We were up at 4.30am this morning as we had an early ferry to catch. It was a 5.5 hour journey on the ferry from Valdez to Whittier. It was a stunning cruise through the prince william sounds.

There was a solarium deck which is a covered outdoor area with heat lamps and deck chairs. So we grabbed a couple of chairs and had a good snooze under the lamps. Even though it was outside it was toasty and warm.

We arrived in the tiny town of Whittier just before 1pm. It was drizzly and there wasn’t much to see. The port looked nice and there was some old army barracks.

There are only two ways in and out of Whittier. One is via a boat, which we did. The other is via a long narrow tunnel which was built in the 1940s.

It’s a one way tunnel and is shared with a train. They have scheduled times to go through it and we were scheduled for 2pm. I was a little apprehensive about it, being a tiny tunnel going through a massive mountain, but it wasn’t too bad. It’s 2.6 miles long and top speed is 25 mph, so we were through in just under 7 minutes.

We made our way toward the town of Seward, but got caught in a traffic jam. A fatal accident had occurred earlier causing a 6 hour delay. We chose to turn back and found a campground for the night in the forest.

It was cold and damp and another window has started leaking. We’ll look at that another day.

Another WOW day! Today we did a boat tour through the prince William sound to a tidal glacier.

It was amazing! I really wanted to see a puffin and a sea otter and I saw both! We also saw sea lions, mountain goats, porpoises and a humpback whale.

The highlight for me though, was cruising through the sound, dodging ice bergs on our way to the glacier. It was surreal and absolutely amazing!

Our captain asked where in nz we were from and we said Hamilton. He said, you must be chiefs supporters! So weird, an American captain from Alaska being a rugby fan. He’d been up until 1am watching blues play chiefs. Weird!

The boat trip was 6 hours and my excitement soon turned to exhaustion and I flopped into bed when we got back to the van.

Today was a kinda meh day. The highlight of day was our first stop was a short hike to an overlook. There were also some placards talking about the history of the Alaska highway which is quite interesting. It was built in just 8 months as a supply road in case Alaska was attacked by Japan in ww2.

The rest of the day was spent driving over crappy roads full of frost heaves. These occur when the permafrosts thaw unevenly, leaving dips and bumps all over the place. And you don’t see them until the last minute! So it was a hard days driving for Mike who had to concentrate more than usual.

We crossed back into Alaska today, breezing through the border. The guard didn’t even bother to check our van this time!

At this border crossing the scenery was nowhere near as dramatic as when we crossed into Alaska at Skagway. So we were so pleased to have taken that diversion. Having our first entrance into Alaska with the iconic mountains was way more exciting that this crossing.

We drove until the first town called Tok. Finally, we got some internet! We fuelled up, filled up with water, dumped our waste, and settling in for the night at the back of the service station. It’s not quite as glamorous as our other free spots, but it was 7.30pm and we were tired.

We met the couple parked next to us and they said they had been following us all day! They were a lovely couple from Ohio.

That night I noticed a dirt smell in the van. Turns out the fan for our composting toilet has failed. Natureshead said they will replace it, but that’s not really gonna help in the middle of nowhere! Mike recover can fix it with a computer fan. So here’s hoping we can find somewhere that sells them!

Today was just WOW! It started with stunning blue skies and just got better. We drove down to Valdez and the views were amazing as we drove over the Thompson pass. Lots of snow capped mountains, gushing waterfalls on the side of the road, exactly what you’d expect Alaska to look like.

We made it to the town of Valdez. This is a beautiful fishing town surrounded by mountains. We tried to get a fan for our toilet but they didn’t have one. We enquired about a kayak trip to the glacier but the 7am start, 10am start and the cold water scared me a little. So we opted for a cruise to the glacier instead, booked for tomorrow.

We spent the afternoon soaking up the atmosphere in Valdez. The drill for oil in the Arctic Ocean and pipe it down here, ready to be shipped out. You might remember the Valdez oil disaster a few years ago when the oil ship ran aground and spilled oil everywhere. Thankfully it’s cleaned up now.

It’s also a popular place for fishing charters.We watched the boats come in with their wheelbarrow loads of fish. They pay the guys to fillet them and we watched them do this and got an unexpected surprise.

As they fillet the fish, they toss it onto a tray for the birds to nibble at. There were a few seagulls and crows tucking in when I yelped with surprise. A bald eagle had flown in to have a feast. There were 3 other bald eagles flying around, putting on an air display that would rival Bournemouth airshow! It was fascinating to watch, and I even managed to snap a couple of photos!

We then had halibut tacos for dinner, and some curly fries with some much garlic on them. It was such a beautiful evening.

There is no freedom camping allowed here so we booked into a camping ground.

Today was a kinda meh day. The highlight of day was our first stop was a short hike to an overlook. There were also some placards talking about the history of the Alaska highway which is quite interesting. It was built in just 8 months as a supply road in case Alaska was attacked by Japan during ww2.

The rest of the day was spent driving over crappy roads full of frost heaves. These occur when the permafrosts thaw unevenly, leaving dips and bumps all over the place. And you don’t see them until the last minute! So it was a hard days driving for Mike who had to concentrate more than usual.

We crossed back into Alaska today, breezing through the border. The guard didn’t even bother to check our van this time!

At this border crossing the scenery was nowhere near as dramatic as when we crossed into Alaska at Skagway. So we were so pleased to have taken that diversion. Having our first entrance into Alaska with the iconic mountains was way more exciting that this crossing.

We drove until the first town called Tok. Finally, we got some internet! We fuelled up, filled up with water, dumped our waste, and settling in for the night at the back of the service station. It’s not quite as glamorous as our other free spots, but it was 7.30pm and we were tired.

We met the couple parked next to us and they said they had been following us all day! They were a lovely couple from Ohio.

That night I noticed a dirt smell in the van. Turns out the fan for our composting toilet has failed. Natureshead said they will replace it, but that’s not really gonna help in the middle of nowhere! Mike reckons can fix it with a computer fan. So here’s hoping we can find somewhere that sells them!

Tomorrow we head south towards the Kenai peninsula and Valdez. We are hoping to at least do a cruise and maybe kayak to a glacier. But we haven’t booked anything yet.

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.