Going The Distance

Archive for July, 2009

Tuesday, July 28th, 2009

Tuesday, July 28th, 2009

Covered today: 498km (on ferry)
Much angst about ethics of taking a ferry as part of a roadtrip.
3am start to catch ferry down to Vancouver Island, trying to make it to wedding on Saturday.
We made it on to the ferry. Small miracle. Though not quite as small as a motorbike (we lied and said that the sidecar was detachable. About as detachable as my burgeoning arse!)
Drop a bombshell on Mike during the ride: have to get to Nanaimo ferry to meet mates the next day at 9am. Nothing too concerning about that, I hear you say… not until you realize that it’s a 7 hour drive from where we dock. At midnight.
Mike did the math. I slept in the sidecar.

Tuesday, July 28th, 2009

Driven today: 609km; Total: 5396km
Another day of driving to get to Prince Rupert in time for ferry on Friday (as stand-bys)
Need to change tyre (Russian tyre on back wheel totally bald. Only lasted 3,000km. Will need to sort that if we have a hope of making it through South America where there are no Ural dealers…)
Very badly burnt by wind and sun. Will arrive in Patagonia looking like ethno-hag on National Geographic cover.
Heavens open 30 miles outside Prince Rupert. Should have bought raingear, now realize.

Tuesday, July 28th, 2009

Driven today: 750km; Total: 4787km
12 hours riding through wind and shine.
Arrive campground at midnight.
Mike honks horn by accident 3 times, just to ingratiate ourselves with the camping neighbours.
Mozzies respond with fervor.

Tuesday, July 28th, 2009

Driven today: 492km; Total: 4037km
Mike drove all day. Too much for one man to handle. See “Going The Distance Minor Incident” below:
Arrive in Whitehorse broken.
Not even beer can cheer us up.

Tuesday, July 28th, 2009

Driven today: 175km; Total: 3545km
To Dawson City, centre of the early 20th century Gold Rush.
Gold discovered in a creek here in 1897, and the world and his wife came to get a piece of the action.
Still mining here today. Town preserved in traditional architectural style.
Interview 90 year old miner and town historian, John, and his wife, Madeleine, having tracked them down in the phonebook and knocked on their door.
Am becoming a TV researcher of the scary-stalker variety.
Great interview, great folk.

Tuesday, July 28th, 2009

Driven today: 451km; Total: 3370km
We’re now driving the 400 miles to Dawson City. Nothing really prepares you for the distances in Alaska. The top speed of the bike is around 55miles per hour so we really do have (too much?) time to savour those views.
Roads cut through worlds of green. Really is the Last Frontier.
We stumble across a beaunormous view at Robertson Creek:

On the long drives, one of my favourite things is to monitor the carnage on the windscreen directly in front of me. This isn’t just a graveyard for the lowly mosquito, there are INTESTINES 2 inches from my face. They crustify as brown bogies. It looks like Damien Hirst has experimented with centrifugal force and goat shit. Which I actually wouldn’t put past him…
Don’t make the border in time. Have to stop and camp in Chicken. Yes, Chicken.

Tuesday, July 28th, 2009

An Alaskan trapper and his wife. Traps pine marten. Married 48 years. Very in love. Her advice: don’t ever try to organize his stuff!
A world champion, Alaskan dog musher. Sadly on her own (husband fishing – very Alaskan). 51 dogs in her kennel. She races in all the major dogsled events every year. Won the Yukon Quest – the toughest of the 1,000 mile races through the wilderness. (Wo)man and dog. And miles and miles and miles of snow.
Native Alaskan couple. Married 58 years. She’d won gold trophy for Seal Skinning.

More WEIO: MORE EARS. Is there nothing they won’t put their ears through?
The Ear Weight final. 16 lbs of lead weights carried by ear alone. Seal hop final.

Tuesday, July 28th, 2009

7am, day starts early.
Another brush with major celebrity, this time in the form of an appearance on the radio breakfast show of 970 AM KFBX Fairbanks news radio.
On for half an hour. DJ opens it up to the listeners – who phone in with advice for us on how to make a marriage last. Answers range from the good American “pray together once a day” to the more practical – and very useful – “never share a two man kayak”. Done that. Got the knuckle scars.

On to bask in yet more of our 15 minutes of fame, with an appearance on CBS 13’s morning TV news show. Wearing the bell end costumes, sitting at news desk, interviewed by nice lady with good teeth, and the kind of voice news anchormen keep in a jar by their beds.
Mrs GTD puce of face. Mr GTD dodgy ginger of beard. Are we ready for superstardom? The question plays constantly on my mind.

To the World Eskimo Indian Olympics. Team GTD catches the Ear Pull final. A loop of twine is wrapped around the ears of two people who sit close together, facing each other. This is like dental floss, so by round three, deep cuts appear at the back of the lucky contestants’ ears.
The idea of the games is to preserve and celebrate the traditional games of the Eskimo and Indian cultures. Some of the games have their origin in necessity (the blanket toss, where a person is launched high into the air from a trampoline of seal gut?, has its roots in being able to see far into the distance for whales; the high kick, where contestants have to kick a suspended ball with on foot, high above them – which was the way that the news of a whale catch would be communicated over long distances) and some are games (the seal hop, where a contestant moves himself forward in the press up position on his knuckles to mimic the movement of a seal on ice).
Much excitement: Team GTD gets press passes. Unlimited access to the ear pull. Score.

Thursday, July 16th, 2009

Back to bullet points. Who needs pronouns? Or rather, needs pronouns?
Unbelievably, am writing this from the sidecar. Has a blog ever been written from a sidecar?
Computer back from brush with death, glassofwineonmotherboard-style
Survived a day of data wrangling.
Dinner at Pumphouse Restaurant, with big outdoor deck overlooking Chena river which runs through the heart of Fairbanks. People canoeing, kayaking and generally mucking about on the river on a very hot summer’s evening.
A good town.