When things don't go the way you expect, from the weather to the reliability of others, you have to think that in the grand scheme of "things" this happened for a reason. If you don't think that way then you are just going to be really mad and disappointed for most of your waking hours.
Sit back, enjoy the ride,
We left Muncho Lake early at 7:30 and had our first day of rain. It wasn’t all bad though as it was warm and our waterproofs kept us dry.
Once we reached Liard there were lots of warnings about Bison on the roads.
Nick desperately wanted to see some Bison (must be all the cowboy films he watched as a child) so he rode ahead as lookout.
After about an hour or so he started swearing profoundly and sure enough there was a herd of Bison in the middle of the road, sheltering from the weather!
It was a surreal moment that I don’t think we will ever forget.
One thing that really stood out to us is that they are a lot smaller than we imagined they would be; again this could be down to seeing so many films with them in as children …everything seems gigantic when you are a child.
We saw another herd sheltering in the trees another 50 or 60 kms on, and then when we were stopped at traffic lights (in the middle of nowhere!) a loan bull just slowly sauntered past Nick's bike. Others in the traffic queue quickly shut themselves in their cars as he passed and looked at us with concern out there in the open, but we had no fear …if they want to see fear then they need to try standing ground against an angry 2 year old Jersey bull towards the end of mating season! That you need to be concerned about!
We briefly stopped at Watson Lake to look at the Signpost Forest, a vast artificial forest made of signs from various people who left their mark as they passed through. It has been added to since 1942 …80 years ago!
We left our mark too, a little sticker. We would have loved to have stayed and looked for some more kiwi marks but time was against us.
6pm and Whitehorse came into view. 10.5 hours on the road and our butts were not as bad as they had been the week before. We were however famished as there were no food places along the way and we had survived the day on mandarins and almonds and salami sticks.
The next morning we got up nice and early to go to the local Honda shop where our new tyres had supposedly been shipped, so we could get them fitted and move onto our next stop.
Doh! …the tyres were still in Prince George (1600kms away!) and hadn’t been sent on in a timely manner as promised, also it was Yukon’s national holiday and the Honda shop here in Whitehorse was closed!
Cest la vie, it gave us a great opportunity to explore Whitehorse which is a pleasant rural town.
We walked (14kms!!!) around some of the sites and then took a river side walk to the hydro dam and longest salmon ladder in the world.
Built for the migration of the Chinook Salmon, each one that passes up the ladder on their 2000km journey is recorded by the conservation team.
We also passed some complete nutcases kayaking in the rapids and attempting to stay in areas that were more turbulent for as long as possible.
Is tomorrow the day our tyres arrive? Do we feel lucky?
Such great shots you’re taking and great memories you are making…!
An FYI from the rangers at Yellowstone, bison can be very volatile so keep at least 20m away (100m for bears). There are certainly much bigger ones around. When we got stopped on the way to Liard by the mounties for speeding🤔 he gave us the heads-up about the herd being up there, instead of a ticket!