We got up early and headed into Fort St John, a town with about 24000 people. We hoped to get our muffler fixed but they don’t have a replacement. So we’ve booked into a garage in prince George, about 6 hours drive away for Monday.

We spent the day catching up on groceries, uploaded a video, and had a shower for the first time in ages.

We went back to the camping ground from the previous night as it was in forest and sheltered from the sun. We had a lazy afternoon.

There are quite a few wildfires on our route south to Vancouver, so we may have to fast track some of it.

We spent two days at a free riverside campsite. It was a beautiful spot beside the fast flowing Toad river, a weird green colour.

We spent the time cleaning the dust out of our van. We had taken onboard a lot of dust on the Dempster highway. We took everything out, cleaned it off and put it back in.

The days were really hot, mid 30s with little shade, but it was a nice break. We met a couple of poms about Mike’s age who are touring on motorcycles. They used to do a lot of cycle touring, but decided they are getting too old for it, so have upgraded to motorcycles. They are planning to ride all the way to Argentina. I’ve been tossing around the idea of motorbike touring for a few years now and these guys have piqued my interest.

We left our campsite Tuesday morning with the plan of doing some hikes at Summit lake, but not long into the drive we were inundated with wildfire smoke. It was very claustrophobic to drive in, and we had to keep the windows shut.

After two hours we arrived in Fort Nelson, the same town that was evacuated in May due to fires, preventing us from travelling this way. Over 180,000 hectares are burning at the moment. 40,000 hectares of this are new fires in the last 4 days! Crazy!

We had the first internet in about a week, so I called sister Susan to wish her happy birthday, stocked up on supplies and continued on. The smoke got thicker as we headed south and it was another 2 hours before the skies suddenly cleared.

It was such a relief to be out of the smoke. There was nowhere to stop, so we kept driving until we found a state park and stopped for the night.

Today was a spectacular day, the sun was shining, and it was really hot.

Our first stop was the liard hot springs. It was only $5 each. The entire complex was surrounded by electric fence to keep the bears from sneaking in for a midnight dip. We still took our bear spray.

It was a ten minute walk along a boardwalk and it was absolutely stunning. We arrived at the pools and they were gorgeous in a natural setting. They had two pools next to each other. One was super hot and the other was just right!

After our swim, we continued driving the Alaska highway and it was an incredible drive. We saw six bears today, the first ones we’d seen in months!

We drove past Muncho lake which is a big lake with beautiful green water. We tried to get a paid camping spot beside the lake but they were all taken.

We continued driving until we found a wonderful free campsite beside a river, even more beautiful than the paid sites at muncho lake. We sat beside the river (with our bear spray, and watched the river flow by.

We spent 3 days here while we cleaned the dust out of our van and did some minor repair s.

Today we headed to the signpost forest, which is a forest of over 100000 signs! And of course we had to contribute. They have everything there you need to make your own sign.

We paid $2 for a plank of wood from the hardware store, borrowed their stencil, and used our own coloured pens to make a sign. It was pretty simple. A funny looking kiwi and New Zealand stenciled across the top.

They even had a hammer and nails to secure it to a post. That was the next task, trying to find space. We wandered around for ages looking and finally found a spot.

We were both pretty tired so we spent the day there. The visitor centre had showers, wifi, and a short movie to watch on the building of the Alaska highway.

A quiet nights sleep in the carpark under a tree, as it’s been very hot.

We mucked around this morning doing I don’t know what, but we didn’t leave Whitehorse until after lunch.

It was mainly just a driving day along the Alaska highway heading east. Not much to report as we were mostly covering ground we’d already driven.

We stopped in the same field we stopped at on the way up.

We spent the day in Whitehorse doing chores. Our muffler had come loose where the tail pipe and front pipes connect. We rang one garage and they are fully booked for July. The other place in town had a 10 day wait. No wonder people are driving around town in crappy cars. Mike picked up some muffler weld paste with the hope of fixing it himself.

Then we did laundry, shopping, and spent the afternoon at Starbucks uploading a video.

In the afternoon we had a brief nap , then Mike fixed the muffler and changed our filthy air filter.

We went to the Whitehorse markets which on every Thursday from 3pm to 7pm. It reminded me a bit of gourmet in the gardens. We had dumplings followed by some southern bbq brisket which was really yummy for so far north.

Then we decided on a very early night as we were both so tired, collapsing into bed just after 9pm, still in the Canadian superstore carpark.

We only have about an hours drive to finish the Dempster highway. We were going to head back to Dawson City to check on the status of the wildfires blocking our route south, but that would have meant an 80 km detour. So we asked Matt again to check the status of the road. That Garmin has come in handy when out of range.

The road has been closed off for weeks with pilot cars ferrying people through when safe. People I’ve spoken to, said it’s about an hours drive through thick wildfire smoke. Last I’d heard, the road was completely closed and they were evacuating people. I’m not looking forward to it, that is if the road is even open by the time we get there.

I was very surprised when Matt got back to us, to say the road was open. At the end of the Dempster was an unattended fuel station and thankfully we were able to fill up and be on our way.

Heading south towards the fires were no cars for ages. Then a jeep over took us. Not long after he pulled over and turned around. Did he just get word the road had closed again? I asked Matt for another update, and thankfully the road was still showing as open.

It was weird travelling on tarseal again after 9 days on dirt. When we finally made it to where the fires were, there was a sign saying wildfire smoke for about 100 kms. We expected there to be a pilot car but nothing. The road was completely open, just a bit of smouldering here and there. The rain must have helped heaps.

It was a long day as we kept on driving until we got to Whitehorse. We parked at the Canadian superstore carpark with a few other vans for the night and stocked up on supplies.

It rained on and off during the night. We’d been told the roads are very slippery when wet so we weren’t sure whether to sit out the rain or continue on. We used our Garmin Inreach to contact Matt for a weather report. Rain was forecast for today ( Tuesday), fine Wednesday then rain for the rest of the week.

We continued to Eagle Plaines and fuelled up and checked our route. Wildfires were still blocking our route south, but we’d worry about them when we got there.

It wasn’t raining as yet so we decided to push on and get as far as we could before the roads got muddy and slippery.

We had some heavy rain on the drive and this is when our wipers decided to pack up again. Mike drove for 50 kms in the rain, on a dirt road with no wipers before we found a decent place to stop and fix them. We had some lunch first and by the time we’d finished the rain had stopped. How convenient!

Mike tried to fix them but he didn’t have the correct tool. A couple from Quebec pulled in to help. He had a better tool and they were able to fix it. It barely rained for the rest of the day!

The road surface is so bad on this stretch, it was really slow going. We stopped on the side of the road for a 40 minute nap before continuing.

We found a little gravel pit off the side of the road with trees separating us from the road and settled down for the night.

We reluctantly left our spot beside the Arctic Ocean at around 10am. It’s supposed to rain for the next few days and we didn’t want to get stuck in the mud.

It was about 4pm by the time we made it to inuvik. We filled up with fresh water, fuel, and dumped our waste and rubbish. We were going to stay the night at the campground here, but rain is forecast so we decided to drive as far as we could.

We drove back a lot faster as we knew there weren’t any major potholes in the road. Mike was doing 90 km/hr for some of it. Our main aim was to get past the 2 ferry crossings as these would be a nightmare when wet. Also I saw them as weak points which may cause us to be stranded up north.

It was a beautiful drive back. They’d already had a bit of rain and it wasn’t quite so dusty, and the clouds made it cooler.

We made it to the Mackenzie river ferry and there was no wait this time. Just us and a big truck. We’ve just heard that this ferry is now out of action until further notice, so we are so glad to have made it back!

The next ferry crossing was an example to us of what the road is like when wet. The dirt was soft and spongy. The exit from the ferry was rough and steep and would have been very slippery and rutted if wet.

Having crossed both ferry’s our next goal was to make it to the campground we stayed at on the way up. We liked it as it’s off the road, up a hill on hard packed gravel.

With just a few kms to go, Mike was getting very tired, not enough to relinquish the driving though! He’d been driving ten hours and was making a few mistakes. We stopped at the Arctic circle sign for a quick photo stop, then found our gravel pit. Nobody else was here this time, so we had the place to ourselves!

We went straight to bed.

We left our camp at 7.30am and fuelled up before driving up to Tuktoyuktuk, a village on the Arctic Ocean.

I was having a bit of anxiety this morning about the trip, locals having told us the road is rough. Also it was spitting with rain and the roads are known to be very slippery when wet.

As we headed out of town, we saw a lynx and that perked up my mood. It was really cool, like a giant cat,

The road from inuvik to tuktoyuktuk is 144 kms and takes most people 2-3 hours. Not us though averaging 30 km/hr. But going that speed we saw lots of wildlife. We saw many owls flying around and two arctic foxes.

As the day went by, a few people overtook us, people we’d seen along the way. We’ve even come up with names for them. The first people to overtake was box trailer people, a couple who we stayed at the same spots for the last couple of nights.

Then we kept running into white ram van lady who kept stopping to look for wildlife. There is a real comraderie on this drive and it’s like a special club, where we’re all wearing our dust with pride, like a badge of honour to the few people who make this journey to the top of the world.

5 hours later we could see tuktoyyuktuk in the distance and it now became about the destination, not the journey. We just wanted to get there.

Our excitement was crazy as we finally saw the Arctic Ocean sign and snapped our photos in front of it. I’ve wanted to drive up here for so long, and we’ve finally done it!

We then went to Grandmas kitchen for lunch as it’s highly recommended. It was mostly burgers on the menu so we just opted for poutine. She then sent us to the beach hut to wait.

While we waited, her husband came out with a local delicacy to try called Muktuk. It was little squares of whale on a plate. It was actually whale skin and blubber and had a weird look about it. It was chewy and tasted a bit like bacon.

After lunch we went back to the Arctic Ocean to paddle our feet. The water was not that cold, probably no worse than a nz beach.

All our friends were camping beside the ocean . Box trailer people were there. She went for an actual swim in the sea. We got chatting to ram van lady. She lives in her van and just travels around the country. Very brave to come up here on her own, but she had a modern van.

We decided to camp as well. We picked a nice spot overlooking the ocean and the sea mist cleared and it was sunny and warm. I was just so excited about being this far north at latitude 69. Absolutely amazing.

We cracked open our zero Guinness which we’d been saving for when we got here, and I can’t say we watched the sun set over the sea, as it doesn’t set this time of year.