Well well well...long time no see! The Alasken odyssey was absolutely
amazing..starting by flying into Anchorage to see my mate from University of Arizona - big Kev and spend some time with his
family and mates heading up to their lake house a couple ofhours out of anchorage for some good boozy nights, tasty food
and 20 hours of sunlight a day.
Then took two little monky planes out to Unalaska, half way out along the Aleutian
Islands on the way to russia...felt like we were close to there with all the russian architecture and cool churches.
Just made it into Unalaska as we were delayed because of storms getting there, then found out that there were no flights in
for a few days after coz of the crappy weather! now unalaska is acutally very alaskan - not like the name suggests - amazing
scenery (mountains, ocean, big hairy fishermen) - its the place where the deadliest catch tv show originally was filmed, and
after spending some time with the boys from one of the fishing boats, its a pretty full on occupation - and the boat was safely
docked when i was on it!! Had my first couch surfing experience here with Dan who was the manager of the huge 4star hotel,
(and the only one in town), and was forced to have a room at the hotel for 3 nights as dan was in and out of his work flat
too much while i was there to look after me...shame! ha was amazing with a full local seafood buffet one night, the most expensive
Safeway in the world for the other meals and some amazing experiences that can be only had in one of the most remote places
in the world! Saw the old world war II remains - bunkers, gun turrets, and random concrete up in the hills, to protect from
ze japs, got to drive a pick up truck on the 25 or so kilometres of roads on the island, and spent nights at the bars with
local fishermen and women and was shown how to have a campfire aleutian style - fish packing box pallets burn really well!
Bought a thick hoodie for the next part - three day ferry ride back through the aleutians
to kodiak island for a night, then back tot he mainland at seward. Slept on the top deck of the ferry under the covered area
and had a heater to keep warm(ish) at night - with only 6 hours of darkness at most it was usually toasty anyways and the
expensive boxd wine i bought in unalaska kept me pretty warm too...amazing scenery, saw flocks of millions of birds, little
fishing villages that depended on this monthly ship to get supplies and people to them - was a great experience.
Kodiak was another matter (initally anyways) - no bears unfortunately but arrived
at 4 in the morning and hung around til McDonalds opened at 6, filled in time until i got to go see the couch surfing host
who didnt remember i was coming and didnt want to host anymore...not a good feeling - worse seeing as the cheapest hotel room
was over $100! so spent the two days around the town, hitting hte local brewery and going for walks in some nice spots in
the forest and unfortunately avoiding kodiak bears - which actually might have been a good thing..hmm
caught a bus from seward across to homer (mmmm salmon....) and spent the night with
a guy who constructed his wood cabin himself using an australian portable mill - very proud! had a great cruise out on prince
william sound - saw killer whales, seals, kick arse glaciers and lots of great scenery..then off to meet up with Kev and his
mates and i spent a few days at a house on the Kenai peninsula fishing for salmon, eating lots of smoked, fried, boiled, broiled,
batttered etc etc salmon, and rank plenty of tasty beers along with it...freshly smoked salmon is one of the most amazing
tasting things in the world - even better when there's 5 kilograms of it!!! wooo
Then back to Anchorage for a couple of days and off with my hired ford "so called" four wheel drive off for
9 days cruising around (and up) the biggest state - headed east firstly towards Valdez (no oil spilled anywhere anymore -
just in the pipeline!), where i went through some amazing coutryside - huge mountains everywhere, lots of farmland, saw some
cool wildlife and spent a night in Valdez - the end of the alaskan oil pipeline, coming all the way from up in the artic circle
- puts the perth to kalgoorlie water pipeline to shame! off north then through some remote countryside, with lots of mountains,
driving and amazing wildlife . headed to Tok junction, delta Junction, down and through the denali highway, where after 50
or so kilometres on the gravel road, got a puncture and was forced to stay the night with a couch surfing host in denali national
park a few days early ( a lifesaver) - and fixed the puncture before heading off north through fairbanks, managing to get
across the arctic circle to coldfoot the same day up the dalton highway - defnitely where the rental companies wont let you
go...managed to do it wthout a scratch though and after spending a night (ha all 15 minutes of darkness!) above the arctic
circle (and picking up a wandering lithuanian in the middle of nowhere), i headed back south to fairbanks to spend a couple
of days checking out what the capital had to offer. Besides lots of cheap beer and a sparsely attended gold rush theme park
there wasnt much! was a fan of the random game jerkies though - how good is it that you can get a 1200 kilogram moose and
condense it into 50g of dried meat. amazing.
ooh..i did manage to go to north pole though - thats right...no not THE north pole - north pole alaska - where the
kids ge to write responses to all the US kids who think theyre writing to santa - kinda brings them back to earth pretty quickly
you'd think hey! did like the 10 metre high santa cutout and the reindeer, and also was happy that north pole had changed
its name from kakapoopoopeepeeshire - they get a lot more tourists that way...
Now onto Denali National park - AAAAMMMMAAAAZZZZIIING -my couchsurfing host River (great name hey) is a bus driver for
the only vehicles that are allowed int he park - and got me afree trip in there - got to see coyotes, grizzlies, caribou and
lots of other things - was soo good! stayed in the staff village with him and was privvy to some cool people, tasty beers
and a crazy poker game that i almost won! ha denali tourist village is pretty cool - cheesy souvenirs, batrs, restaurants
and all thegermans and japanese tourists you can poke a stick at!
After that headed south to the little local tourist vilage of Talkeetna and stayed on short notice with a host who worked
at the local brewery - SCORE! ha his mates were going on a float down the river that day so we grabbed growlers (2 litre
bottles of beer) and headed down the river - was very cool - just missed out on seeing a grizzly bear by not much - the smell
and fresh footprints were pretty cool - got out of there pretty quickly though! was a bit worried at how all theguys took
their tops off and started a fire on a sandbank when a little bit of sun came out - not too much grunting and groaning so
i guess they were just happy the sun was out - back down to 19hours of sun...
then to anchorage to finish with big kev again - tied up some loose ends -a lmost had a 5lb monster burger but thought
that wouldnt be fair to the other passengers on the plane to take pretty much a newborn baby on as hand luggage - and the
toilet on board wouldnt have been a pretty sight after that i think!
ha flight to phoenix to visit steph the granny next and to vegas - living it up again - got into some cool VIP areas
and nightclubs this time and spent up nicely...then back to phoenix for a few more days, shopping and enjoying the hot temperatures
before stopping in for a night with little fatty Ben in san fran - not long enough time this time, but will have to make up
for it soon!
so yeah...been a while since this trip now - can't wait to hit the road again...where's the next place to be seen by
the large polka-dancing man? who knows....but the beer and meat supplies of some poor country will reel with surprise very
very soon!!!
