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!