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Report No 3

Our first visit to an internet-cafe led to the second report and to our first photo-cd. It always takes more time than one expects and so we left after two and a half hours and 25 francs later.

On the 18th of May we arrived in Victoria, on Vancover Island. We stayed on a nice and expensive campground in Victoria West Bay (CAD 42, or double the 'normal' price). A water-taxi took us downtown where we tried to do some shopping without luck. Dinner we had at a nice restaurant in Victoria where the waitress was trying very hard to get a smile from Luca. - We had to have a serious talk with Luca about good manners afterwards.

On our way to Port Hardy we visited the Sproat Lake, the Pacific Rim Nationalpark in the west and the Buttle Lake where we did some walks.

Heading North with such great distances to do (6000 km from Los Angeles to Alaska) with little Luca takes time. We don't want him to sit in the camper the whole day. Lucky us, Luca sleeps up to 2 + 1 hours during the day and the whole night aswell. That allows us to drive up to 250 kilometers a day if we have to. Apart from lovely scenery and a black bear next to the road, a sign like 'Next fuel station in 185 km' makes our hearts beat. - We are always happy to get out of crowded areas;-)

On the 24th we decided to take a 'little short cut'. To gather information wasn't easy. We were told that these roads are used for logging (Holztransporte). - Well, we believe that we were the first tourists on this road. Our compass helped us a lot. From Port Hardy we caught the ferry to do the Inside Passage up to Prince Rupert. It left over two hours late- at about 10am. Unfortunately the weather was bad, a lot of rain, so we couldn't be outside too often to enjoy the beautiful scenery. We were going between all these little islands. We also didnÁ´t see any whales. Well we spent a lot of the 15 hours in the kids play room. Luca loved the slide, climbing up and sliding down backwards, again and again and again. We arrived in Prince Rupert at 1 o'clock at night and spent the rest of the night on a parking place just out of town.

Heading further north through western British Columbia (BC) we experienced the longer distances and the even less people. Interesting stops were at the Nisga's lava bed and Boya Lake with beautiful tropical colors and wet but cold water (Alex went for a very quick swim;-).

A detour over to Steward and Hyder (Alaska) let us drive past the impressive Bear Glacier (our first one). During our hours of driving we can see a lot of changes in the vegetation. Trees only grow up to 1000 m. Some areas reminded us alot of the mountains in Switzerland (Engadin and Ticino). It feels like driving through these areas 100 times for hours and hours, but with no houses, people or civilisation. Since Vancover Island we didn't have cell phone reception. Which means that we would have to go to an internet cafe to receive our mails. That isn't always easy (or possible).

The further north we got, the longer the days were. Around Whitehorse it gets dark around midnight now.

From Whitehorse we carried on along the Alaskan highway. Even though the nature remained beautiful, we had to find out that the number of campers increased. Our worries about finding a campsite were unnescessary. We often were the only ones on the campsites we chose. (State- or Nationalparks and not the horrible RV-parks.)

On the 5th of June we entered Alaska. At our compulsary stop at the visitor center in Tok, we got useful information and maps for our further trip into the Wrangell-Saint Elias NP. (The system with the Visitor Centers is usually very good and helpful.) The scenic drive down to Valdez (oil pipeline terminal) was much nicer than the town itself.

Driving through Anchorage we felt a bit stange seeing so much civilisation. (Anchorage is the biggest city of Alaska with a population of 260'000 and with our SWISSCOM cellphone we didn't even have reception!) Further down south we went to the Kenai Peninsula. Our first stop was at Cooper Landing. As we hit the week-end and the start of the salmon fishing time, the place was crowded with fishermen. Most probably we were the only bloody tourists that wern't there for fishing!

On our hike to the Russian River Falls we ran into a black bear with two cubs. With a heart beat of zero we backtracked and waited for the following group to pass the bears with them. (Sorry, we forgot to take a picture.)

At the Russian River Falls then we saw lots of red salmon trying to get over the falls. What a struggle! It was 17 km before Ninilchik on Highway No 1 on the way down to Homer at a speed of 55 miles an hour when all of a sudden we felt like being in a roller-coaster. Our camper shook like crazy and pieces were flying around in the vehicle. It smelt terribly of rubber and there was a very big noise. The driver (Alex) slowed down and stopped immediatly and there we were: at the roadside of the highway no 1. A completely demolished tire on the left back wheel inside and a not too small hole in the under carriage. It was ripped open by the pieces of the tyre hitting around the wheel. - Sch....!

As the rental company has no trust in stupid tourists the camper does not have a jack to lift the vehicle to put on the spare tyre. So 'luckily' someone stopped pretty soon afterwards and promised to get help for us in the next village. Waiting there we saw a moose and her calf crossing the road. After nearly 2 hours of waiting a tow away vehicle stopped to ask whether we needed help. YES, we did. He passed by coincidence and wasn't sent by our earlier 'friend'. 60 USD later we were on the road again with the worry of the damage and of the rain. Driving in the rain the water would spray into our vehicle through the hole. So we stopped and Alex made a protection shield with an old water bottle. It definitely has to be repaired.

Unfortunately the weather in Alaska hasn't been too good to us. We've had rain every day and temperatures between 10°-15°C. There would be an old Alaskan saying: if you don't like the weather in Alaska, just wait ten minutes! Well, we waited for even longer ... And got wet. In fact the alcoven-bed was all wet one morning and Alex too.

In Seward we went to have a look at the Exit glacier. It was really impressive! The next day Natasha booked a wildlife watching tour by boat. As the weather was really bad, Alex offered to stay back with Luca and let Nati go and see the whales. Well, unfortunately the whales didn't like the pouring rain either. So Nati came back very wet but without having seen any whales, only sea otters and some seals (and alot of high waves).

After quite some more rain and lots of phone calls trying to contact the rental company we arrived in Anchorage. Here we got our tyre problem solved. (After running around for three and a half hours!)

After Anchorage we headed up north and our next stop was at the Denali NP. The weather changed and we had sunshine and clear blue skies with temperatures up to about 30°C. In the park we spent 4 wonderful days. We got beautiful views of Mount Mc Kinley, northern America's highest mountain (over 6000m), and we also saw some wildlife - caribou, moose, Dall sheep and last but not least a grizzly mom with three cubs. Although everyone raves about the wildlife here, it is not as abundant as in southern Africa. Here you are really lucky to see something.

The long days make it more difficult to get Luca to bed in the 'evenings'. Right at the moment of writing these lines we can watch the sun going down at the horizon. We are in Fairbanks on a parking place of a big shopping market and the temperature is slowly falling below 30° C inside the vehicle. It's now 23:50h. Soon we will be freezing!

Before we forget: Approx. 4 weeks ago Luca started walking! Well a 100 meters sprint still takes serveral minutes, but he is improving every day.

24th of June, Fairbanks (Alaska).