We had found a brochure in Fairbanks advertising 4x4 driving in Denali in the information centre. Now for any-one who knows of Denali, it is 1 road in and 1 road out, out of bounds to the public and only accessible by riding on their tour buses and very controlled. We were intrigued with the 4x4 tour so had done some further research. As it turns out this tour for $120 per person ran just north of the park into "Denali wilderness" Well we have a 4x4, so we found the road and went trekking. They were right in the brochure, with all the recent rain the dirt road was atrocious but good old Lodzi did not struggle once and we got some awesome action photos. We also spent the night camped out in the tundra miles from anywhere which was very peaceful.

     A couple of days later we had booked on a full 12 hour bus tour as far as you can go into Denali all the way to Kantishna. This is essentially a hop on and hop off bus, but the only one per day. It stops at all the stops, the driver has a mic and is fairly knowledgeable and if any-one sees an animal they shout "STOP" and the bus stops for some viewing.

     We started out at 8.30am sharp after a freezing night, officially their first freeze over for the season, and we found out we had missed a showing of the Northern Lights at about 3.30am. Fortunately we had beautiful weather the whole day, saw our first bull moose much to Kerry's enjoyment, numerous grizzly bears, coyote, dall sheep and to top it off we also saw a pair of Gyr Falcons. James was almost wetting himself. We also had a lucky sighting of the towering Mt McKinley, America's highest peak. We got the chance to see the Parks Husky dog kennels and a "mushing" display, the dogs were so beautiful, many with blue eyes and all they wanted to do was get in front of the sled and run. Denali is beautiful, an untouched part of nature and so large if you explored 1000 acres per day, it would take you 16 years to cover the entire park. Rather large I say!

     Getting in a cheeky free shower at the Park headquarters, we hit the road late in the evening and found a roadside spot next to a river to spend the night. As it was a clear night we decided to keep a night vigil of every hour, where we poked our heads out the freezing tent and checked out the sky to see if Aurora was showing herself! Well, patience wins the day and at the 2.30am wake up call we caught the tail end of the light display. For any-one who does not know how they are formed, look it up on the internet, but they are spectacular!!! It is like watching bright green neon rain blowing through the sky. Now they come in various spectacular colours but green being the most common. Wow, we were both speechless and put this down as another moment that has made this trip truly a once in a life time.

     The next day we drove south to the town of Wasilla, the base for the famous Iditarod race. The Iditarod, is a 1100 mile, 8-10 day mushing race through some of the toughest terrain in Alaska. We visited their visitor centre and learnt a bit more about the mushing, keeping dogs, training, the actual race and famous dogs. It was refreshing that the whole thing is about the dogs, not the competitors or politics or anything, just the dogs.

     The following day we hit Anchorage, the hub of Alaska with over 50% of Alaska's population living here. Our first stop was the official Land Rover garage in search of our never ending list of spare parts required. Amazingly, they were unable to help us so on we journey. We visited the Alaska Zoo just out of town which we heard was pretty good as far as zoo's go. Of note, we saw Siberian tigers, snow leopards and the stars of the show were a pair of Polar Bears, in fact they had just received the male from Sea world in Australia whom we had seen in 2000 when we were there. They are just the most friendly, cuddly looking animals you could hope to come across. A different story in the wild we heard though.

     Later we stopped at a Wal-Mart, picked up a few essentials, stopped in at a Fred Myers superstore, did a big grocery shopping before deciding to camp the night in their car park. Perfectly legal as we joined the 20 or so other RV's already there. Not the best spot but the cheapest by far.

     The following morning we filled up with diesel and head south to the Kenai Peninsula which is sold as amazing towering mountain scenery, literally hundreds of glaciers, timeless fjords and the best halibut and salmon fishing in the world. Just as we hit the peninsula, on a cold dreary and wet day, we pulled into a lay-by beside the road as we were just beside the ocean in a large bay. There was a crowd of people all staring into the sea just beside the road, sea otters probably or even a seal, NO - Beluga whales, okay they are not very big but about 15 of them swimming beside the highway. We were speechless and spent the next hour driving up the bay, stopping to watch the pod swim by. Where else on earth can you see that!!

     Late in the day we located a beautiful wild camp spot beside two small beaver lakes with sweeping views of snow covered peaks and made all the more perfect by the mirror reflection off the lakes. We drove all the way down to Homer the following day, the most southerly point of the Peninsula and a fisherman's dream with Salmon and Halibut fishing being world famous. The Homer spit is a small tract of land that protrudes out into the bay and is the hub of all the activity. We bedded down in a campsite on the beach and in very cloudy weather the following day did a walk around the spit visiting all the curio and souvenir shops, fish market and finished off with a lunch in Captain Paddy's voted Alaska's best baked Salmon. Exceptionally delicious indeed.

     Meandering slowly north we were surrounded by towering snow capped mountains, glacier fed streams and numerous small communities who tend to shut down from mid September as the end of the summer tourist season.

     The following day we drove into Seward, another popular tourist port, specialising in Salmon fishing and tourist boat trips out into Resurrection Bay, visiting tide water Glaciers and marine life spotting being the cream on the cake. As per usual we were late for the Hump Back whale season as they had already migrated to Hawaii, there were only a few Gray Whales in the area and of course, resident pods of Orcas are every-ones favourite. Taking a walk around all the tour agencies we soon discovered that most were closed for the season and they were expecting a huge storm to blow in that evening and would not be running tours for the next few days. Just our Luck!!

     Not wanting to hang around in the freezing cold we paid a visit to Exit Glacier just up the road where you can walk out to the Glacier and even stand just in front of the mouth of the Glacier. Pretty spectacular but more alarming is the rate that it is receding. Global warming being the main blame according to the visitor centre.

     The following day, we breezed back through Anchorage, filled up with diesel and continued west on the Glenn Highway. In the 3 weeks we have been in Alaska, the weather has turned pretty chilly, but this in turn has kicked in the change of season, "fall" has officially started. The whole country side has turned various shades of yellow, tan, pink, orange and red, with the odd ever-green tree scattered in between. Similar to our time in Tierra del Fuego last year, autumn is an amazing time of year to travel. The contrasting colours are just breath-taking.

     We drove on through Glenallen where we were going to head south to the port of Valdez where we were going to do a boat tour out into Prince William Sound. On arrival at the visitors centre we were informed that the weather down on the coast was still pretty miserable, so we opted for heading north towards the Canadian border. En route we came across the Wrangler-St Elias National Park; the Nabesna access point is a 45 mile drive down a dirt road into the park. Unfortunately one side of the road is park and the other national reserve where hunting is allowed. As there were numerous hunters around we did not see any game.

     However we found an awesome camp spot over looking a small duck pond which had a beautiful setting. Here we had a pretty chilly nights sleep but after breakfast the following morning we were witness to 2 Peregrine Falcons chasing a kingfisher just in front of us over the lake for about 5 minutes. It was pretty spectacular and as usual made James' whole trip to Alaska worth while!! Some people are so easily pleased.

     The final 100 miles into Tok, we booked into a campsite with hot showers and wifi connection and caught up on e-mails and phone calls to all the family, and the following day we continued north crossing the Alaska Highway to take the "Top of the world" Highway through Chicken, yep Chicken Alaska and onto Dawson City in Canada.

     This highway is rolling mountains with high altitude scrub and trees and we had a perfect day of travelling. Not much wildlife as once again a hunting area full of juvenile adults kitted to the hilt with weapons of all make and construction.

     We have not come across a more gun crazy nation than the USA in any of our travels through the many countries we have visited, including "dangerous countries" like Guatemala and El Salvador. You can buy weapons in your local supermarket in the US! Almost every road sign in Alaska has bullet holes in it including many signs in cities! Wild camping we came across more rifle and shotgun shells than we did wildlife! Well I guess they do have a constitutional right to carry weapons to protect themselves (from terrorists in Alaska!) Seriously though, Michael Moore's "Bowling for Columbine" hits the nail on the head.

     A brief stop in Chicken, Alaska was our final stop before hitting the very remote border back into Canada. So Alaska, wow, an extremely large state with the very amusing T-shirt slogan, "Shall we split Alaska in half and still make Texas the 3rd largest State" Our 3 weeks here was a tip of the ice-berg visit and one could happily spend 6 months here and still not see everything. We loved every where so no firm favourites but thought we would see more bears than we did. Our advice to any-one visiting Alaska is make sure you visit out of hunting season (Derr unless you are a hunter) as you are more likely to see the wild life Alaska is famous for. For Salmon and Halibut fishing, we hear there is no better any where in the world. It is possible to get off the beaten track here and we would highly recommend it!

     Take care all and back to Canada we go……..