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11 Black bears sitting by the road! Or... Route 37 AKA The Great Northern Highway.
Again, another good nights sleep, I started off the driving and managed to successfully miss Nugget City so we ended up at Watson Lake to refuel instead...oops!! After making our way back we found the junction I had missed in the other direction and we began our journey down Route 37. We chose this route as oppose to staying on the Alaska Highway as it travels through the Rocky Mountains instead of around them. Definately made the right choice!! The road travels up and down around the mountains, running by lakes, streams and rivers, over all manner of bridges from sturdy metal leviathans to slightly dodgy old wooden ones, some with barriers and some without! For most of the journey the road was without markings and is currently undergoing repair, you have to stay pretty alert as the shear drops off the side aren't far from the edge and the huge lorries that hurtle along here dont like to give up any room on the road!! After a couple hundred miles we stopped at Deane Lake services to fill up, this lake is absolutely massive and so beautiful with perfectly still clear waters and mountains rising up out of them which are reflected back like a mirror. We then drove on a little way to stop by a river for dinner...I had to have a paddle but was careful to stay in the quieter waters at the edge as it was quite a torrent and I imagine would be deadly to fall in and get swept away as the water is FREEZING!!, Dinner was proudly cooked using the stove and pans Bill gave us, it was however only noodles, but we were still quite pleased with ourselves as we had definately had enough of sandwiches!! At some point after Andy took over driving we crossed the Great Divide, this is the point where the Atlantic plate and the Pacific plate meet...so all water falling/running on the Atlantic plate eventually finds its way to the Atlantic ocean and vice versa!!. The scenery is different here on the different plates too...the Pacific side, the one which is being forced upwards, is more rocky and brown, the trees all look a little thin although plentiful and the lakes seemed to be mostly the same shade of blue. The Atlantic side, which is softer rock and therefore being pushed underneath the other, is much more majestic, the trees are more developed with lush undergrowth and the lakes vary in colour from deep blue to turquoise to green!! As it was getting towards dusk we saw our first black bear!! Then over the next hour os so until we lost the light we saw 10 more..no exaggeration!!!! They ranged in variety from scared bear, who ran off as soon as we got near, to running bear, eating bear, hiding bear and posing bear!! Quite glad we're sleeping inside a metal car and not a flimsy tent lol!!
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