other reason we didn’t see any wildlife was the sign on the highway which stated “moose collison zone – 37 moose killed since 1 July 19” pretty sad really.  The morning started off pretty miserably with heavy fog but as we drove along the Seward Highway it cleared and was quite a nice day. 

Great scenery and wildlife galore but you needed to know where to go – trade secret.  All left to do their own exploring for the rest of the day. We looked to capture some sea planes and do a bit of shopping.

 An hour on and we came across a lady on the side of the road in the rain, so Digby the good Samaritan turned around to see if she was ok.  Her car was bogged! Digby said we couldn’t help but Oki and Monique had a 4-wheel drive and they should be able to help out.  So flagged them down, however whilst Digby was assessing the best way to get the car out, Monique directed Oki to drive forward but she didn’t want to get her car dirty so got him to drive along the grass edge and yes you guessed it, down they went with a ton of camper on the back, so now we have two cars bogged.  Luckily, we had AAA road service and you can claim it on whatever car you are in at the time, so we called in a recovery vehicle.  2 hours later a recovery truck with a smashed-up ute on the back arrives, backs in and yes you guessed it again he gets bogged.  His first words to Digby was “were gonna need a bigger truck”.  Meanwhile Monique is pissed and checking out the insurance agreement, the lady with the bogged car is worried as this is all her fault, Digby thinking he is going to have to crawl in the mud and I’m just stating this will be good for my blog.

We initially told Sue and Harland that we wouldn’t be long so got them to go forward and that we would meet them in Tok. Well by the time they got to Tok we were pretty right to go so told them to move forward to the town of Chicken.  Next problem we hit road works which took an hour to get through, tried to ring Sue and Harland but no comms available. 

We finally got into Tok at 8 pm and it was dark but because we couldn’t get hold of Sue and Harland, we decided to move forward to Chicken and meet up with them there.  What we didn’t know was that when they arrived at Chicken everything was closed, boarded up and it was a ghost town and that the border crossing at Dawson city was closed.  They headed back to Tok in the dark with 7,8- and 9-degree hill descents in rain, sleet and snow.  In the meantime we had decided that we would stay in Tok and head off early in the morning to catch up, but as we were about to pull up I heard Sue on our walkie talkies and they had made it back to Tok so we pulled up stakes, cooked tea, traded adventure stories and headed to bed.  I think everyone was mentally and physically tired.

Day 8 – Tok to Haines Junction

In the morning we decided to have a stress-free day, headed off in fog and only had 30 metres visibility at times, but once the fog cleared it was a beautiful sunny day, it was so nice that Monique actually took her jumper off.  

Departure Day – 4^th October

Today our guests departed, Monique and Oki on a 6 am flight and Sue and Harland on an evening flight. We departed mid-morning to start our next leg home via Jasper and Banff.

We would like to thank the guys for going on this journey with us, it was not the normal tourist route or experience but we hope that they enjoyed the trip.