Anchorage to Telkwa

The part finally arrived on Thursday but we didn't get the bike back until late afternoon so it was another night in Anchorage. Our new friend John left a note through our door that if we wanted a buddy of his wanted to take us up for a ride in his private plane, even this tempting offer wasn't enough to keep us in Anchorage any longer! Of course it was raining Friday when we left, not rain exactly but buckets of rain, it remained that way all day until after 460 miles we'd had enough and stopped at Beaver Creek. We bumped into Victor, a fellow traveller from Mexico here and spent a nice evening talking bikes and travel. Saturday morning and more rain, a stop at Destruction bay for a late breakfast (cool name) and then a while later at about the 200 mile mark the rain stopped, hooray, we passed Haines Junction again and headed to Whitehorse where we bumped into Father and son act Kevin And Kale who we' had a brief talk with in the roadworks yesterday, we all decided to head to Telis Lake together and as I was cold and wet we got a Motel there, a pleasant night talking about, you guessed, bikes and travel. We were last to leave the following day but still early at around 8 am and started of dry for five minutes then of course rain, then after about 80 miles Fiona's bike started cutting out, oh great I thought, please God, let me just get some miles in before the BMW gremlins strike. She nursed it to the fuel stop at Watson Lake, the turnoff for The Cassier highway where I'd already diagnosed in my mind the issue, the battery lead was slack. I suppose after I'd just paid BMW $540 to check the valves (all ok) and change the spark plugs I shouldn't expect too much, after all not tightening the battery terminal is normal right? We were pretty pissed off at this point however the day improved when a Moose ran out in front of me, scary to start with but after I knew I wasn't going to hit it, nice to see nature close up! We met up with Kevin again at the fuel stop as well as Dirk & Chelsea from Vancouver and we ended up riding the next section together. The great thing about that part was we saw many bears, the best was a cub running across the road followed by the mother and then another cub, spectacular to see nature this close up (but glad I was in a group and on my bike) We stopped again for fuel and Fi and I had both had enough, shattered , we tried for a room at the motel but just like Joseph and Mary there were none, no stable either so we headed off another 60 miles to the campground the others were going to stay at. Over 500 miles that day and shattered, we still didn't sleep that well worrying about the bears, Dirk moved his tent as he found fresh bear droppings next to it and the lady from the campsite delighted in telling us about the bear in the tree next to our tents a few days ago, all in all not the ingredients for a great nights sleep. Today we headed to Stewart & Hyder to see more bears but today they weren't performing and staged a no show, there was some excitement about a wolf in the vicinity but for me that wasn't worth hanging around for. We finally made it to the campsite we stayed at before in Telkwa, both very tired but its been worth it to put the 1700 miles betWeen us and Anchorage the last few days, it's now warmer thankfully but I'm writing this in the tent as its raining outside so no photos I'm afraid, I'll add them when we are in more comfortable surroundings, watch this space as they say. The rain has now gone off long enough for an update.....

Fiona outside our favourite restuarant in Anchorage

Leanne who's wedding we are going to in NYC will aquire the rights to this park

we were very bored

It did cross my mind as a way to get home!

Electric bikes.... the future?

Moose in the wild

Victor fro Mexico

His bike!

Bikers meeting!

BMW proving it stands for Broken Motorcycles worldwide

Met a nice French guy travelling from Qubec to Whitehorse on this old Honda, no touratech, old fashioned GPS (A4 page stuck to the tank) Brilliant

We were getting desperate to get out of Anchorage

Camping with the bears

Stewart, quaint town

More Glaciers

Now wth Fi's bike

Fiona added the Stewart tartan Bow Tie, all the way from home