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Before I start today's blog I need to go over late last night and the early hours of this morning.
While using the internet after dinner a young woman travelling alone stopped in about 11pm to buy petrol. She only had cash and the pumps only work on credit card. Dave couldn't help her, she looked somewhat distressed as the fuel options at the best of times are thin on the ground through here let alone at that hour. I helped her out, using my card and taking her cash; she got to carry on her way and we got some more Canadian dollars which we sort of need anyway. She was all packed up, the car fully loaded like many we've seen along the way as she was relocating to Anchorage Alaska.
Dave, our host when asked where we should go to try and see the northern lights just pointed to the door. "Just out there? Directly outside?" Nod from Dave. "So we could sit on our porch and watch them?" Another Dave nod. Then he says you'll see what looks like a cloud but then it'll be gone and will appear some place else; that's the lights.
We struggled to stay awake to test Daves theory, a bit skeptical but what did we know? The outside temps were plummeting, the odd pop the head out check let in a blast of 2C air which helped to keep us awake.
At about 12.30am it was time for another check, Pete pops his head out, walks onto the porch and comes back in, it's on!
It started as a little light to the east then over the course of the next hour and a half it danced across the whole of our view from east to west. A giant swirl would appear then what looked like one or two searchlights would shine from behind the trees before rising to become a huge display. It was unbelievable! For the most part what we saw was green with some accents from the red/pink spectrum. It would wax and wane popping up and dying down but for well over an hour we were totally captivated by this amazing phenomenon.
We made a snap decision to not head south back into BC today instead opting to stick with the Alaska Hwy another day, heading west to Whitehorse. The road ahead was shrouded in fog but here and there the mountains still managed to poke through for a glimpse of their snow capped magnificence. We hadn't had breakfast so a sign promising all day breakfast was a welcome sight as we crossed the Rancheria River. We pulled up at The Rancheria, motel restaurant, gas stop RV Park etc. the door had some signs on it including office hours for the motel. Below that was a sign saying if you arrive late, let yourself into any rooms that are empty and pay in the morning, again demonstrating an extraordinary level of trust.
We walked in and there was nobody to be seen so we called out hello? Up bounces a guy in his 30's who'd been in the next room lying across some chairs watching TV. He was oddly attired in long thermal underwear and a pair of boardies lol all that aside he was very welcoming, got us seated & delivered menus. Turned out thermal boy was e chef. Next up was a grizzly Adams look alike who greeted us with the typical Canadian how you doing eh? He was our waitress, keeping the coffee coming and taking our order. The menu showed it was mainly truckers who ate here with massive servings on offer. We had the best breakfast we've had since leaving home, bloody great :-). No question it'll be our meal of the day though such was the size.
Back on the road it was mainly forests with pretty lakes and streams along the way. Pretty much all the usual side trips we tend to take were shut for the season, the roads barricaded so we kept on the main road. It was overcast, cool with light showers here and there. We briefly dipped back into BC before once again winding back up into The Yukon.
We didn't see any wildlife, it's hunting season and according to those we've talked to the critters are all smart enough to stay up high for as long as they can before the snow comes in an attempt to dodge the hunters bullets. Each day we see more trees changing to their autumn colours, shades of gold and red amongst the green of the pines.
Just past Teslin we were stopped in a roadside licence check by the RCMP. Surprisingly we were the third lot of Aussies he'd seen today, a couple of guys on bikes from Perth and a couple in a car, also from Perth, had beaten us to them. We saw a couple of other RCMP cars roaming the highway, one flashed his mounted lights at us. We took it as a warning to slow down, apparently the speed limit isn't so much a suggestion the way it seems to be in the US.
It was a pretty miserable day in Whitehorse, we found an ok hotel checked in and caught up on some net time - the last couple of nights had pretty uneven coverage possibly due to the aurora activity. Using the business centre here I printed off all the necessary docs for the cruise which finally came through.
We went to the restaurant in the hotel. The meals were huge, we have enough left overs for at least a lunch tomorrow and were so full we couldn't move. Thoughts of checking out the town went out the window in favour of a good lie down lol
We went for a drive at 1am but there was a lot of cloud cover so no more lights for us tonight :-(
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