Tag: fly
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Into the Arctic
We crossed into the Arctic Circle a little after 7am on July 1st 2015. The sodden, squelching tundra was forgotten briefly as it opened up into sparkling, dew-covered hills. From a distance, rather than early morning Arctic peaks, the approaching mountains resembled hazy, desert sand dunes. Although not gigantic, they possess their own, gently unassuming,…
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Mother Nature: The Temptress
There have been no obvious critters from the start of the Dempster, all the way to the Inuvik (750Km). The caribou cross the road twice a year on their migration – once in spring and once in autumn – but despite appreciating their time keeping, I’m slightly sad I won’t see them. It’s also correct…
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Wearing a woolly jumper and swimming through peanut butter
Day two on the Dempster and the road has been surprisingly good so far. Like many highways in the north country, it’s detailed as dangerous and not for standard vehicles. Compared to the rest of the country, the roads are unpaved, and indeed a little rough, but honestly, (especially in the summer) apart from a…
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I am literally a walking stick of candy floss wrapped in bacon
Industrious, vicious, relentless, and the size of birds – mosquitos in the Yukon are intrepid villains, seemingly programmed to insistently make my life a complete misery. As long as I’m around, getting their full attention, KP appears relatively fine, but even he has had a dozen bites on his head and hands since we started…
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I Lied
Dawson City is not the start of the Dempster Highway (but it is where the paddle boats from Whitehorse once steam powered to). Forty kilometres east of Dawson City, we found a petrol pump in a deserted gas station, at the start of the highway. KP had to go into a booth-like-Tardis and follow instructions…
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Whitehorse: An update for lovers….of murderous horses, my toilet time, and history
Arriving into a city isn’t normally such a wonderful thing, but since leaving dusty, Dawson Creek, Whitehorse is strangely, rather comforting. There are crowds of people, even in the rain. There is traffic to negotiate, and various city aromas fill the air (it’s amazing what civilisation stinks of). There are numerous places to fuel up,…
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Penetrating your Yukon…
Update from the river bank Penetrating Your Yukon Update prior to Heading North Productive day
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Intimacy with an orally fixated sheep
As if driving on the back of a grey millipede which is missing a few legs, the highway’s industrial limbs appear to be less common as we head north. I wouldn’t normally be so happy to see an insect with its appendages missing, but whichever bully decided to dissect the bumpy-backed diplopoda, I’d like to…
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Camouflaged, but not for my furry friends.
The start of the Alaska Highway from Dawson Creek constantly reminded me of how the north works – practically, hard, hands on, in extreme weather, overcoming the wild, and with no apologies. The industries up here are oil, gas, logging, infrastructure maintenance, and survival, and everyone seems to enjoy it a little rough around the…
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The Dithering Pot Boy and I
Waking up early in the morning and sporadically being bumped or swayed around in bed, as if on boat in a storm, is currently a normal experience. KP is always awake first between 4 and 5am, dressed and dithering, sorry – pottering around the camper like you would imagine a restless (although slightly slower and…
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The Alaska Highway – Dawson Creek
No punns or associative crying please – although, half expected, the start of the Alaska Highway is not what you’d call a metropolis, nor is it a picturesque country town. Dawson Creek (nothing to do with the TV show) is an oil workers farming town. It’s a hard, industrial boondock, strewn with combine harvesters, tractors,…
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Couple of videos through British Columbia
Leaving Jasper and heading through British Columbia. Wildlife update from inside the camper.
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Rainbows, Bears & Beaver, and all before the Alaska Highway!
The city of Jasper seemed another, slightly middle of the road version of Banff. Looking a little cheaper and more relaxed, and without everywhere being covered in an expensive, branded label. Although maybe it’s not quite summer yet. We left Jasper and his beloved Banff behind us and headed north, via a westerly bend. Our…
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I could have just written “wow”, but…
South of the city of Jasper, the Ent-paced sights conjure lucid scenes in my mind, of how the wild was constructed. My wandering from “wow” surprises even me sometimes… A dense pallet of green lushness currently blankets the valleys, as if Monet, with his admirable catterax affliction, had reached down from the skies and with…
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It’s beginning to get contemplative
The journey through Banff and Jasper National Park is like travelling through one euphoric postcard of Canadian landscape into another. Except without “Wish You Were Here” slapped across the sky in neon letters, and sometimes, quite frankly, I’m glad you’re not. The beauty I find in the wild is often in the remote and isolated…
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I need a pet Bat for this adventure…
I need a bat. The flying, insect-eating variety, not the sporting kind. Walking around with a cricket bat on a leash might be assuming a kind of crazy that can wait till I’m in my eighties. Although on reflection, it would give my flying bat something to cling to and sleep on, slung over my…
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Banff & Jasper, and a bit of blue for the dads
The massive, monstrous hotel at Lake Louise (Banff National Park) is a fine example of a failure of aesthetics. After the original wooden hotel/lodge burnt down in the late 19th century, it was rebuilt and extended. It is a construction disaster, in the most inappropriate location – and it upsets me. Most towns we have…
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The slightly ranty post…
I feel like I should judge Canada, while waving my judgy finger, for allowing such a sordid sin of commercialisation within a national park. Yet for some reason, I find Banff to be more of a community and thriving town rather than a specific, tourist-catering gift shop which pampers to the whims of tour buses…
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Reaching the Rockies
Since crossing the border into Canada, we’ve driven over 2000 miles across the prairies and we haven’t seen a single police car, police officer, or even a speed camera! They must be here, but it couldn’t be more different from the paranoid and profiteering, policed nation to the south, which I have been used too.…
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Even when it’s dull, it isn’t
Driving across the four principalities of Canada, or the few states across the centre of the USA if we had gone that route must surely be, some of the dullest driving on earth (as well as the M25 in rush hour, but at least you can get out and talk to your fellow, traffic jam…
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Do you have any guns?
After the elation of seeing Mr Wolf, it was time to cross the border into Canada. It wasn’t the strangest border crossing I’ve ever encountered, but it was in the middle of a working factory. We drove under an over-head pipeline and over multiple rail road tracks, snaking our way through the middle of an…
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I’m Russell Crowe… only without the lovely sandals
A sleepless start to the night as one of us left a slither of opportunity open for the “skeetos” to come after me as I tried to settle. They can smell me a mile way and just when I think we’ve pulled into a windy, waterless spot, KP is sympathising (although grateful it’s me and…
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Mackinac, the fudge, and rubbing myself against a cheese grater
The towns on the forehead of the Exogorth outline (well done if you worked out that obscure reference), are quite picturesque in the sunshine. Much of the monster’s brow, with roots steeped in French exploration and the American-Indian wars, built on the industries of mining, logging, and shipping, the towns today express a certain pride…
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Ocean-fronted home for napping bear
Our first day on the road was a shaky one. It was also the first time KP gave me the reigns to his four wheeled, fancy lady, and that reminds me, I don’t think she has a name! The drive from Clayton started beautifully. KP drove in the morning sunshine; along the sparkling St Lawrence…
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The world is full of generous, gin-loving ladies
I brushed shoulders with some old friends at the aptly named TILT picnic at Zenda Farms….because after all I’ve drank in the last two weeks, I feel like I’m on an obscure angle to the ground. I exaggerate….maybe it was the uneven farm yard. Christmas came early, as I forgot what I ordered from the…
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Cherry Pie, Bananagrams, and struggling to sober up
If my navigation in 2014 was a walk in the park, this year I’m jumping the fence. Although travelling mostly by automobile this time, I am aiming to travel across the USA and Canada, and out to the USA’s rape capital (six times higher than the national average, apparently) – Alaska. Everyday, is indeed, a…
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Butt Bulbs & Bucolic Beauty
After being chaperoned around twenty miles of the industrious and steaming streets of New York City by a marvellously-moustached, mounted park policeman, I journeyed the four hours north east, to Northampton, MA. Back on last year’s familiar trail, I ambled through this area over a year ago, when the ground was frozen, the bears were…
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Starting out again…
I’m supposed to be in the sky, but even though leaving England maybe imminent, I’m having to wait just a little longer for my next big adventure. “It’s not the destination, it’s getting there”….said someone once, about the wonders of travel. I think they may have been quoted prior to airport delays; when getting there,…
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