June 26, Calgary, Alberta, Canada.

After the long haul from Alaska to the Canadian Rockies, it has been great to have some time to look about, rather than drive hammer and tong every day. Yet again it has been the scenery that has enthralled us over the past few days. Even with the patchy weather we have had, Jasper and Banff National Parks have kept us gasping for the last couple of days. The blue-green lakes are absolutely stunning, especially with the mountain backdrops. The wildlife has been accommodating, posing obligingly by the side of the road for us. On the other hand, the much-vaunted towns of Jasper and Banff left us a bit cold. Admittedly, that is probably our dislike of T-shirt shops, ice-cream parlours and over-priced art galleries. When tourist traps and the scenery are combined, as they are in Lake Louise, then the experience can be extremely positive. We were able to hire a canoe at a reasonable price and paddle off towards the glacier at the end of the Lake, with the famous Fairmont Chateau as a distant backdrop. We made the round trip in record time, weight for age!

Previous experience has taught us to avoid hotels within National Parks like Jasper and Banff, where the price of accommodation is way beyond our budget. Instead, we stayed in the towns of Canmore and Hinton just outside the parks. Both were average North American strip mall settlements, but without the press of tourists. As a bonus, Hinton is situated in an extremely scenic spot, with high ranges towering above the town.

Today we had an easy drive to Calgary, just 100 km down the highway from Hinton. With another rainy day threatening, we took a bit of a punt and headed for the Calgary Heritage Park Historical Village. What a find! We have seen a few of these outdoor museum complexes around the world and this is well up there with the best of them. It has a fantastic auto museum, steam train ride throughout the park, historical village, authentic original buildings, re-located to the site and friendly and well-informed staff at every location, most of whom had been to Australia at some stage and were keen to chat with us about their experiences and explain the features of the museum. All for a reasonable $20. The only drawback was the hordes of school kids screaming and yelling all about us. A small price to pay.

June 27, Calgary, Alberta.

Calgary turned on a much better day for us today. By mid-morning the sun was out and the temperature was approaching something like a summer's day - for the Northern Hemisphere. Our motel is fairly close to the city centre, so we elected to take the light rail downtown for a bit of exploration. This was the same light rail that rumbled past our door every ten minutes for most of the night. At least it was a short walk to the station.

Calgary is a city of about 1 million and, like most North American cities, it has tended to sprawl out. Having said this, it doesn't seem all that large in comparison to other cities we have visited that are about the same size. The light rail is not a large network, just two lines, but it seems well used and it worked well for us.

A city is generally a city to us and Calgary is probably just that, another city. Downtown could be almost anywhere in the western world, but without the cowboys and cowgirls we had expected. roaming the streets in big hats, big belts and high-heeled boots that we might have expected this close to Stampede time. There was, however, an excellent museum. The Glenbow, is a combination art gallery and museum, with a strong focus on western development and Indian culture. It was extremely well-presented and when we visited, not at all crowded.

On the downside, a long trip to the outer suburbs to visit the Aero Space Museum, was a serious disappointment. Sure the planes they had were in extremely well restored, but we have seem more, better-presented aircraft museums in smaller cities like Darwin. Perhaps we were a little jaded by the long wait for the connecting bus once we had left the light rail?

Next week is the 100^th anniversary of the Calgary Stampede. We are sure the place will be jumping for this internationally renowned event, but today, it was a bit like 'Saturday night in Toledo Ohio' downtown. You could have shot a cannon off. Just on peak though as we returned home, the good folk of Calgary streamed out of their office blocks and filled the stations for the quick commute home.

June 22 Dawson Creek, British Columbia

Our fifth day on the road from Anchorage, Alaska to Jasper in Alberta, just two days to go!

Starting out.

In the middle

Towards the end.

Just join the dots!

June 20, Watson Lake, Yukon Territory, Canada.

Still driving through the endless beauty of the northern wilderness, 450 kms of forest and lakes today, with the odd snow-capped mountain to complete the scene. It might sound boring, but the day actually passes rather quickly, as there is a chocolate box scene around every corner.

We did some calculations today, just to get a bit of a fix on how long it will take us to drive from here to Regina in Saskatchewan, our furthest point east on this trip. We have been driving for three solid days now since we left Anchorage and we have just under 3000 kms to go, not accounting for side trips. If we drove and did nothing else, it would take us another 5 days to get to Regina. Lucky for us we have 9 days until we are expected. And lucky that we love the road!

This lull in the usual hectic pace of our travels is probably a good time to explore some of the travel philosophies that allow us to continue to roam the world, seemingly at will. We are often asked, “How can you afford to go on so many long overseas trips?” We suspect that underlying this question is some suspicion that we have robbed a bank or are much wealthier than we appear. Neither of these are of course true. So here is the secret.......

Firstly, be retired. Having the flexibility to grab a travel bargain is paramount. For example, we have jumped on the web and grabbed specials like, return flights to Kuala Lumpur for $198 or Tokyo for $250 return. Perhaps our favourite is the $15 (all inclusive) flight, KL to Saigon.

Secondly, pay and book major expenses, such as flights and vehicle hire, well ahead AND shop around. This spreads the cost over time. It might just be psychological, but if you can cover these sorts of expenses out of your normal month to month living expenses, you don't really notice any big hit from these costs.

Thirdly, do it yourself as much as you can. The internet allows us to get the best prices but, if needs be, approach travel agents and see if they can price match. Companies like Flight Centre don't make enormous profits by being charitable to travellers, but they can often get good rates if they are pushed by travellers who know the market prices.

We believe that once the major expenses of flights and vehicle hire or other land transport costs are covered, it costs less to travel than it does to stay at home. This is easily demonstrated in Asia where living costs are a fraction of those at home, but it is also true of developed countries like Europe and the USA. In Asia we eat out, drink in bars and spend like drunken sailors. In Europe (when the euro is strong) we hire a mobilehome, buy food and booze in supermarkets and cook and drink in the van and free camp wherever it is safe to do so. In the US, we hire a small car, stay in cheap chain motels, buy a mobile kitchen that allows us to cook in motel rooms, buy food and drink in supermarkets. We eat out from time to time and very rarely go to bars.

We feel confident that, after a total of almost three years 'on-the-road' travelling in countries and areas as diverse as Morocco, Scandinavia, South East Asia, Japan, Canada, USA, South Africa, Swaziland, Turkey, Western and Eastern Europe, the UK and Australia, just to mention a few, we have enough experience of this lifestyle to say that it is all possible on a very modest budget.

While travelling in this way can be isolating, it hasn't stopped us from enjoying new acquaintances, friends and experiences, encountered and enjoyed in all sorts of weird and wonderful places.

June 21, Fort Nelson, British Columbia

Just another day at the office, Just some of what we saw today on the 500km trip from Watson Lake to Fort Nelson.

A couple of early morning highway encounters.

Heavy Traffic!

Lake Munchho. Nice!

Keep Canada clean!

June 17, Anchorage, Alaska.

This is our last night in Alaska. Tomorrow we hit the road for a very long, 700km haul to Beaver Creek, just inside the Canadian border in The Yukon. This route is unlikely to provide us with any more spectacular scenery, just the never-ending wilderness that is Alaska. That's not to disparage the wilderness, but just driving through it is very different to experiencing it as we have over the past two and a bit weeks.

So, what do we think of Alaska? Well, firstly, it isn't white, it's green, well, at least at this time of the year. Also, it isn't cold, well, at least at this time of the year. What it is mostly is a great adventure, truly one of the last frontiers, well, at least in the developed world. For Americans, travel to Alaska is a bit like Australians driving to Uluru, much of the thrill is just doing it. So imagine what it feels like for Australians coming to what, to us, is the absolute end of the earth! Then there is the wildlife, the glaciers, the mountains and the wonderfully friendly, though sometimes eccentric, people who eke out a living in what must be one of the most difficult regions to live on earth.

All this aside, Alaska does have some minor down sides. Don't expect attractive towns or cities. Alaskans need to do a bit of work on their urban environments. Sure, there are all the usual services, even fuel isn't a problem if you are aware of the great distances, but the frontier nature of the lifestyle does lead to some lax attitudes to tidiness. For example, there must be as many derelict vehicles rusting away in front yards and vacant lots in Alaska as are on the road. Piles of building materials and other junk are a constant eyesore. On the other hand, Alaskans would rather die than throw a drink can out the window on a highway. Go figure?

In short, Alaska is an adventure, beautiful, wild and still uncrowded. Do it, but please don't do a cruise, you'll 'miss the boat' on what Alaska is all about.

June 18, Beaver Creek, Yukon Territory, Canada.

Having done it, the 700kms from Anchorage to the Canadian border seems like a breeze. The good weather and great views for most of the way helped a lot. It was just more of the same old same old... incredible scenery at every turn! Does Alaska ever end? The distances are enormous and the country is so open and relatively untouched.

Finally, we have made it to Beaver Creek. Our last attempt to get here was foiled by a landslide that cut the highway a couple of weeks back. Not that Beaver Creek is 'the' place to be. It's just another tiny dusty strip of motels and gas stations. Just a place to sleep on the way to somewhere else. Mind you, Canada is not the accommodation bargain that the lower 48 states can be. Our motel tonight cost $104 for a room with no TV, no fridge, no coffee making, no free breakfast and what is worse for us, one power point! In Montana that $104 would get you a room big enough to hold a rodeo, corral for your horse, flat screen 200 channel cable TV, breakfast and dancing girls! The power point is for our travelling kitchen. This is what saves us heaps on these trips, but it does require power and as we have found out, our little portable hotplate draws a lot of current, blowing out the circuit breakers at least three times in motels we have stayed in so far. We just blame the hair dryer and get the office to turn us back on.

So tomorrow, off into the Canadian west in the path of Nelson Eddie and Jeanette McDonald. (look them up in your Funk and Wagnalls, or for non-boomers, just use Google.)

June 19, Whitehorse, Yukon Territory, Canada.

This is our second stay in Whitehorse, the capital of the Yukon Territory. Sad to say the better weather since our last stay hasn't improved our perspective on Whitehorse. One would need the rosiest of rose coloured glasses to find Whitehorse attractive. Sad, because it is situated in a very attractive part of the territory with high cliffs bordering the town on one side and views to snowcapped mountains on the other.

Another 500 km drive today through the wild Yukon this time. We had a few thrilling wildlife spottings with a mother bear and her two cubs ambling along beside the highway for a while. A bit further on solitary grizzly, probably a male, grazed beside the road. Later, a mother moose and her calf stopped us in our tracks.

We are finding Canada at least as expensive than Alaska. Petrol here is about as expensive as at home. In Alaska it was a little cheaper, but in the rest of the USA it is about $1 a litre at the moment. Motels are about the same as Alaska, $100 - $150 for a budget level room, which is around twice the price of the rest of the US. Food and booze are again expensive relative to the US, but probably on a par with Australia.

June 16, Anchor Point, Alaska.

The village of Anchor Point was so named by Captain James Cook. Yep the same one; he sure got around! Poor James lost an anchor just off the point in the inlet that would eventually have his name. Cook Inlet divides the western Kenai Peninsula from the Aleutian Island chain that hooks its finger more than a thousand kilometres into the Bering Sea.

Our luck held again, with another spectacular day. Across the inlet, three snow-capped volcanoes Iliamna, Redoubt and Augustine, all over 10,000 ft, towered above the Aleutian Range, just a wisp of cloud floating around each summit. We must have taken a hundred photos before the day was out. Every few miles there was another lookout and another photo opportunity, each with something different to offer. Our favourite was the small village of Ninilchik with its bleached timber buildings, many built with the traditional dove-tail joint corners. On the cliff above the village stood a Russian Orthodox Church surrounded by an overgrown cemetery. To top off the scene, bald eagles swooped and dived above the cliffs.

Alaska is by no means a heavily populated state and it is rare to see crowds anywhere, but out on the sandy spit that reaches some 6 kms into Cook Inlet from the town of Homer, it was packed! More Rvs and trucks than we have seen in the two weeks that we have been in Alaska.

Our last stop was Anchor Point itself. Why? Anchor Point is the furthest west you can drive in the continental USA. Tick! And tick again, when we came upon several eagles on the beach, feeding on fish carcasses.

June 14, Seward, Alaska.

Every now and then chance rolls you a six. Today on our Kenai Fjord cruise, we had an experience shared by only a few people in the world (or so Capt. Dan told us.)

About an hour into our trip, under partly sunny skies, we came upon a half a dozen or so humpback whales engaged in a co-operative feeding manoeuvre known as combined bubble and lunge feeding. Whales surface, take in air, dive and blow out the air in a circle to 'net' a school of fish. Once the fish are encircled, the whales 'sing' a special call and they all lunge together up through the compacted school, breaking the surface with mouths open. The experience was further enhanced when the crew lowered their hydro-phone and relayed the calls over the ship's PA system. We had about a half an hour with the whales repeatedly circling, diving, calling and lungeing right beside the boat!

More was in store -otters, seals, porpoises and numerous birds. To top it all off were the glaciers. The last one we saw terminated in the sea. With the boat motor off, we floated in silence in a mass of float ice, as the groans and cracks of the enormous ice mass rolled over us.

Topped off with an Alaskan salmon, King crab and Prime beef dinner, I think we can call it a great day!

June 15, Soldotna, Alaska.

After all the excitement of yesterday's boat trip, it was nice to have bit of a quiet day today. The short drive from Seward to Soldotna on the other side of the Kenai Peninsula was through much the same landscape as the rest of Alaska. Just simply spectacular. However, it must be said that one can overdose on distant, snow-capped mountains, endless spruce forests and raging mountain streams. There was a bit more variety in the sorts of people out and about on this mild (10C) summer's day. It is the first day of the salmon fishing season and the trucks spiked with rods and nets were poked into every spare nook and cranny along the popular fishing spots on the Russian River. Huntin' and fishin' are, naturally enough, favourite summer past-times in this part of the world, and it's not just the Alaskans who partake. Many of our fellow travellers are up here for the summer salmon season.

Fishing is a serious business in these parts. First there is the license to be paid for. In some parts that can be a neat $40 a day. Then there's the special camouflage waders, shirts and vests. You know, the vests with the fly hooks sticking out of them. Top all that off with a floppy hat or jaunty cap with the brand of your favourite reel manufacturer prominently displayed and you are just about ready to go, well except for the rod, reel, tackle box, 'haul-out net' and, just to improve your chances, a pontoon boat to allow you to drift about.

In previous American blogs we have commented on the devastating impact of out of town shopping malls on small town America. In Alaska, the impact of this latter 20th century phenomenon is even more dramatic. Aside from the history of the original native peoples of Alaska, the state has little more than 100 years of history behind it. Up until 1867 when the USA purchased the, then, Territory from the cash-strapped Russians, there was little permanent settlement outside the native villages that dotted the rivers and suitable seaside locations. The Russians only established temporary fur trading settlements and a few church missions. There was little development from 1867 through until the gold rushes of the late 19^th century. The gold boom bought thousands to the north and mining settlements mushroomed all over the Territory, some becoming substantial cities, in numbers at least.

As the Gold Rush petered out, most of the 'sourdoughers' (miners, so called because they carried yeast cultures with them to make bread) returned home to the south, some thousands died in the brutal conditions and a few hardy souls stayed on, to call Alaska home.

As late as the early 1940s, there was no road access from the lower 48 states to the Alaskan Territories. The war changed all that and the American and Canadian governments pushed through the Alaskan highway in 1944. When statehood was granted in 1949, Alaska was still very much the wild frontier. Virtually all that one sees in Alaska today is post 1945, so with such a short history, the towns and cities have suffered severely from the 'Walmart blight'. What is left is generally not a pretty sight. A few struggling businesses hold on amongst the crumbling ruins of the buildings of their previous competitors. With the severe winter conditions, buildings that are not well maintained quickly deteriorate and are eventually knocked down, leaving unnatural, overgrown open spaces in the middle of towns and cities, as shoppers and businesses move out to the city fringes to 'mall world'.

Some towns make a valiant effort to hang on to their short but interesting history. The 'City' of Kenai at the mouth of the Kenai River on Cook Inlet, is a good example. This was the site of one of the first Russian fur trading settlements. There was a fort here, built by the Russians and later taken over by the Russian-American Trading Company. The Russian Orthodox Church was established here in 1889 and the original church still stands today, the sole reminder of the original town. Sadly, the remainder of the historical walking tour featured buildings that mostly dated from the inter-war period or later. Some were younger than us! Sad, but at least they are attempting to hold on to their history.

June 8, Dawson City, Yukon

There are only two roads from the southern 'city' of Whitehorse, the capital of the Yukon Province, One runs north-west through the small border town of Beaver Creek via Haynes Junction. The other runs more directly north, to the historic gold rush town of Dawson City. Again, 'city' is a slight exaggeration.

With an early start from the fairly unremarkable 'town' of Whitehorse we took the southern-most route, heading off towards Haines Junction, 160 kms away. It was a bit of a rough drive, with scattered showers and poor visibility. Just outside Haines Junction, we hit a road block. Oh dear. A landslide had blocked the highway. The estimate for the re-opening was 2-3 days. Hmmm 2-3 days in the village of Haines Junction, Yukon. No! There was an option. The other route. Back to Whitehorse, another 160 kms, then 504 kms to Dawson City, a total for the day of over 800kms!

Tough as it was, all was not lost. The further north we went, the better the weather got. The temperature climbed to 24C and the sky cleared. The scenery was breathtaking. Snow-topped mountains gave way to wide glacial valleys and rocky hills, disected by swift rivers and streams. Regrowth is slow here. Areas devastated by wildfires are just beginning to regrow after almost 40 years. Luckily, the fires have not been widespread and the great majority of the forest is in its natural state. This part of the world is a true wilderness. No grazing, no farming, no fences, just forest as far as the eye can see for thousands of kms.

This change of plans will force us to take another long drive tomorrow to reach Fairbanks, where we have another hotel reservation. This is why we hate having to book ahead! Never mind. The drive is along what is known as the Top of the World Highway, reputedly one of the greatest drives in the world, and we have a good weather forecast.

One highlight of the day that we almost forgot... we saw our first bear! Just a small black bear, well actually it was a dark honey brown colour. Puzzled? Well as those of us who know our bears will tell you, the North American Black Bear can be any colour from black to dark brown and anything in between. The difference between the Black Bear and the much larger Brown Bear or Grizzly Bear, is more in the shape of the face and the pronounced hump that the Grizzly has.

June 9, Fairbanks, Alaska.

We started the morning with a quick tour of Dawson City. Despite the usual flood of tourists, and the associated 'clip joints', Dawson has managed to retain much of its early 20^th century charm. The city once boasted a population in excess of 30,000, today it is down to 1500 souls, boosted to a few thousand when the 'buses come in'. The streets are gravel and the footpaths are boardwalks. Many of the original buildings have been restored and reborn as T-shirt shops or some other sort of tourist trap, but the main street still has a frontier feel and at the far end of the street there are several derelict buildings. Un-restored, listing heavily, they still provide a legitimate feel of the original town.

Dawson City lies on the confluence of the Yukon and Klondike Rivers, so it was to the ferry crossing that we headed after our quick walk up the main street. The ferry is free, but it is very small and the line of trucks and RVs waiting as we arrived seemed to threaten our plans for an early start to a hard day's driving to reach Fairbanks at a reasonable hour. Predictions for just the first half of our route, the Top Of The World Highway, were around 7 hours. Then we had another 400 kms into Fairbanks. Our worries were unfounded. There was a small vehicle line and we made the crossing within 30 minutes of pulling up.

So off we headed into the wilderness on a near perfect day, 24C and sunny and clear. About 80% of the Top Of The World is gravel, with the remainder being very poorly maintained paved surface. The gravel was fine, a bit dusty with some soft edges, but by Australian standards it was perfect. The paved sections were a nightmare of potholes and undulating surfaces. Enough about the road. The drive was all about the scenery. Wow. Distant snowy mountains, lush, deep river valleys, open, green alpine meadows and horizons that just go on and on. To date, we have driven around 2000 kms through the Yukon and Alaska and seen some of the best preserved wilderness areas we have seen anywhere. No fences. No farms, not even grazing. And so far we have only travelled in the most populated parts of this enormous region.

Almost at the end of the spectacular Top Of The World is the small village of Chicken, so named because the original miners who camped there couldn't spell Ptarmigan, the local bird that they wanted to name their camp after. Unashamedly a tourist stop, the village is still a hoot. Chicken paraphernalia is, of course, on sale. Derelict mining machinery, including an enormous dredge, litters the site. There are no real roads, just tracks of convenience between one place and the other; welcome relief near the end of a long, isolated drive.

Once the tourist haunts are left behind, Alaska and the Yukon are truly the last frontier. For those old enough to remember, every second man looks like Grizzly Adams, every second woman looks just like you'd imagine his wife to look like. Pick-up trucks out number sedans five to one, and almost very vehicle has some sort of damage. The locals are welcoming and, as usual in the US, polite to a tee, but one still gets the feeling that the locals crave the winter when they have this wonderland to themselves.

June 10, Denali RV Park & Motel, Denali.

Fairbanks is the second largest city in Alaska, with a population of about 100,000 for the whole area. The city itself has about 30,000 people. As cities on the world scale go, Fairbanks is a real minnow. Even so, we had expected something a little more, well, sophisticated. Poor old Fairbanks doesn't attract the tourist hordes and it struggles to do better than an overnight stopoff on the way to somewhere else. Most people pass through here on their way to Denali National Park or further north to the real Alaskan wilderness areas much further up towards the Arctic Circle. So sleepy old Fairbanks has a downtown that is just a hollowed out shell. Parking lots for the few government workers based here, the odd, very sleazy bar and a few red-neck classics like the Far North Tactical. 'Security through an Armed America' is their slogan and by the look of their headquarters in downtown Fairbanks, they mean it! As another indication of where the real soul of the metropolis lies, there are cage fights on this weekend, families welcome.

Fairbanks does however have a Walmart, a Supercenter to boot, with its own special brand of 'Walmart People' as featured in the many photo slideshows that do the rounds on the internet. If we were game enough we could have launched a whole new episode. So, stocked up with food for a couple of days, we hit the road for a very short 200km trip down to Denali.

For the second day in a row, the weather was perfect. Sunny, warm to hot, well hot at least for the Alaskans, and clear as a bell. Our digs are in what passes for a motel room in this part of the world, ok, but not the Ritz. Never mind, we only sleep here.

We ducked into the park this afternoon to check our bookings for the 12 hour bus trip through the park to Kantishna in the 'back country' as they like to say around here. As an insurance against a sudden weather change, we also did the only drive permitted in the park, a short 15 mile road to Savage River. As expected, the scenery was again just exquisite (we are running out of superlatives). We did manage to see a female moose, but that was all. We have much higher wildlife expectations for tomorrow's tour.

June 11, Denali RV Park and Motel, Denali.

It just had to happen. Our luck finally ran out and we awoke to a drizzly morning with low cloud and a little more chill in the air, probably somewhere around 11C.

By the time our Kantishna shuttle bus departed at 8:00am, the rain had stopped, but the clouds still hung low. We patted ourselves on the back that we had taken advantage of yesterday's weather to see at least the edge of the Denali in all its glory. Our trip was just the basic 12 hour shuttle bus, so there was the usual crowd of R-Vers and assorted other travellers, rather than tourists. A nice chatty crew of 30 or so, all Americans except for us.

By about 30 minutes into the trip the clouds lifted a little and visibility improved. All eyes were strained, searching for wildlife. Moose, caribou and bear were the main targets. Our first sighting was a small group of caribou well off in the distance, excitement enough, but when somebody yelled 'bear!!', shutters began to click in earnest. A beautiful dark brown grizzly was wandering along above the caribou.

There was some disappointment though. Denali/Mt McKinley, the highest peak in North America, deep in the park, and one of the truly iconic Alaskan images, was obscured by clouds and mist today. Our driver has seen 'The Mountain' only four times in six years. We were lucky enough to capture a glimpse of the mountain through the clouds at one point so at least we have that to remember.

Aside from a few spotty white Dall sheep, way off in the distance, our critter-spotting looked to be a bit of a washout as well, until the bus driver hit the brakes and yelled, 'bear on the road!' Lumbering along beside us was a champagne coloured grizzly, who seemed not the least interested in us. Even better luck followed as, just a little further on, we came across another bear and the shutters banged away again.

Americans of our age are a very gregarious bunch. Stand in a line waiting for a bus, or turn around in your seat once on the bus and you are bound to end up in a conversation, and it is amazing just how many common experiences we have with most of them, with the exception of having been in the military, which seems to be at least part of the career path of most American males.

Back at the RV park, now the sun comes out! And it's only 9:00pm, with at least 3 more hours before it sinks below the horizon for a few hours, to re-emerge at around 4:00am tomorrow! That's about 20 hours of sunlight a day!....