Friday 11th April. Destruction Bay, Yukon. 7.20pm

You know you're in Canada when two of the ten hotel room TV channels are showing ice hockey. And you spend a whole day seeing snowy-topped mountains and fir trees. And you see dozens of buffalo.

Yep. The Milepost keeps warning the driver to beware wildlife, but we kept failing to see any. Then Andy spotted a buffalo [or is it a bison?] in the trees. We stopped the vehicle and went back to take photos. Man, that's a big beast. A big, wild beast. We wanted to get close, to get photos ... but no doubt it could crush you if it so chose. Then we drove on, and saw more. Then more. Then a whole herd. Awesome.

It's been another day of superb weather. It's amazing to see how the warming sun has made most of the highway really clean and dry ... then a few shaded valleys still have ice on the road shoulders, and a road surface of uncertain material - just wet, it seems, but it could easily be icy. It's certainly early spring in the Yukon: many rivers are still frozen, and many lakes - though no longer strong enough to bear a load, I'd guess. The Alaska highway stays open all year, but I don't think I'd want to come through any earlier in the season.

The Yukon is really isolated. I've been to outback Australia, and this compares. Once in western Australia, we travelled many hours without seeing another soul, car, house, or whatever: the Alaska highway isn't quite like that - we'll see a car or truck every ten minutes or so. But there certainly are not too many people around at this time of year.

Today, we found several fuel stops in succession closed, too, which started to be a concern. We've been following the wisdom of planning to "travel on the top of the tank", though, and so never really been too close to a problem. It doesn't do to drive past a fuel stop up here without buying some, though!

You can see from the map pins above that our journey is approaching its end. Barring problems, we should reach our destination tomorrow afternoon. We hoped to be nearer the border tonight, but it didn't seem wise to press on - the next accommodation is probably well over two hours ahead. Dusk is a bad time to spot the pot-holes, and the livestock on the road...

Statistics:


Miles covered: 620. Still to go: 483 miles.

Fuel purchased: 87 gallons
[not sure of the price; PocketExcel ate my data.]

Listening: Duran Duran, Crowded House, Madness, Rob Bell - Sermon


[Side note: because this is published on the internet, and because I don't know exactly who may be reading, I've largely been avoiding naming my friends, giving their details, etc., out of courtesy to them. That might make the writing sound rather "me"-centric. Sorry about that - no narcissism is intended!]