We reluctantly left our wonderful free lake camp and headed for Fairbanks. As we drove in, the beautiful clear day disappeared in a haze of smoke. We had no idea there were even wildfires around so it was a shock.

Apparently lightning strikes over the weekend have caused a lot of fires to sprout up. There was a wildfire near the bush camp we had a few days earlier. Scary.

We stopped at Walmart to try and get a spare tyre for our van. The lady on the desk stressed that we needed a light truck tyre to match the others, but they had none in stock.

Mike rang a place just around the corner and they had one at their warehouse that they would get in for us and it would take about an hour.

So we did some shopping at Walmart. We got a few essentials as well as some other stuff. We bought a cheap tent for emergency use. After the petrol leak episode I like the idea of having somewhere to sleep if it happens again.

At the tyre garage, we got the guy to check our spare to make sure it needed replacing. He said it looked good, nice tread etc. then he noticed the cracks Mike had noticed. When they took it off the rim, it was really bad and would have caused a blowout. Lucky we hadn’t needed to use it!

When they went to put the new one on, I wanted to confirm it was the right one, the Walmart lady’s voice echoing in my ear. Just as well I did as they had ordered the right size, but it was a passenger tyre. We told them this was no good but they didn’t believe us. The tyre guy had to ring an expert in Anchorage.

Meanwhile, Mike googled it, unsure ourselves about taking the word of a Walmart employee. Sure enough, under no circumstances should you put a passenger vehicle tyre on with light truck tyres. It’s a blowout waiting to happen.

The tyre guy finally got off the phone to the expert in anchorage and confirmed our findings. It’s crazy that a lady at Walmart knows more than these guys who deal with tyres everyday! So thanks Walmart lady, you saved us a potential blowout should we need to use it.

Eventually they got the correct tyre in and fitted, and we didn’t leave until after 6pm. We just wanted to get out of the city. We drove, heading towards thick smoke. I was terrified, but figured they would close the road if it was too bad.

It was not a pleasant experience. Thick smoke, poor visibility, and the darkest it’s been for weeks. It was like this for about an hour before we eventually came out of it and it was such a relief to see blue skies again.

It was about 10.30pm by the time we found a wonderful free camp beside a lake, just off the main road. No sitting up to watch the midnight sun tonight, it was straight to bed.

Today I gave Mike the task of checking our spare tyre and making sure all the jack and tyre components are there and working. We should have done this when we first bought the van, but better late than never, right?

The reason for checking it now is that we’re planning to drive the Dempster highway, all the way to the Arctic ocean. It’s a 740km I unpaved one way road, with sharp shale in places that are renowned for causing flat tyres. It’s also very remote, with no cell coverage except for 3 towns on the way up.

It’s recommended to have two spare tyres, so we’re looking into that. When Mike checked our current spare, it was flat, and had slight cracks at the sides. We figure we should get a new one.

We started driving towards Fairbanks, the last major town on our route, but realised it was Sunday and tyre shops wouldn’t be open. So we backtracked to our wonderful lake campsite and spent the day finishing a movie ready for upload when I find some internet.

It was super hot today. It was 26 degrees and we were parked in full sun. It’s unusual for Alaska to be so hot. Up until now it’s been mostly cold.

There are also a few fires burning about the place, so plans could change.

Another long day and another late sunset. I love it!

Today was a lazy day. We didn’t leave our camp spot until after lunch and had a leisurely drive.

We stopped and visited the bus from the movie Into the Wild, which was about a 22 year old guy who gave all his money to charity, then hitched to Alaska and lived in a bus. and the bus from the movie is in the courtyard of a pub. So we hopped on board and had a good look around.

We also met some cyclists who are cycling from the top of Alaska to California.

We stopped after just 80 miles as we found a wonderful free camp beside a lake.

It was a stunning day, but we were both a bit tired after our late nights.

Again, we were awed by the midnight sun. This was a much better spot for viewing it as there were no mountains in the way.

It was another late night, and even Mike stayed up this time!

We had a nice nights sleep in our free bush camp, very quiet.

Today we drove to a quirky little town called Talkeetna. It was from the olden days, and also where the TV series Northern Exposure was inspired. From the riverbank we had a great view of Mt Denali, North Americas highest mountain at 20000 feet. It is rare to see it as it’s normally covered in cloud.

We tried the spinach bread from a local food truck. It was spinach cheese and garlic on fresh toasted bread. It was yummy but could have had more garlic.

Around 11am the tour buses arrived and we couldn’t get out of town fast enough!

Our next stop was the birch syrup factory. We didn’t do a tour but we did some tastings and bought a small jar of birch syrup which is delicious! now we just need to master making pancakes!

We drove to Denali national park, getting great views of the mountain. It’s weird as you see a huge mountain range, and then there’s this massive mountain looming over them.

As we were driving to Denali we could see heavy rain ahead. So we pulled over for an afternoon nap. Then when we continued on it had settled to a drizzle. When we arrived at the national park it tipped it down again. Apparently 4 seasons in one day is the norm here.

We drove 30 minutes into the park as far as we were allowed to drive. At the end, the rain had stopped and the weather cleared, so we did a hike. at the start of the hike was a sign saying we were likely to encounter bears, so we kept our bear spray and air horn handy.

It was a gorgeous walk beside a river with mountains towering beside us. We had a strong head wind, which wouldn’t have been any good if we needed to deploy our bear spray. Thankfully we didn’t see any.

It was 7pm by the time we finished our walk and we had no idea it was so late. With 24 hours of sunlight, you have no sense of time. I love it. We even did another hike after this one!

It was about 9.30pm by the time we stopped for the night. It was in a massive pull off area surrounded by hills and overlooking a lake. There were quite a few other campers here too.

I was so excited about the summer solstice and midnight sun that I couldn’t sleep. At 1.30am I was wandering around immersed in it. It is so surreal. As we head further north it will probably be even lighter!

Today was boring. We headed off to Midas for an oil change and to get our brakes looked at, and we spent the day there.

Our rear brake shoes were fine, but the front pads needed replacing, and also needed a bearing replaced in on of the front wheels.

While we waited we went to Starbucks to get a video uploaded. Not sure why, but internet is very slow here. But it finally went up.

We waited all day for our van. At 5.30 pm it was finally ready, then they realised they’d forgotten to do the oil change! So it wasn’t until after 6pm when we got our car back! The guy gave us 2 litres of oil to take with us though, so that was nice.

We just wanted to get out of anchorage so we left town. We stopped at a Walmart about an hour from anchorage. They allow people to camp overnight. But there were a lot of rough looking cars and campervans there, and a lot of people working on their cars. It didn’t seem like a nice place to camp. So we got some supplies and made a sandwich before heading on.

We drove for two more hours and finally found a free campground tucked away in the woods, by a river. Only a car camper and an old van were camping here, and it seemed like a nice spot. We found a big clearing between some trees and settled in.

I’ve heard there are some crazy people in Alaska, so I wasn’t 100 percent comfortable but we sat up until midnight playing cards and didn’t see anyone else around, so I felt safe enough to sleep.

Almost 2 months here and we seem to have done so much!

We headed back to Anchorage today but did a 50 minute detour to the small almost ghost town of Hope. The town boomed in the late 1840s during the gold rush, but once gold was found in the Klondike, everyone deserted it. And it’s still in pretty much original condition.

We arrived back in Anchorage and went about some chores. Shopping, shower and laundry. Darci had invited us to stay again so we did, as we have an early start in the morning as we need to get an oil change and our brakes looked at.

We are looking forward to heading north.

We had an indecisive day today. We were going to head back towards anchorage, but the day was so beautiful at the coast that I didn’t want to leave straight away. I’d really wanted to do a kayak trip here but we would have had to book that in advance.

We drove back down Homer spit and the sea looked calm. We checked the availablity of a water taxi to go wildlife viewing. She said we could go on one immediately, and it would just be the two of us. Why not? We thought.

So we jumped on the water taxi and headed into katchemak bay. It was beautiful out on the water with snow covered mountains rising out of it. There is a glacier lake kayak and hike i wanted to do, but i am just so tired from all the late nights watching the sun set.

On our hours cruise we saw a few puffins and sea otters but that was it. We’d probably need to go out for longer to see whales.

After our trip, we headed back towards anchorage. It’s a 4.5 hour drive to Anchorage so we stopped at our lovely lake camp again for the night.

We reluctantly left our lovely lakeside camp and headed on to Homer. The day was warm with brilliant blue skies. But as we headed towards Homer, a sea fog rolled in making it cold and dreary.

We stopped at a gas station to fill up, and that dreaded hose started leaking again. In fact it poured all over the forecourt. I ran in the tell them and a lady came out with some stuff which she scattered over the spill. Then they helped us push Rodger off the forecourt.

The leak is not the original problem, that is fixed now. There is a breather hose which now seems to leak, so Mike folded it over with zip ties to stop it leaking. We then took it to a garage who confirmed this fix should be fine.

We drove out to the Homer spit which has charming seaside huts along it. We had done lunch at a seaside restaurant. We shared some clam chowder and some deep fried halibut and chips. It was yummy.

The sea fog was making it really cold, but it was cool how the snow covered mountains poked above the fog. We booked into a beachfront camp for the night.

The wind died down and the fog cleared and it was stunning evening. We went out at 8.30 pm for tacos. I had halibut tacos and Mike had rockfish. Both were yummy!

We didn’t settle down until after midnight as it was such a nice evening watching the sun set.

We spent another lazy day beside the lake. It was Sunday and everyone was packing up to go home. The people who we have our campsite to brought us a heap of firewood all chopped up, the thank us, so that was nice of them.

So with all our firewood, Mike tried making bread again. But the self rising flour here is so salty. It’s got baking soda in it, and that’s the flavour coming through. Gross! So we’ll toss that lot and get some proper bread flour.

We really enjoyed just sitting around doing nothing. The weather has been absolutely perfect! Clear blue skies, warm, and not even too many mozzies, though we did get a couple of bites.

We are heading to Homer tomorrow which is supposed to be a charming seaside town. We’re hoping it won’t be so busy during the week!

We slept in until 9am! It was another glorious day at the lake. But the people had well and truly taken over our spot. The picnic table was covered with their stuff so my plan of making coffee outdoors didn’t happen.

We pumped up our cheap kayak with plans to go for a paddle. We bought it last year and still haven’t used it.

As Mike was finishing, we saw a campervan leaving a lakeside spot. So I walked over to grab it. At the same time, the people who we gave our spot to were trying to claim it.

I said we would take this spot as we currently didn’t have a spot. They said they were planning to take it. I said we have them our spot so it was only fair we took this one. And it was right on the lake, so we won in the end!

We took our kayak for a paddle. It was stunning on the calm lake, snow capped mountains in the distance, trout leaping around us. We don’t have a fishing licence so couldn’t fish.

It was a glorious day doing nothing. Our camping neighbours gave us some wood and Mike had a go at making camp bread in the fire. We only had self raising flour though and it has salt in it. As we added additional salt, it was too salty to eat.

We’ve decided to stay here a few days as Homer will be super busy on the weekends.