Well hello, and welcome to Episode 2 of the Alaska to Argentina trip: The Dalton Highway.
Below, you’ll find my most involved video update yet 🙂
So I hope you enjoyed the video and it hit the spot. As I said at the end, I’m very happy with it, and I think it’s my best yet, not bad for just a guy with a laptop aye? 🙂
So this is where I put some photos up and talk about them, here goes:
I’m ready for my close up now.
I think we might need to unbox the bikes before trying to ride them.
So we got the bikes out of customs and got them delivered to the car park for $10 (£6). This is the first time that I’ve travelled in an English speaking country, and I must say it’s quite refreshing. It took 2 days and a lot of money to get the bikes out of customs in Mongolia, but here in Alaska it only took 30 mins and the price of lunch 🙂
The bikes were ours, and Rach then put the last of her very colourful stickers on.
Ooo shiny 🙂
So we had the bikes, which meant we had our freedom. I used my new found freedom to find some fine American cuisine.
You call that a pizza? THIS is a pizza!
So many Pop Tarts!!!!!!!!
Once I gourged myself on processed crap (although I still maintain that ‘pop’ and ‘tart’ are vitamins), Rach and I went looking for decent food. And we discovered that American food can actually be really good. I personally find UK food to be quite simple and not that adventurous, but here in Alaska every dish has at least 10 different ingredients. And so many combinations! I’ve never has advacado on eggs before….it’s awesome. And everything can have bacon on it. I really like this place. (no photos though….I ate it all too quickly).
Anyway, as you saw in the video update…..we had a lot of crap to fit on the bikes. But somehow we got it all on.
So much stuff for 2 small bikes.
Eventually we did pack the bikes and we set off exploring, not knowing where we would camp that night.
Luckily there was no camping required the first night, Rach and I found this free public use cabin instead.
Rachel’s other companion “Scrat” was very happy with the location.
And I decided to go for a swim (and a wash)
I’m not really sure how to explain this photo.
We carried on riding and camping each night as we carried on further north. Off course wild camping does require some off roading….which Rach was still learning.
Eventually our exploring took us to the start of the Dalton Highway, at to the beginning of our 414 mile (700km) ride to Prudhoe bay and then backl again.
Here’s us at the start of our 820mile (1400km) round trip on what the BBC calls a “World’s most dangerous road”, we clearly look terrified.
Photos of the Dalton Highway in 3…2…1…
If the Queen did off-roading, this is how she’d wave.
We stopped for a photo here for some reason
Eventually we made it to Prudhoe Bay, and the highest road in North America at Deadhorse.
Unfortunately you can’t ride your bikes to the Arctic Ocean, but you can get a bus there. So we did, and got our photo taken.
Rach playing with the icy water
As I briefly mentioned in the video update. Me made some cool friends when we were there. A lot of people describe Prudhoe Bay as a boring place with nothing to do, but luckily there’s always a crowd around our C90’s so we always make friends quickly. I was trying to find out how to get the bus to the ocean when a guy started asking me about my faithfull steed and how he’d never seem a small bike at the top of the Dalton.
His name was Arnie and he’s thre guy one the right. When he saw the condition of Rach’s rack (ooo err vicar). He took us to his company’s workshop and got it welded up for us. Afterwards we joined all the guys for dinner and spend the whole evening talking. We took it in turns asking about each other’s lives. We wanted to learn about what it’s like working this far north with 24 daylight in the summer and 24hr night in the the winter, and they wanted to hear all about a life on the road.
So rach and I had a brilliant time up there. I guess if you just keep yourself to yourself, then it will be a bit dull. But luckily our 90’s always initiate some chaos of some sort 🙂
Eventually we had to head back down south. There’s not much else to say really, other than it looked like the way up, except backwards.
The pipeline.
It did rain though, so we had some mud to spice things up.
Well at least Scrat is finding the Dalton Highway as scary as all bikers and TV shows make it out to be.
Artistic photo in 3…2…1… (special credit to Rach on this one)
And after the full 820 miles, we eventually completed the trip there and back, and as you can see.
Well I’ve got to go now and change the chain and sprockets on the bike for us to set off tomorrow. Hope you enjoyed the video update as much as I like the finished article 🙂
Got to go, see you soon,
Ed, Rach and the 90’s
