It was cold this morning on the mountain so had our little gas heater going and it was soon toasty.

Today we stopped off for two hikes. The first one was to the million dollar falls, which was a very brown waterfall. It looked like tannin in the water.

The second hike was to a rock glacier. It was a little scary walking through the bushes at the start, knowing there are many grizzly’s around. But it was a neat walk up a rocky glacier. It was all the rubble the glacier left behind when it receded.

After our walk we went to Haines junction to fuel up. We ran into a German couple we met a few days ago. It’s funny how we keep running into people we know!

We didn’t drive far today. We drove past a beautiful scenic spot overlooking a gorgeous lake and I said to Mike we must camp there. So he turned around and we parked up. It’s such a beautiful spot with a long beach with black volcanic sand. We are so lucky with all these amazing places to camp for free.

We chatted to a couple from Texas and another couple from Arizona who are also staying here.

After dinner we went for a nice walk along the beach. At 8pm the sun is still high in the sky and the wind had dropped and it was nice and warm.

A coyote crossing the road was the only wildlife of interest today. Speaking to other people, they haven’t seen any grizzly’s yet, so we are really lucky to have seen two already. Perhaps it’s our slow pace.

I didn’t get much sleep last night due to mice running around in our van. And none of our traps caught one. So when my alarm went off at 6.40am I was very groggy.

We took our car into Peter’s tire and auto, which is a very messy mechanical shop with old cars sitting around, probably abandoned projects. Lots of junk in the front yard. And a mechanic who looked like a zz top member.

Paul, the mechanic was there trying to open his shop but he’d lost his keys. This is not good I thought.

They certainly work on country time as it was about an hour later they finally got around to removing our wheel. Turns out there is no major problem. Just that a spring had broken. Paul found an old spring he had lying around and fixed it for us. They also told us our brake shoes will need replacing soon , and after 30000 kms driving in our van I’m not surprised. We’ll get it down in Anchorage which is over 1000 kms from here.

We spent the dreary ole morning in the library, getting a movie completed and uploaded. Once we’d finished the sun had come out and it was hot!

Haines is a neat town and a lot of alternative types live here. Only small cruise ships dock here and usually only one at a time. Mike looked around the hammer museum while I sat in the sun.

We found a high powered vacuum and gave our van a good clean out. If the mouse has nothing to eat maybe he won’t stay. All our food is stored in a plastic box which we call the pantry.

It was 4pm by the time we finished but still decided to keep driving. We know it doesn’t get dark until midnight so we’ve got plenty of time. After sitting for a few days we were keen to move on. and we were glad we did.

Just out of Haines we saw our second grizzly, right on the side of the road. We were within feet of it! I wasn’t winding my window down to take a photo though! He was really cool though and seemed a little wary of us.

We crossed back into Canada today and got grilled at the border. He asked so many questions, mainly about the van. We felt interrogated! But he let us through

The drive today was absolutely stunning. We drove to altitude again and suddenly we were driving through snow and frozen lakes again. The mountains were thick with snow. We kept stopping and just looking around in awe. This would be a completely different trip in a couple of months with the snow melted.

We hadn’t seen anybody since crossing into Canada and we felt all alone out here, but in a good way.

At 7.30pm we found a trailhead carpark at the base of two thickly coated mountains and still thick snow on the ground. A couple of vans were already stopped here and it seemed like the perfect place to stop the night, surrounded by snow.

And just as we were settling down to sleep, rustle rustle. The mouse had invaded our sleeping area. We turned the lights on causing it to panic and run into a trap. Phew, one down at least. Mike took it over to the bin, getting his first taste of midnight sun!

We have a problem. Yesterday when we arrived in Haines our rear wheel started making a noise. Today we took it into an auto mechanic but they are super busy and didn’t have time to look at it. He also recommended not driving too far on it until we know what it is. He reluctantly agreed to take a look tomorrow for us.

We are basically in the middle of nowhere. They have to ship parts in and if anything needs fixing so we might be here for a while. But hopefully we’ll find out more tomorrow.

Haines is a nice little town though and I’m sure we’ll find stuff to do here. There’s a day trip to Juneau I’d quite like to do which is a ferry ride down the inside passage with whale watching and stuff.

We saw two bald eagles today, the first of our trip, so that was very exciting!

And we have another problem. The pitter patter of tiny feet in our van. All six traps are set. Here’s hoping I can get some sleep.

Wow, what a day! We woke up in our stunning freedom camp and continued our drive to Skagway which is in Alaska, and also where we had the ferry booked.

The drive this morning was incredible, through snow and mountains and frozen lakes. What should have been a 1 hour trip to Skagway took us over two hours!

We crossed into Alaska and both of us were so excited. A tour bus driver took our photo at the sign. Then we had the border crossing. We were told the US border were very strict. We were expecting a queue but there was no one.

They had us pull over and did a quarantine inspection. Our blueberries, strawberries and eggs were all ok! Even our bacon was allowed! and the guards were very nice.

Today I saw my first porcupine, a weird looking creature sitting in the middle of the road. I snapped a couple of photos.

We arrived in the town of Skagway and were blown away by all the people. There were four cruise boats in and I hadn’t seen this many people since Vegas! We were both a little overwhelmed! Skagway is the final port of the inside passage, and also is a quaint little tourist town.

And then Mike got internet for the first time since he booked the ferry. Our tickets were for Wednesday, not today (Sunday). But he’d definitely booked them for today.

We went in to see what was going on, and the man said they do that if there is no space available, they automatically book you on the next available booking. Well that’s a crap system!

We asked if we could go on standby in case someone canceled. He said to come back at 12.30. So we did, and then he said they weren’t doing any standby bookings that day. He seemed like a jerk and I couldn’t understand why they wouldn’t do standby.

Back at the van, this thought was nagging me. So we went back in and talked to someone else, a girl this time. She said, sure, we can put you on standby. She said it’s a known booking bug and they had raised tickets for it but no resolution as yet.

She checked us in on standby and when we entered the queue for the ferry, we were surprised to see a few others in the standby queue. So that guy was just clearly a lazy prick!

Anyway, we waited a couple of hours, and voila! Everyone in the standby queue made it onboard!

It was a beautiful ferry ride through the sounds, quite different from the Marlborough sounds due to the snowy mountains.

We are now in the town of Haines, Alaska. It’s a cute little town with less people(so far at least)

We stopped at a rest stop by the side of the road with stunning views of the inlet.

This has been the most amazing journey so far and we find we are just living in the moment, enjoying each day as it comes. Apart from route planning and deciding where to stay the night, we’re really just going with the flow.

And as far as route planning, even that is pretty vague. We had planned to follow the Alaska highway to Alaska, but wild fires forced us to change our route and we were glad of this, as the Stewart cassiar was amazing, and remote.

Then we got onto the famous Alaskan highway, and got talking to a random guy at the Yukon sign. He asked which way we were going to Alaska. I thought there was only one way, but it turns out there is another.

So instead of following the Alaska hwy through Whitehorse, we have decided to turn off and head to Skagway in Alaska. From there we need to catch a ferry to haines, then we’ll have to .drive through Canada again, before getting to the more accessible part of Alaska. Confused? But the exciting bit is, we get to catch a ferry through some of the inside passage.

Today we visited the smallest desert in the world, saw two bears, and two moose. We are also camping at the most incredible camping spot overlooking a lake, surrounded by big mountains. And it’s free!

I stayed up late and it was such a surreal sight as it was still daylight at 11.30 pm. I watched the sunset And went to bed.

Today we continued our drive along the Stewart cassiar highway which was very beautiful. We only saw one bear today, but it was a brown bear, so that made up for it.

We stopped at jade city which isn’t a city. It’s just a single shop selling jade. Not even any food or fuel! But the had free wifi so I did my wordle and caught up with things.

We made it to the Alaska highway and a much needed fuel station. It looked weird. We pulled up to the pump and a toothless man who looked exactly like Roland from Schitts creek came running out, telling us what we had to do. He was really weird so we went around the corner and found another fuel station.

The Alaska highway was a bit of a shock after the Stewart cassiar. For the last few days we’d been driving a narrow, remote,scenic road in the wilderness. The Alaska highway is wide in comparison and seems less remOye. More traffic too but still pretty quiet.

We stopped and had a look at the rancheros falls, but they were ok. We were going to stop the night in the carpark, but a man was running his noisy generator and there were about 6 others pulled in to stay.

It was 6.30pm already but we decided to move on, knowing we had hours of daylight left. Not much further down the road we found a large field next to a river. And there was only one other person camping there. And it was a lovely outlook with mountains around us. Not sure why people would cram into a carpark when this place is just down the road.

We’re done with paid camping if we can help it. There are so many nice places to camp for free, and even though it’s still cold, we know we can handle the cold.

We had a great night sleep in the free camp beside the lake. It was a bit cold this morning so we ran our gas heater for a bit and it was nice and toasty!

Today we continued our drive along the Stewart-Cassiar highway. It’s a lovely drive but quite remote. There is no cell service for the entire 800 km route. There is a small gas station every 200 kms or so.

We saw four bears today on the side of the road. One of them was a brown one, the others black.

We found a wonderful place to free camp tonight, right beside upper gnat lake, which sounds terrible but there were no gnats. It was such a beautiful spot surrounded by mountains and there is snow on the lake still! And we were the only ones there!

Today was a much nicer day, and the sun was shining. We headed towards highway 37 which takes us to Alaska.

Along the way we stopped at a historic town of Hazelton which was beside the river. Nobody was around, it was like a ghost town.

Further along the road we turned off to see some Native American totem poles, which look very similar to the Māori ones.

We saw a black bear feeding on the side of the road, but he took off when he saw us showing him an interest.

We finally turned off the 16 and onto the 37 which is the Stewart cassiar highway which will take us to the Alaska highway.

We turned off onto the 37a, a 45 min scenic detour to the town of Stewart. It was an amazing drive through mountains and a massive glacier you could see from the road.

Stewart is a quaint little town on the Alaskan border. You can drive to Alaska from here but the road soon runs out, so we’re not going that way. We walked out on a boardwalk that goes over the estuary. It’s weird being so close the the sea again and we could smell it.

We didn’t like the campgrounds in town so we headed back towards the Alaska highway. We turned off down a dirt road surrounded by trees and after a short drive, found the most amazing freedom camping spot beside a lake with the snow capped mountains behind. It was perfect!

It was a bit of a boring day today. Highway driving through forests and no interesting wildlife to see.

It was a drizzly ole day and we drove for all of it as there was nowhere of interest to stop.

We drove to the town of Smithers, and had MacDonalds. Then decided to stop at a campsite with full hookup and good internet.

At 10.30pm we went for our evening stroll (yes it’s still daylight, midnight sun is coming) and we saw a couple of moose, so that was the highlight of the day.

This morning when we woke up, it was so cold in the forest and we had no heating in our van. So we headed off without breakfast and drove to the town on Prince George, about an hour away.

On the way we saw a black bear. Mike slowed down but it gave the bear a fright and it ran and started climbing a tree. It was cool to see it climbing the tree but I felt bad that we’d scared it.

In Prince George we stopped at a cafe for coffee, breakfast, and to get a video uploaded.

Then we visited Walmart and caught up on shopping.

Then we visited the laundromat and it cost us $80 to do laundry! This is because we both managed to lock our keys in the car. The nice lady at the laundromat called a tow company for us and we only had to wait 15mins.

The lady from the tow company arrived armed with a special tool her boss had made for unlocking our particular van. Apparently they are tricky! By the time she got it, unlocked our washing had finished so no time wasted.

We left Prince George and on the way we encountered a heavy rainstorm on the highway. And then our wipers packed up yet again! It was only a 15 min drive to the next town, so we pulled into an auto mechanic and he helped us fix it. Another grommet had gone. Thankfully we had a spare.

We stopped in the town of Vanderhoof for the night, with power as we’re soft.

T