Maybe we find gold in the Klondike

Date: 20/07 – 21/07/2013
City: Tok, Alaska
Kilometres ridden: 512
Cumulative kilometre: 54311
Street: One lane highway
Weather: Sunny, warm/ Cloudy, cold, rain

It was raining during the night but when we got up it stopped. What this really shows is that if you sleep long enough the weather will be fine. So we packed our bikes, said goodbye our host and set off to Tok.  On our way was the Mantanuska Glacier, so we stopped and took a picture of it.

We continuned until Delta Junction where we filled up the bikes and had something to eat. At this precise moment it started to rain heavily, lucky that we were inside. The rain stopped after a while and we continued, following the dark clouds in front of us. The nice thing about following clouds is that you don’t get wet and you can see usually a rainbow. On the picture on the right you can see it – look to the end of the road.


The disadvantage is that the great mountains around you are covered in clouds 🙁


When we arrived in Tok, it looked pretty dark and started to rain. The weather looked the same the next morning, so we decided to stay a day before we take off to Chicken and Dawson City, which would have the last bit of planed gravel road of our trip.

Date: 22/07
City: Dawson City, Alaska
Kilometres ridden: 291
Cumulative kilometre: 54602
Street: One lane paved, dirt road
Weather: Sunny, warm

Waiting a day has paid off. The weather today was gorgeous, not too hot and not too cold – just right. The landscape and the road were fantastic.

We arrived in Chicken and went to the old town. Downtown Chicken consists of three shops and a toilet block, the population in winter is fifteen. So first we went to the statue in the central plaza of chicken.

Our next stop was the famous saloon, which was five meters further down the main street.

I guess people must have been very drunk when they left the saloon, have a look at what they left behind…


Well after all that food and coffee, Sigrid had to go. What better place to visit, then the famous Chicken toilet block.

After we were refreshed, we felt ready to take our last dirt road challenge, the top of the world highway. We had heard all sorts of different stories, from terrible road up to easy to ride, so we will find out. Have a look at the view from the highway.


The road up the Canadian border was ok, we were still expecting something worse.

The road on the Canadian side seemed to be even better, it was dry and as good as a highway surface and we arrived the boundary from Dawson City in no time.

Only a couple of miles later, the dirt road ended and we worshiped the bitumen again. That was the last bit of dirt road, well, I should say planed dirt road, in North America. And it seemed that we have manged it without even breaking a limb… 😛  Time to celebrate!

 

A bit further down the road we stopped at the Yukon River to take the ferry to Dawson City. Dawson City is located on the other side where the Klondike feeds into the Yukon River and this was the place where they found gold in the late 18oos. Maybe we find some as well 😀

We found a nice hotel, the Midnight Sun Hotel, settled in and had a look at what we could explore tomorrow.

Date: 23/07
City: Dawson City, Alaska
Kilometres ridden: 291
Cumulative kilometre: 54602
Street: One lane paved, road
Weather: Sunny, warm

In the morning we joined a guided tour through the town. It was great. There was a guide showing us around and then a lady appeared, dressed in a historical dress, at different location and told us how it was in the olden days. The restored buildings were in immaculate conditions, all restored as authenticly as possible. Below is a picture of the bank. By the way, the mesh wire in front of the teller was apparently not to prevent people from stealing money, it was mosquito wire attuned to the humongous ones that live here J

Then we had a look at the Red Feather Saloon, where I couldn’t resist having a drink – I’m only posing, honest 😛


Then we went to the post office, which was amazing. Have a look at this building, but keep in mind that in winter you have up to -40 degrees, and they didn’t know much about how to insulate a house. The amount of wood to keep this building warm during the winter was enormous.


I like the original safe in the middle.

After the walk we went back to the hotel, and I had a look what was going on in the street. When I was looking down I saw two BMW’s pulling up, both with European number plates. We met a bit later and it turned out that it was an Irish couple and their friend. They had shipped the bikes from over from Ireland. We were all keen to get to see the Cancan dance performance in Gertie’s Diamond Tooth salon, so planned to meet each other there.

In the evening we went up to the Midnight Dom. The view was spectacular and there was a huge bench – called the top of the world bench – which we had to try out.


I tried to make a picture of the two of us, by putting the photo camera on the bike and set the self timer to 10 sec. The bench was on a small hill, so I had to run up and sit down before the timer expired. On the left hand side you can see one of my multiple attempts to make it. There was always a second missing. The righ picture was taken by somebody else, which we asked after I was completely exhausted 😀


When we returned, it was time for CanCan Show. We found out that there were three difference performance every night, so we thought we have a look at the first performance and go home. After we entered the Saloon I found gold, Yucon Gold, ice cold in a 700ml bottle 😀


We found Lessli, Ilean and Gerald and organized a table after the first performance was finished. We did lots of talking and after the third performance finished, they started to close up already… well it was close to two o’clock after all. So we took a last picture and departed. Below is Lessli, Ilean and Sigrid, me and Gerald.

After finding all that gold, we will start a bit later today and ride towards Whitehorse.

1 comment

  1. Regards from Chile!!!, amazing landscapes and good adventures you have.
    How you feel the bikes, at this moment of the trip? A lot of kms you ride.
    In mi new Dr ,last week i change that “table seat”.Now it’s prepared for a travel like you.jeje
    Take care of yourselves !

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