Date: 16/07
City: Trapper Creek, Alaska
Kilometres ridden: 488
Cumulative kilometre: 53425
Street: N/A
Weather: Sunny, warm
We had a dip in the hot spring in the morning which felt great! Unfortunately it made us both somewhat more tired, so packing was really slow. After we finished packing we took a couple of pictures of the surrounding before we started. It looked like some people ran out of gas and couldn’t return to Fairbanks 🙂
The day was sunny and warm, the roads were easy and the landscape beautiful. The landscape got more interesting once we passed denali park. The park is known for its hiking sites in summer and skiing\dogslide activity in winter.
We were jawning the whole day which must have been the result of the swim in the hot spring this morning. So when we filled up the bikes in Trapper Creek, we decided to call it a day and finish the last 186km tomorrow.
Date: 17/07
City: Anchorage, Alaska
Kilometres ridden: 186
Cumulative kilometre: 53611
Street: N/A
Weather: Sunny, warm
We had a pleasant ride and took our time to see if we would find some Moose. We stopped at plenty of swamp and lake areas but couldn’t see any. Well I guess we have to wait until we are in Anchorage, apparently they are in the parks quite frequently.
We went to an accommodation that was recommended by some German bicycle riders we met in Fairbanks. When we arrived, Wilber – the owner – told us that he had a wireless router but didn’t know how to connect it, so we thought we make ourselves useful. We went food shopping and then to a restaurant visited by many locals, as suggested by Wilber. On the corner was a gift shop, have a look at the name 🙂
The restaurant was great, you could watch the chef prepare your meal. That was the first place since quit a while were the oysters were affordable, and as everyone knows with oysters one must have a glass of champagne 😛
After we went back, we connected and configured the wireless router, which brought memories back. Do I really have to go back to work, can’t I just keep travelling???
Date: 18/07
City: Anchorage, Alaska
Kilometres ridden: 0
Cumulative kilometre: 53611
Street: N/A
Weather: Sunny, warm
Okay, today was dedicated to Moose spotting. So we went to the tourist information to get some ideas about good spotting sites.
Apparently in winter you can find Moose in the streets of Anchorage, they prefer the cleaned roads to the deep snow. When we walked through the streets, we didn’t see any moose, I found only a Grizzly bear, but I managed to outrun him.
Some natives were so interested in watching me be silly that they didn’t move any more….
Sigrid found a Reindeer but that was not too exiting either.
Ok, on our mission to see a Moose, we went up on a parking lot where we had a great view over Anchorage, so it would be easy to spot a moose in the town. The view over Anchorage was great. I didn’t know that Anchorage had so many mountains close by.
Anyway, we couldn’t see any moose on the road, so we decided to visit three different parks. On the first two we didn’t see any moose at all. We came up with different theories why, maybe, there are no Moose and they created these animals only to boost tourism, like Nessy from Loch Ness or the Wulpertinger. And then, in the last park, we saw it. A moose on the side of the road, can you spot it in the picture below? It is right in the middle of the picture, in the middle of the fallen tree, on the left side of the power box.
Okay, here are pictures with a zoom.
I guess that moose didn’t get the memo otherwise it would have gone before we arrived 😛
To be honest, I think it may have been the a guy from the tourist information wearing a moose costume ;).
Anyway, mission acomplished, we have seen a free roaming moose!
Date: 19/07
City: Anchorage, Alaska
Kilometres ridden: 188
Cumulative kilometre: 53799
Street: N/A
Weather: Sunny, warm
Today we decided to have a look at the Alaska Wildlife Conservation Centre. The centre takes care of animals that wouldn’t survive in nature. The animals are not in cages, they are in large fenced in areas. The road to the centre was beautiful, meandering along the Turnagain Arm, which is part of the Cook Inlet. It reminded me a bit on the great ocean road, well with tall mountains in the background.
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On one viewpoint we read about the Boring Tide, which occurs twice a day. The wave created can reach up to 6 feet (1.8m) and floods the whole inlet in one hit.
Unfortunately you need a very large difference between low and high tide and the next one would be in six days, too late for us. So we continued to the Conservation Centre and here we found some moose. We could look at them close enough to ascertain that these are not guys in a moose suits 😉
Well, they would have a long shift with 21 hours of day light 😉
Moose are much taller than I expected, they are the same height as horses.
There were also some Black Bears and Grizzly Bears. They look cute, but I’m happy that a fence was between us.
The grizzly got some pieces of Salmon as appetieser, I guess that would be enough to eat for me for a week.
Another Grizzly was just relaxing in the water before having a look at the visitors….
We also saw some Musk Ox roaming around.
And then was there the Lynx and the Bald Eagle.
That was a great start of the day. Our next goal was to go up to a shoulder of a glacier and touch it. The best opportunity was the Byron Glacier, not even 70km from here and only a short easy way to walk. Off we went. After getting information from the tourist office and making a small detour, we arrived at the parking lot of the Byron Glacier Trail.
After a short walk, we had a great view onto the glacier.
And here we were, at the edge of the glacier and our Diddles as well.
On our way back we made a stop at the Portage Lake, have a look at the view.
Sigrid made a new friend in the Tourist Information.
On our way back to Anchorage, we stopped at a lake on the side of the road. Sigrid had to put her feet in, this time she couldn’t stop smiling because she was completely frozen, even her face 😛
On our way back we stopped at a wet land with a great board walk, hoping to find some Moose. We didn’t see any Moose but two Bald Eagles, which was great. What a day, tomorrow we will start our trip direction Dawson City, maybe we’ll find some gold in the Klondike river 😀
