Tag: wildlife
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Some attractive mature nudists
The drive south on the Dalton Highway was infinitely more interesting and enjoyable than heading north. Not only was the mosquito population higher toward the north end of the road – not past the sublime and lush north slope as it descends towards the chilling ocean – but the smoke had cleared from the Brooks…
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You may need some lubrication…
The strangest, unpleasant, oddly informative and most numbing feelings I have ever had as a tourist. The shuttle bus escorted a handful of curious people through the oil drilling facilities, and along 26 miles of badly maintained and bumpy gravel road to the Arctic Ocean. We received a brief description of what was going on,…
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Hoth does exist on Earth
A few dozen miles into the Arctic Circle lies the place where Luke Skywalker ventured out on his tauntaun… Beyond the first 300 miles of the Dalton Highway, seeing virtually no wildlife, as well as endless miles of wilderness-covering smoke, we began to see stretches of scenery north of the Brooks Mountain Range. A few…
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Almost at the Arctic Ocean (videos)
In the photo: I started at the small red dot and travelled on the blue line. I’m now at the large one on the north coast. Few updates on Deadhorse, Prudhoe Bay and the road south on their way.. Morning Update on the Dalton Still on the Dalton Almost at the Arctic…
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The Dalton Highway
There are three seasons in Alaska – Autumn, Winter, and; If the ground isn’t frozen, and if there isn’t a white out causing everyone to stay indoors for a few days (common at the north end of the Dalton Highway), it’s Road Maintenance season. When you think of a white out or an Arctic blizzard,…
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The Trans Alaska Pipeline
The kinky snake is as long as Great Britain (just over 800 miles) and transports oil from the Beaufort Sea in the Arctic, to Valdeze on the southern coast. The Trans Alaska Pipeline split the state from top to bottom in 1977 and was the most expensive, privately funded construction on earth. Although I can…
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I’ll make sure the minx is filthy again soon
After driving slowly past the least inconspicuous military air base in The World (I can say that now, as America advertises everything compared to “the world”) Fairbanks is the next city on the trail. For its location, the Eielson Air Base, just south east of Fairbanks, was established as part of World War 2 military…
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Tok on July 4th & a mile marker to note
Driving into the tiny town of Tok on the Alaska Highway at the beginning of the 4th of July carnival/caravan parade, is rather like accidentally walking into a meeting room containing your bosses, while discussing the sexual antics of ducks on the phone and not realising anyone else is in the room. Inappropriate, and badly…
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Rougher than grinding pebbles in a blender
Top of the World & Taylor Highway. Following the old sourdough track over the hills from Chicken, the views from most of the Top of the World Highway as we headed towards the U.S. border, were of pine forests as far as the eye can see – some of which replicates the fire damaged trees…
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I “beeped” out the expletives
This morning I was woken up by a loud, beeping alarm and KP coarsely saying “no, I don’t need you!” Unless signalling a fire, some carbon monoxide overload, burglary, an air raid, a morning when the sun isn’t going to rise (it does happen here), or worse, we’ve run out of tea, there really shouldn’t…
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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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A lot of emails? A note from me…
Apologies for the influx of emails and updates recently. Some of you may have received a few “test” emails which I know must be frustrating. I am currently syncing my blogs to my new http://www.winstonwolfrider.com website. It has been quite drastically edited. Updates from the USA, North America and the Arctic, Malawi, Go Untamed 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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Blogs coming soon…
Once the New York to Alaska blogs have been synced, Malawi posts will appear here. For updates click on the “Follow” button.
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Shapely white arses…it’s what I came here for
I thought elk were nervous, shy and retired creatures…yes, most of them are over 65. However, the majestic Rocky Mountain National Park, just north west of Denver CO proved to be home to some rather carefree, left wing socialites who came to inspect their camper-riddled meadow, making sure we were all provided for. Another bonus…
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Romancing the Boy
Nine months prior to me landing in Massachusetts, I had confidently prioritised the main, natural check points on my route. I was saddened that, on this trip to the USA I would not be visiting the area on earth which I considered to be the most nostalgic and certainly the most romantic of all places.…
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