upside downside stateside

I awoke with an air of expectation in complete darkness in my inside roomette as I tried to work out why the light switch wouldn’t work in ‘on’ position. Oh that’s right - you push it up to turn on in this hemisphere. Hmmm, upside down! Later I was distracted over breakfast by the view out of the café as we docked in Auke Bay at Juneau, capital city of Alaska. The ferry terminal was some 30 km distant from town so I shared a taxi with Rick and Judy. It was gently raining with low cloud all around as enroute to town Eric, our taxi driver, gave us his perspective of Juneau. We flashed past a view up a wide road toward the Mendenhall Glacier and discerned that it was almost invisible, shrouded by white billowy clouds that turned into a misty fog close to the ground. Sadly there was no time to make a closer inspection as we were only allowed around 2 hours off the ship.  I was glad to have seen it from the air, if only to know what I was missing. Eric told us the glacier was merely 3 km from his house, which to me, was just amazing. I asked him if it made his place colder having all that ice sitting so close by. He concluded it didn’t, but said at times he could hear it groaning and creaking– like hearing the sea at home, only different – frozen water moving!

I was surprised to find that Juneau is a city that cannot be reached by road! To travel here one must either fly in or come via what is known as the marine highway on a ferry or cruise ship or some other vessel. Debate has raged for well over 30 years about the construction of what has come to be known as ‘The Road’. The proposed road would be constructed through the wilderness along the edge of the Lynn Channel northward up the inside passage to link Juneau to Skagway. Opinions are divided in the community, as you can imagine. Simplifying the arguments; the pro-road advocates are concerned that the capital city status of Juneau is in danger if such a road is not constructed, as well as arguing for the perceived economic benefit that improved access would bring to the community there. The opposing view holds that the costs of such a road are just too high; the destruction of a unique and pristine wilderness; and the ongoing expenses of engineering, building and maintaining a road in treacherous terrain that is subject to the frequent catastrophic forces of nature including avalanches and rock falls. For what it’s worth, I like the marine highway.   

www.bluehighway.org/tag/juneau-access/

Avalanche on the route of the proposed road. Photo by Scott Logan, 2005.

High on the slope above town Eric pointed out a historic looking, large, white two-storey house, fronted with tall white columns, as being the Governor’s Mansion, where ex-govenor Sarah Palin once lived. As we drove past I scanned the horizon to see if I could discern Russia in the distance, but low cloud seriously reduced the visibility on this particular day!  We drove down into town past a building that he referred to as the Capitol, which was actually the Alaska State House. The Capitol, as it is fondly known, houses the Alaska Legislature and the offices for the governor of Alaska and lieutenant governor of Alaska.

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

When we arrived at the Red Dog Saloon, our designated meeting place, sweet strains of honky-tonk piano music filled the air, but the crush of tourists disgorged from the ubiquitous monster cruise ship dissuaded me from investigating further. I beat my retreat from the press of retail hungry humanity and wandered alone with my umbrella up the hill to the tiny Juneau-Douglas City Museum. The museum was brilliant, part art gallery, part museum, and part experiential classroom for children with costumes to try on and things to touch. I checked the crinoline for size before deciding it was probably best for me to watch the movie and learn some history about the place that way.

The site of Juneau was known as Dzantik’i Heeni, or gathering place of the flat fish, to the Tlingit, who, for thousands of years, harvested fish there and preserved it for winter using smokehouses. In 1880, Tlingit Chief Kowee guided the prospectors Harris and Juneau to this place. After finding plenty of gold they inexplicably named the creek ‘Gold Creek’ and not surprisingly precipitated the first major gold strike in the state. The town that sprang up was originally named Harrisburg but later changed to Juneau after Harris fell foul of the locals. Large-scale gold mines followed and folded, and fishing and canneries, transportation services and tourism all contributed to Juneau’s growth through the early 1900’s. Nowadays nearly half of Juneau's working population is employed by the federal, state, or local government. Tourism is the largest private-sector employer with commercial fishing and fish processing still economically important along with transportation, trading and mining.

Hungry, I wandered back into town via a backstreet café pointed out by a local in a health food shop and bought a yoghurt, a real salad and a toasted bagel that dripped butter on to me through the paperbag to take back to the ferry. I checked my emails on the free WIFI while I waited for my salad as the fortunes of world cup soccer were played out on a giant screen. I wove my way through the slow moving pedestrians and people of overly generous proportions on hired electric scooters, a convenience offered by local providers in all the cruise ports along the inside passage, listening carefully as the strains of honky-tonk piano grew louder. Back in Eric’s cab I noticed scores of bald eagles gliding, roosting and hunting all along the edge of the Gastinaeu Channel on the way back to the ferry. 

    

from the Juneau - Douglas City Museum

Eric noticed me craning my neck looking at the raptors as we drove along and produced a folio of photos his wife had taken of local wildlife, all amazing shots. As we flipped the pages of bears and moose and eagles and deer, we three agreed she could easily make her living as a wildlife photographer. Rick even got her email to buy a picture as a souvenir of the place. Nice. Back at the ferry my salad and butter rich bagel were a welcome relief from the ship-board mass produced food. As I struggled with the yoghurt cup I realised you open it on the bottom, which is on the top here. Hmmm… I chuckled to myself, there’s often a different upside in this upside down part of the planet! 

The Wrangell Narrows

Finally it was time to head to the ferry to board for my voyage up the inside passage…the excitement was building! I had booked an inside roomette and I was surprised to learn that you can choose to camp in a tent on the deck of the ship! Or you can even just commandeer a deck chair and sleep on that in a sleeping bag! They thoughtfully provide lockers so you can lock up your stuff, and you can use the showers and even hire a towel. I learnt later from other passengers that the cabins are often booked out well in advance, making sleeping on the deck the only alternative. My 2-berth roomette was snug, with a tiny table and chairs that converted to a bed like in a caravan with a fold down bed on the wall over. Other than that there was a metal shelf and a reading light. It was cosy and I had a bed so I was happy! The bathroom was down a hallway that was punctuated at regular intervals with seasickness bags in holders. Hmmm, ominous I thought.

I met Cathy straight away, a blonde with long hair and a beaming smile who returning to Alaska to live. She told me she had virtually been captive on the ferry for the past 20 or so hours while maintenance work was performed on the ship.  The passengers onboard were advised if they got off they would have to stay in Ketchikan for the night. Some went ashore and eventually the remaining 9 passengers were allowed a short excursion into town but had to be quickly back before the ship went into the dry dock overnight. Cathy was a pathologist who grew up in Texas and had moved to Homer in Alaska, then to Pennsylvania for work. We instantly hit it off as we discovered we had a mutual admiration for Amma, an amazing Indian humanitarian. http://www.amma.org

An hour or so later the MV Kennicott, named for a glacier, as all the Alaskan ferries are, set off toward the Wrangell Narrows enroute to Juneau in the wake of a large cruise liner that eventually peeled off into the distance. A small group of passengers – no more than 30 or so stood on the bow of the ship as we left port and watched silently as we glided through the water.

The Wrangell Narrows is a virtual slalom course for small ships with 46 course corrections, guided by over 70 navigational aids that has earned it the nicknames Christmas Tree Lane or Pinball Alley for the coloured lights that must make for pretty sailing in the dark.  For this section of the voyage the ship’s Captain is on the bridge and in command with lookouts on the bow, port and starboard. Where is he (she?) at other times I wondered? On average it’s less than a kilometer (half a mile) width shore to shore and the journey must be taken when the mean low low water (MLLW) is +2 feet or deeper which is 6.5m (21 feet) for the ship to operate safely. Thus cruise ships must take an alternative route that adds at least 12 hours to their journey. Voyages are dictated by tide and weather as, if a fog were to descend, the ship would have to weigh anchor and wait for it to lift. In addition appointments are made between vessels as they cannot safely pass along this 32 km (20 mile) marine laneway.

The scenery was breathtaking; small islands covered with dark spruce trees lined by rocky shores that were coloured vivid yellow and orange with lichen. The mainland was generally steep terrain with spruce rainforest that gave way to soaring peaks covered with melting snow that formed into regularly spaced waterfalls and the remains of avalanches. Dolphins surfed next to the boat and seals popped their heads out of the channel periodically.

Later in the bar I met Judy and Rick, a couple in their sixties from Iowa who were on their way to see their son in Willow AK and help him finish a 3 storey house he was building in the forest. The son was a mad keen fisher and hunter and Rick told me of the adventures they had been on together. Once they had gone hunting in Sitka and before they left the son insisted Rick had to prove he was a reasonable shot at a rifle range for safety. Apparently hunting in remote parts of Alaska is extremely dangerous as the carcasses of dead animals attract bears. The hunters then become the hunted. Rick managed to shoot a deer in the distance and they slogged uphill to get to the animal before a bear was upon it. They found that the deer had managed to drag itself with its front hooves some 300 yards distant despite the back legs being paralysed. His son then quickly killed and gutted the animal, tied it on a harness and ran down the hill to put it on their boat, his father in hot pursuit. Once back on the boat Rick remarked how lucky it was they hadn’t encountered a bear and the son laughed and told his Dad he’d seen at least 3 following them down. The story didn’t entice me to take up the ‘sport’ I can assure you!

Night never falls it seems in this latitude, but this evening I stayed up well after my bedtime watching the beautiful scenery slip past and witnessed a rare sunset before I made my way back to the roomette and fell asleep quickly, rocked gently in the bosom of the vessel.

Ketchikan Kapers

While awaiting approval as a volunteer for the National Park Service I decide to adventure off to Ketchikan in the southeast extent of Alaska and catch a ferry north up the inside passage and back to Whittier, just south of Anchorage. Flying south I watch as we pass a surreal scene of snow-capped mountain peaks piercing the cloud layer before the flight stops briefly in at both Juneau and Sitka.

Clearly visible behind Juneau from the air is the Mendenhall Glacier that looks like a pale blue foaming mass of water, snap frozen just as it was about to cascade down into the lake that lays in its path. Apparently this glacier is part of an expansive ice blanket (?) measuring 136km long and 72km wide that feeds this and 37 other glaciers in the area! The Mendenhall Glacier has retreated a reported 4.5km since the 1700’s, most though - 2.5km - in the years since 1951.

Arriving into Ketchikan we land atop an island airstrip, levelled off with an improbably deep layer of gravel – well over 20m in some sections.  As I catch the ferry across to the mainland, the mammoth scar of a quarry on the side of the hill opposite indicates the quantum of gravel needed for just such a project. Once off the dock I made for a taxi surrounded by a flock of ravens eating popcorn, the raven being a popular motif in these parts. The legend I heard says the raven is a mischief-maker who opened a box containing the sun and the moon and the universe, and thus made it available for everyone to enjoy: an enabler if you like. It’s refreshing to find a place on earth where corvids are not hated.

The ample lady taxi driver first apologised for feeding the birds and watched as I heaved my bag into the boot of the car. Once we started into town she began to cough and wheeze and gasp in the grip of what seemed to me to be a fairly serious asthma attack. I sat at the ready in case I had to grab the wheel to save us from crashing (or having a wreck as it is known here). She noticed me eyeing the remains of a half-smoked cigarette in the ashtray as she sucked on her ventolin inhaler and assured me it wasn’t the smoking that caused the asthma, but the car cologne she had spilled in the vehicle earlier in the day. The sickly sweet smell seemed to intensify in my nostrils. As we rounded a bend along the waterfront I gasped myself as a monster cruise ship came into view that dwarfed every building in town. As we passed through its shadow she frowned and told me that 70% of the shops here are owned by the cruise lines and are routinely boarded up over the winter. She said instead of employing locals they ship in labour for the summer to sell gaudy jewellery and other mass produced ‘Alaskan’ souvenirs to the many thousands of unsuspecting summer cruise ship passengers that visit annually. I asked her if she was from Ketchikan and she sighed heavily as she told me she was from New York and had moved after 9-11 when her fireman husband died in the twin towers. ‘I’m so sorry’ is all I could say as we arrived at the hotel. ‘Enjoy your stay’ she wheezed cheerfully as she watched me drag my bag out of the boot.

After checking into the hotel and a feed of halibut, chips and coleslaw (awash with dressing) I wandered around town easily picking out the local shops over the glitzy cruise line stores. The town museum was fascinating with many old photographs of the fish canneries, local people and the old town from days gone by. Today many of the timber buildings lining the streets are original though none kept in better original condition than Dolly’s ‘Sporting House’ at 24 Creek Street. The blonde 6’9” Dolly was quite a sensation in Ketchikan when she arrived in 1914 and continued to be popular with local men until retiring at age 72 when prostitution was declared illegal. She said of Ketchikan – ‘I liked it here cause the men came in bunches’. It was suggested that exercise was her fountain of youth as she lived to the ripe old age of 95 despite being an insulin dependant diabetic. Dolly always worked alone and wouldn’t finish til she’d made $100 for the day. Her going rate was $3, which at that time was 3 times the average weekly salary. Dolly also served sly grog, and at a time when locally distilled moonshine was known to kill, she imported only the best from Canada. The tiny 2 storey mint green cottage is as it was, themed pink and red throughout, still filled with Dolly’s personal effects including a bed with a brass bedhead complete with pink canopy, very pretty flowery wallpaper, exquisite hand painted china, a kitchen with all modern conveniences and flowers made from silk condoms from France, apparently a dismal failure, tastefully sewn on the shower curtain.

Ketchikan certainly had bunches of men as local industries developed quickly once the place was discovered by outsiders. Fur trading kicked off in the early 1800’s and soon ran out after the Russians had hunted the prized sea otter almost to extinction with the Americans trappers finishing them off. Next came salmon fishing, with canneries springing up on each creek. A boom and bust cycle began as the price for fish plummeted through oversupply with the fishery finally collapsing in 1961 from overfishing. Mining also attracted many thousands of prospectors to SE Alaska looking to make their fortune when gold was discovered in the Klondike in 1897. Commercial timber harvesting began in earnest in the early 1900’s, originally for local use til the establishment of 2 pulp mills in the 1950’s launched a year round timber industry. And of course tourism started at the turn of the 20^th century as visitors discovered SE Alaska. John Muir visited and wrote of the beauty of the place that inspired many thousands more to come. Including me!     

    

 

grit to the core

So I get it that you have to be tough to live here, though no more than those who arrived and lived here before modern conveniences like ducted heating, gortex jackets and snow machines (snow mobiles). Living on the edge of the world was arduous and cruel and many lost their battle with the extreme and unforgiving conditions while trying to harvest the abundant resources. The poet Robert W Service, b. 1874, who would have no doubt been great mates with Banjo Paterson had they’ve met, came to Canada and Alaska from England and wrote:

This is the law of the Yukon, and ever she makes it plain: 
"Send not your foolish and feeble; send me your strong and your sane -- 
Strong for the red rage of battle; sane for I harry them sore; 
Send me men girt for the combat, men who are grit to the core; Swift as the panther in triumph, fierce as the bear in defeat, 
Sired of a bulldog parent, steeled in the furnace heat. 
Send me the best of your breeding, lend me your chosen ones; 
Them will I take to my bosom, them will I call my sons; 
Them will I gild with my treasure, them will I glut with my meat; 
But the others -- the misfits, the failures -- I trample under my feet. 
Dissolute, damned and despairful, crippled and palsied and slain, 
Ye would send me the spawn of your gutters -- Go! take back your spawn again.  

(Service’s poem ‘The Law of the Yukon’ is worth a read http://litterature.historique.net/service/law.html)

And doubtless the sentiments apply equally to the Yukon’s twin sister, Alaska.

So here I am in Alaska in the early summer! It’s just like mid winter in Port Macquarie really – cold mornings and cold nights punctuated with moments of brilliant warm sunny skies (if it’s not raining). If the forecast says 18°c, it will hover between 10 - 13°c then warm up for a hour or two in the afternoon and drop down to 8°c or less overnight.  I am wearing 4 layers most days as the locals happily wander around in short sleeves.

A cycle was on the agenda last weekend along the Turnagain Arm of the Cook Inlet on a section known as Bird to Girdwood (45km return). Three of us set off armed with bear spray and bear bells from Bird Creek in the Chugach State Park (202,400 ha). Chugach SP is a vast wilderness that creates a dramatic mountainous backdrop to Anchorage. A camping area is nestled on the water’s edge at Bird Creek just off the highway. Facilities are sparse but the view through the forest and across the inlet to the snowy mountains of the Kenai Peninsula more than makes up for the lack of them. There lots of birds flitting around as we set off through the forest, though none of them I recognise.

The ride is along a purpose made bitumen track rising above the railway and the road that skirt the water’s edge and as we coast along I scan the inlet in vain for the blow of Beluga whales. Long sections of the track are cloaked with shining birch and spruce trees flattened in a couple of spots by the remnants of winter avalanches, the dirty snow still frozen from it’s slippery and calamitous journey down the side of the mountain. Whole trees are snapped clean in half and the highway closed by such events, but today with no fear of avalanches we cycle on.

Suddenly I catch sight of large black furry mass in the bushes and slam the brakes on, almost toppling off my bike. The young bear, about my height looks up, frozen with fear for a second and then disappears into the undergrowth while my trembling hands fumble in my pocket for a camera. My friends still look alarmed and I quickly cognise that where there is a young bear the mama is not far afield. We all sing tunelessly and loudly, as making noise (hence the bear bells) alert the bears to our presence, and we pedal furiously along the track out of the closed forest. Apparently a bike is a good weapon to protect you against a bear – getting the bear (capsicum) spray out of the bag lashed to the rack might take too many valuable seconds and one cannot afford to be meek with these high order predators if they are aggressive. A bear savaged a cyclist in Anchorage yesterday (!) so I am mentally preparing should one take an interest in me while I am in town. 
http://www.adn.com/2010/06/15/1324609/bear-attacks-cyclist-on-anchorage.html

Chugach State Park melds into the expansive 2,100,000 ha Chugach National Forest somewhere along the trail and the sheer enormity of managing these natural areas is not lost on me. And so we continue on into the cute skiing village of Girdwood past loud dancing clearwater streams and over wide wetlands dotted with water birds busily foraging. A bald eagle joins us for a few minutes soaring overhead as we jump off the bikes and eat lunch at a local pub.

Originally called ‘Glacier City’, Girdwood is surrounded by seven permanent glaciers and began as a supply camp for the alluvial gold miners with claims along the creeks feeding Turnagain Arm. Later it was renamed for an Irish entrepreneur who staked the first gold claims in the area in 1896.

The long lines of ski lifts and runs are visible high on the steep slopes of Mount Alyeska above the opulent Aleyska Hotel complete with a stuffed polar bear in an faux snow scene in an alcove aloft in the foyer.  It’s not clear if it hailed from this neck of the woods. Interestingly Girdwood is home to the northernmost rainforest (sub polar actually) in the world. Wow! Rainforest in this inhospitable environment is almost inconceivable!

After a huge feed I could not finish of halibut and french-fries we are ready to cycle back to the car, at one point running the gauntlet of a gaggle of kids skating along on skis with tracks like those on a bulldozer, taking up more than their fair share of the track. The ride back is further punctuated with a passing train loaded with tourists, headed for Seward that whistles a greeting as I snap a shot, snow streaked mountains framing the picture.

I let my imagination run wild on the trip back into town, thinking about the goldminers coming here, the weak succumbing to the elements, the native people making a living, collecting and storing food and furs for the winter and how this place would have looked back then… much the same I think… wild and beautiful.    

'What you do not see, do not hear, do not experience, you will never really know"... lore of St Lawrence Island, AK

No crazy adventures to report like my last entry, thank goodness! I’ve been wandering around Anchorage like the rest of the tourists here. It’s spring and the place abounds with visitors. The Anchorage Museum so far is my favourite – an amazing museum as well as being one of the more attractive buildings in the city – the rest being slightly underwhelming…most being built after the 1964 earthquake here that rated a whopping 9.2 on the Richter scale and precipitated a catastrophic tsunami. Many of the buildings in the centre of the city were destroyed and subsequently rebuilt, and you know what the architecture of the 60’s and 70’s was like!

In the museum the main display is on Alaskan native culture. There are seven different cultures, including Eskimo, with a number of tribes in each culture. The collection on display was amazing and I will have to go back to do it justice but the clothing and everyday items there are nothing short of extraordinary. How people adapt to such extreme conditions (-45°c) and live rich lives using only what is available in their environment while being mindful and generous is inspiring. One example is the lightweight waterproof gut parkas created by the Unangax women from the intestines of sea lions, seals, whales and grizzly bears! Talk about wasting nothing! Sharing and generosity is an important part of their culture, something they wish to see passed on to future generations - such a lovely set of maxims! 

The other place I have been hanging out is the Alaska Public Lands Information Center where all the public land managers jointly provide information for visitors. Everyday there is a lecture and a series of films shown. I’ve made friends with Ranger Roger Fuson who, for those of you who know him, looks like Mike Dodkin’s long lost brother. Roger is a font of knowledge and took me on a tour and amazed me with the rich history of Alaska. Of course the true locals arrived first - maybe 16,000 years ago and were living happily until the Russians arrived and started causing trouble early in the 1700’s. They were keen on cashing in on the rich natural resources especially furs and even the Spanish tried to settle here.  The British came – Cook and Bligh, looking for a north-west passage and finally the place was sold by the Russians to the Americans in 1867 for $7,200,000. 

I listened to a lecture by a dog musher – a petite lady who braves the winter to drive dogs pulling a sled through the snow on long journeys, racing other crazed dog mushers. She told me she owns 51 dogs! She said they cost $1.50 each to feed a day, and yes I asked – they bury the poo! It’s too cold here to compost. I met Lily a sweet husky who looks too petite to help pull a sled across miles of frozen country. The mushers prepare for the races by mailing bags of food and equipment to the checkpoints to be cached until they arrive weeks later. Frostbite in dogs and mushers is common! And dog mushing is the official state sport. Only in Alaska!

meeting the locals!

I borrowed a bike from the friends I am staying with and headed into town along the Chester Creek Greenbelt. In the winter people ski down the track, but right now in spring, the greenbelt is absolutely verdant. Gleaming white-trunked silver birch trees resplendent with fresh lime green foliage line the track, the ground carpeted with iridescent green grasses with a rainbow of wildflowers bursting into bloom as you ride along.  The track follows a babbling creek with funny humpty timber bridges as it runs down to the coast – to the Cook Inlet (yeah he came here too!) where a wide mudflat gives way to a narrow bay. The track then joins another that follows the coast into or out of town. Today I headed downtown for a late breakfast. I jumped the queue waiting for a table (there are some perks to being by yourself) sat at the bar and ordered eggs florentine and a small cappuccino. Small? Nothing is small here! The coffee was big, as big as the biggest you get at home and the eggs came with a hash brown the size of my head! I ate as much as I could and chatted to the people who were sitting next to me. Not many locals here, not that I’ve met yet anyway.  I had a little bit of time before my appointment with the National Parks Service to get fingerprinted and to fill out the myriad forms to get cleared as a volunteer. One of the questions on the form was: what number is my FBI file. Not sure? Hopefully I won’t have one. 

Anyway I digress… I decided to explore the backstreets of the town and headed off.  Finding myself riding on the odd side of the road with big rigs (we call them 4WD’s - no one has a car) roaring past, through bumpy roadworks I looked for a quiet side street and headed down it. All around were cute timber houses with intricately designed shingle roofs and decided a photo was in order, so I stopped at a park to get my camera out of my bag. MY BAG!!!!!!!! As I got off my bike I quickly realised it was no longer lashed to the rack.  Oh god!!! I felt my brain snap as my heart leapt into my neck pounding like pink monkey’s drum. I cannot describe just how distressed I was. In the bag was my passport, my wallet - complete with my credit cards, my iphone, my camera, my life. %$#@!!!!!!!

I dived back on the bike and peddled like fury back to the bumpy roadworks praying all the way. I must have looked scary – wide-eyed and crazy – people jumped out of my way on the footpath as I scanned the road like a woman possessed. Everyone I saw looked like a potential bag thief. Then I saw him. A tiny bearded old bloke sitting on a grass bank on the other side of the road with my bag on his lap, my wallet in his hand. “Hey!” I shouted across the busy road “hey, that’s my bag!” It felt like a lifetime before I could cross the road and jump off the bike. He handed me my wallet. By now my heart was jumping around at the top of my throat, threatening to burst out my mouth.  “Bet you’re glad to see that” he drawled. I think I said thank you forty times in the first sentence. “That’s the first Iphone I seen up close”. He told me. “I looked in your book. I knew you were a nice lady – you have a picture of the Dali Lama.” He said he worked out I was from Australia and was examining the coins in my purse. “Can I have a couple?” I gave him the lot, plus all the cash I had – only $20 US and a $5 Australian note. He was pleased with the money and asked me if I drank beer – I said “no, but maybe I’ll start today, let me buy you one” so we jumped on our bikes (he was cycling too) and off we went into town to a seedy bar where all his friends were drinking and we shared a Bud light together. He told me about his life. He had been homeless, living rough, doing a paper run for money and managed to buy a trailer (caravan) for a song, so now had his own digs. He paid a friend $20 a month to park in their yard and use electricity. He’d been in gaol for drug offences and assault as he had a short wick that got him into trouble more than once. Great. Gary was newest best friend. He told me an hour’s worth of stories about losing jobs, eating for free at the soup kitchen, working on fishing boats, about his dysfunctional family, and about delivering papers in the snow. Every person who walked into the bar knew him and they looked quizzically at us sitting there drinking together. I thanked him again and made my goodbyes as I had to go to the park service office and get on with the formalities of becoming a volunteer. He asked me go riding with him another day. I probably will. He is a friend.            

I made it!

Alaska - a huge state! (roughly 1/5 of the size of Australia) bigger even than Texas! - wild and beautiful - rugged and inaccessible - hidden and lost.

Anchorage...framed by wild, snow streaked mountains and punctuated with an expansive mudflat.

LA - earth tremor 2:36am Sunday 6 June

sleeping fitfully I awoke to the room shaking - no, the hotel shaking - it was an tremor 3.6 on the richter scale...welcome to an ancient, groaning, creaking continent!

modern aeronautics

It must have been a big wind that blew the gigantic double decker plane (A380) carrying over 400 people and me from Sydney to LAX. How an impossibly huge aircraft can fly is a truly extraordinary feat of modern aeronautic engineering!

Leaving Sydney... from the onboard entertainment screen - they have a camera in the tail so you get a bird's eye view!

So to LA - the city where the car is king! After a night here to recover and aclimatise to the time switch I'll get onward to Alaska in the morning...  

last day, for now, from nsw npws...

what a brilliant last day (for the next few months) spent in my park looking at amazing achievements of all of us... with incredible people!! I am truly blessed. thank you!

packing...unpacking...repacking

less is more, isn't it?