Due to poor email connections we haven't been able to write on this blog for some time so this covers a week of travelling.

We left Fairbanks in Alaska and rode to Tok a small village on a crossroads 97 miles from the USA Canada border; we passed another village called North Pole which had shops selling Santa Claus and Christmas goods in August! We left Tok for the border the following day, the border passed unmarked and we rode a further 20 miles on poorly maintained roads to the Canadian Customs Post, and saw what we thought was a young Wolf walking in the road, however it turned out it may have been a Coyote, not being experts we still need to confirm this with the photograph we took. Our intended destination that day was Whitehorse, the main City of the Yukon Territories, but in the end we stopped at Haines Junction, another crossroads village. We met an American Couple each riding Harleys back to North Dakota, he was 72 and his wife 66, they had been on the road for 2 months, a very interesting couple. We continued on the Alaska-Canada (AlCan) Highway the next day to Watson Lake where we met the same couple again, after we had riden hard all day they turned up 15 minutes after us, a lesson - not to rush! We had wondered about riding on the Stewart- Casian Highway (Highway 37) having heard varying reports about the state of the road and the sections of gravel road but also how good the riding and scenery was. In the end we decided to ride it and set off in pouring rain from Watson Lake, the road lived up to its promise with 30 miles of gravel, 370 miles of stunning scenery and gentle bends that was a joy to ride; we stopped at Bell Lodge for the night 100 miles from Stewart which we rode to the following day. Highway 37a turned out be even better than the previous days riding. The final 36 miles a mountain pass built between mountains with a glacier ending feet from the road. It was a sunny day as we rode into Stewart, an old mining town which had produced Gold, Silver and Copper in the past hundred years, and is now existing as a tourist destination - the film 'Insomnia' was filmed there. The following day we took the road West from Stewart to drive to Hyder in Alaksa, and onto the Salmon Glacier, a really inspiring sight that fills a valley between mountains and continues down the side of the mountain road towards Stewart. The road was a 23 mile drive on very loose gravel winding round mountains with a sheer drop on one side.; it was an exciting ride which gave us a taste of things to come in Central and South America. We stopped on the way down the mountain road to take pictures and had our first fall when my feet slipped on the sloping gravelly surface (that's my excuse!), the bike was undamaged thanks to the crash bars, Marilyn's bottom took the brunt of the fall and my pride (and her bottom) was dented. We next stopped at Fish Creek a tourist spot to watch Bears feeding, we were lucky to see a Black Bear swimming through the mist of the Blue Lake and into the Creek, with the other watchers we followed the Bear as it caught and ate the plentiful Spawning Pink Salmon in the river. We took more pictures of this event than any other so far.

The following day we left in the rain for Prince George, a grand sounding place and the main city of British Clombia but stopped at Vanderhoof for the night and continued to Prince George the following day. Prince George didn't live up to its promise with the centre being devoid of any atmosphere, probably because all the big stores were located in the outskirts on the main highway through the city.
We left for Jasper the following day on a sunny day through rolling roads to the Canadian Rockies a really beautiful road with lots of mountains and lakes as scenery, we had intended to stay for just one night but after talking to bikers along the road realised that we would miss a lot of attractions so decided to stay for 2 nights. However when we arrived and then found a lavish hotel at an amazing rate we extended the stay to 3 nights after which we will divert via the Glacier Highway to Calgary to get new brake pads for the bike before continuing to the USA and onto Yellowstone National Park.