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!....