The time had finally come to drive the Dalton Highway up to Deadhorse to officially ‘start’ our journey. While we had been camping in Fairbanks, we had met a couple from Texas who had just completed the drive themselves. They spoke of lots of mud, roadsides teeming with wildlife and dipping their feet in the ice-filled Arctic Ocean. Sounds like our kind of road trip!
But you’ve already written a post on bears! Look closer, there is a bear in this photo, but it isn’t him that we are afraid of.
Since we were taking so long to get to the official ‘start’ of our journey in Deadhorse, Alaska, it made sense to delay a bit longer. The starting point of our trip South is also the starting point for the Trans-Alaska oil pipeline. This pipeline finishes in Valdez, in Prince William Sound. So we thought it sounded like a plan to start where the oil finishes and then drive to the source. Confused?
The wildlife of Alaska. In contrast to New Zealand where the native wildlife consists almost entirely of birds, it is a bit of a change to spend some time in a part of the world where the wildlife is large enough to trample and/or eat you.
One of the best things about Alaska is how convenient all the glaciers are. Sure there are plenty of inaccessible ones, and thousands we would never see without a plane and a lot of time on our hands, but the fact is, there are some that are downright easy to get to. After travelling around Alaska for a few weeks, we have to report that we became so jaded about glaciers that we stopped bothering to do all the walks to go look at them. To understand how people can become so blasé about such incredible ancient rivers of ice […]
The USA—it’s like New Zealand, only the junk food is cheaper and they drive on the right (wrong) side of the road. Also, for some reason they have these crazy four way stops where a roundabout would have been a good option. Although Ben seems to be warming to these after a few weeks of driving.
Flights booked. The Kiwis will be airborne on 10 May 2014.