After enjoying the scenery down by the water and sharing lunch with some rather large blow flys we were back on the road. Our aim was to get as far as we could and the never setting sun really helped us out! Along the way we were greeted by ever changing scenery, minimal traffic (there were literally no cars on the road) and our first sighting of moose! As we were driving along the highway, we startled one which pretty much saw us and then ran straight into the bushes! It must've been a female though as it didn't have big antlers. We then spotted one down in the gully, crossing through a channel of water; he spotted us at exactly the same time we did him and he stopped straight in his tracks, watching us for our next move. We watched him for a while and tried to take some good photos while enjoying his presence!We made our way through Haines Junction and after stopping in at the visitor center, made our way to a little campsite within the Kluane National Park. We were met by a lot of mozzies in the very busy campground so made a camp fire in an attempt to ward them away! I don't think we had much luck, but it was nice to be able to make a fire again. When we finally decided to go to bed around 11pm it was still light outside and felt like early afternoon! Turns out, this was just the beginning of the never setting sun and our disrupted sleeping patterns for the next few weeks!
Onward we set toward the Top of the World Highway, which would take us from the Yukon Territories in Canada, through Alaska US and back into Canada! The roads along the way weren't the greatest, lots of gravel and lots of continuing construction, which meant we waited long periods of time for the pilot car to escort us through the 10km length of construction site!
We made our way through lots of windy, gravel roads, crossed through to the USA and then found ourselves in an interesting town called Chicken. I can't quite remember where they got the name from but the whole 2 stores in town were making the most of the tourism! I got some funny stares from the lcoals when i asked what beverages were dairy free and if they had soy milk and Rhys had fun with the giant chicken and the sign post showing the distances all the 'chicken' related towns in the world.
It was over the border again and after a quick chat with the border security man, back into Canada. Onward to the little down of Dawson city, a little historical gold mining town located on the edge of the roaring Yukon River. We came into town from the west and set up camp before realizing we had to use a barge (which thankfully ran 24hrs a day) to cross the river and enter the town! It was June 21 when we were in town, the longest day of the year and because we were so far north, a day in which the sun didn't set at all. We joined the rest of the town at the top of Midnight Dome to watch the phenomenon but couldn't last all night as we were chased away by our new friend, the mosquito.
It was still cool to be part of the never setting sun !
THe next morning, before heading through to Tombstone National Park, we wandered through town which still had a very old school feel to it! the roads weren't paved and the little town was full of people amazingly still trying to find gold!
After a coffee, a wifi stop at the local library and a fill up for Jimmy we were back on the road, en route to Tombstone. We didn't know what we would find here, but what we did find was quite spectacular! There were some pretty impressive mountain-scapes which we viewed from the top of a hike; we were a little rushed up the top as we had to run down the hike to avoid the quickly approaching storm and only just made it to the car before the skies opened. Rain and living in a car don't really work together and cause problems when it comes to cooking dinner! We were one step ahead though as we'd selected a camp site close to the public 'kitchen' a covered area with picnic tables and a wood fire. We put the fire on, made our dinner in the dry and even a few friends in the process.
Our next destination was Whitehorse, the capital of the Yukon. It was a little smaller than we had expected for a state capital but did have a cute little hippy style camp ground! Sadly this day will be remembered as the day my haviania died.. I had been dreading this moment for the entire trip; if the plug were to break i would be thongless and forced to wear only sneakers.. I had got so used to wearing thongs i even had a beautiful thong tan to show for it! Never-the-less, after its sad passing, i tried to revamp it with a bit of duct tape. The duct tape was going strong but about half way through our afternoon walk around the river in Whitehorse, i lost it again and hobbled back to the camp site with one shoe.
After an amazing coffee, a chat with a like minded traveler from Quebec traveling to Alaska solo in her brand new SUV (who had some pretty good ideas on how to sleep in her car!), a shower, a car wash and a full tank of gas we were back on the road, destination Whistler.
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