The Americas 2013

Notwithstanding the 1600km of dirt roads I have ridden over the last two days, I woke up feeling remarkably fresh and wanting to go for a little ride…and the top of the world highway starts just a couple of kilometres from here!!

One of the benefits of these very long days is that you can get so much done before nightfall! I started the day by going for a walk around Dawson in order to get some photos of this quaint little place and then finally got onto the top of the world road by about 14h00 and into Fairbanks by 20h00.

As mentioned a few days ago, Dawson city looks like it is stuck in a gold diggers frontier town time warp; tin and wooden structures, dirt roads, blacksmiths and saloons with names like Diamond Tooth Gertie’s! Its charming personified and made more so by the fact that its a functioning town with families that live and raise their children in this beautiful environment!!

Pics of Dawson “City”….

Vintage snowmobiles!!!

I assume the Flora Dora hotel was the original house of ill repute!!

I am handing the bike into the BMW dealer in Fairbanks tomorrow for servicing so it was time to get the luggage off the bike (which is covered in mud), get the bike kit washed and get everything cleaned up as this was originally supposed to be the end of “Leg 4 of the Americas”. The original plan was to fly back to SA now for a couple of weeks however, the prospects of 30 hours of flying, taking a week to overcome the jetlag and then repeating a week thereafter was impractical because we need to be back in Cape Town by the 20th of September for a wedding and so instead, I am going to ride up the Dalton to Prudhoe Bay this coming Monday and Tuesday and then Jax and I are going to spend a few days going down the Alaskan inside passage looking at the glaciers, whales and bears before starting the final trek across Canada to Montreal.

My Days ride on the top of the world highway and into Alaska…