The Dalton Highway is one of those iconic routes that many world overlanders have on their wish-list. It runs through northern Alaska, up to the Arctic Circle, over the remote Brooks Mountains, across vast tundra, ending at the industrial oil-fields on the Arctic Ocean. So why do it? And what do you do when you get there?
Alaska is on the way to nowhere. It’s not the kind of place you drop into accidentally. And the drive to get here from anywhere is nothing short of a schlepp. But for us, overlanding Alaska has been well worth making the considerable (second) attempt to get here. The wildlife, the scenery, the nature and the wilderness are stunning. The adventure activities and opportunities are endless. And we’re having a blast meeting up with other overlanders. Here’s our tale of a scoot around the much-driven southern half of Alaska, stopping to do a bit of fishing, to see the wildlife, and to ogle at the odd glacier or two…
The decision’s made. We’re going to Alaska. Well… we’re going to try again at getting to Alaska. We’re in Yuma on the US/Mexican border and our GPS tells us it’s exactly 6,640 km to Prudhoe Bay, Alaska. By anyone’s measure, that’s a loong way. Here’s our Operation Reach Alaska, a gentle trot through California, Oregon and Washington, then a frantic gallop through BC and the Yukon…
The Wild West is a legendary piece of US history and worth a bit of attention by the traveller. As we drive across southern Arizona, overlanding the wild west, we see a cheesy show, ponder the age-old air-con dilemma, and looking ahead we contemplate another stab at Alaska…
Hey world… things continue getting back to normal for us overlanding people. Travel restrictions are easing, borders are opening, quarantining is being dumped. It’s time we did a trip back to Blighty to visit our families. But although ‘rona virus rules might be on their way out, we still have the old logistical and legal rules of parking Cuthbert unattended for a while. Here we ponder some overlanding rules, our time in UK, and why Mexico is always a good idea!
We like deserts. Which is fortunate really, because there are lot of them to explore in south west USA. Mojave, Joshua Tree, Anza Borrego, Death Valley etc… etc… etc. Here are our tales of overlanding deserts, featuring dune-climbing, a balloon festival, dinosaurs, aliens, an international forest of cars, movie sets, struggling through snow (yes, in the desert!) and catching up with lovely friends.
Ever wondered what eight years of full-time overlanding looks like? Well wonder no more. February 2022 is our eight year anniversary, so here’s our overlanding route map with a list of our geeky and not so geeky statistics.
So far in 2022 we’ve been mooching around the deserts of southern California, enjoying the sunshine and being shamefully slack on blog writing. A full update blog on our California dream will follow soon. In the meantime, get yourself a cuppa, sit back and have a laugh at some of these little nuggets:
We end 2021 with Operation Seeking Sunshine from Wyoming to Arizona. Over the last two years we’ve done more than a bit of Canadian-style wintering. This year, we’re looking for a bit of winter sunshine. In our final blog of the year, we skip Yellowstone Park, cruise down from Wyoming through Colorado to sunny Arizona. On the way we do a few tourist hot-spots and catch up with some great travel friends.
There are some monumental things to see in USA. Some of them are truly on the way to nowhere… just so damn far out of the way, they’re a real schlep to reach. Incorporating Mount Rushmore, Badlands National Park or the Devil’s Tower into your average holiday trip to the USA is a stretch. After a slow start to our time in USA, we’re making the effort to see as many USA monuments as we can, but winter’s coming and some places will soon become inaccessible. So the race is on…
Well, Howdy Uncle Sam! It’s been a while. After our twenty corona virus months in Canada, the USA has finally opened the border and we’re back overlanding USA. It’s early November, winter’s a-coming, and winters are pretty harsh in these parts. So once we’re in, we’re heading westwards pronto to see a few Bucket List places before the cold pushes us south to the sunshine.
The dedicated Cuthbert follower last found us arriving back at the St Lawrence in Quebec province having completed the long, remote and fabulously featureless Trans-Labrador Highway. It was the end of September, the US border showed no sign of opening anytime soon and we’d have bet our last bottle of Pinot Noir that we’d be spending another winter in Canada. But for the autumn, we still had lots to see in Quebec and Ontario…
You don’t drive the Trans-Labrador Highway for anything particular to see on the way. You drive it because it’s there. Because you can. Because there is still a teeny sense of adventure to doing it. Not so much to see what’s there, but rather what’s not there. From disembarking the Newfoundland ferry it’s over 1,700km of remote and desolate road all the way across Labrador into Quebec and back to civilisation at the St Lawrence Seaway coast. But that’s not to say there isn’t anything to see at all. There is some fabulous scenery and a few spots worthy of distraction along the way.
What can we say about Newfoundland? It has a gob-smacking view around every corner. The people are very friendly. And it’s windy. Very windy. If you overland Newfoundland in the right season, you’ll (allegedly) see lots of icebergs, puffins and whales. But even without those, it’s extraordinarily scenic. For us, overland Newfoundland involved reaching a milestone at a lighthouse, finding an old aircraft wreck, getting very stuck in some mud, running from a hurricane, visiting the port of Dildo (well you’ve just got to haven’t you?) and taking at least a million photos of the Island. And did we mention it’s windy?
‘New Scotland’. Spend a bit of time overlanding Nova Scotia and it’s not hard to see why the early settlers gave it the name. The cracking coastal scenery bears more than a passing resemblance to its Scottish namesake. But we didn’t find just great scenery in Nova Scotia… we found a bit of education too. Things we never learned at school (or maybe we did but have long forgotten). Anyone on a ‘world-schooling’ trip with kids wanting a lot of great scenery and a bit of beach camping on the side, then overlanding Nova Scotia is your thing!
Driving over 5,000 km across Canada we’ve been looking forward to the famed coastlines of New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island, Nova Scotia and Newfoundland/Labrador (a.k.a. ‘the Maritimes’)*. Well, we made it! Overlanding the Maritimes in NB and PEI we predictably find many lighthouses and a lot of lobster. But there are potatoes too, shed-loads of potatoes. And just a bit of a tidal bore.
We’re on a mission right now. We don’t often travel with a purpose, but now we’re on a mission across Ontario and overlanding Quebec with reasonable haste to reach east coast Canada. Sure, Ontario and Quebec have cool things to see, but we’re not giving in to distractions right now. Here’s a tale of absolute focus and commitment to a achieve a pre-determined mission overlanding Canada 😉
It’s a long drive across Canada, but long drives are what we do. Over the pandemic we’ve been moseying around western Canada. But things are opening up and now we can mosey eastwards: over the Rockies and out overlanding the prairies on the other side. “But there’s nothing there!” they warned us in BC. So we go to see what ‘nothing’ looks like on the prairies. And on the way, Cuthbert finds a bit of tv stardom!
British Columbia is big. Just the one province of Canada is four time the size of UK, or bigger than France and Germany combined. It’s full of amazing scenery and we’ve done many, many miles exploring the never-ending network of dirt-trails leading to spectacular view-points and remote camp-spots. In the Kootenays we’ve had a phenomenal heat-wave, thunderous lightning storms and freaky forest fires popping up at random spots all over the province. Oh… and posh mushrooms, we had a load of those too!
Is there a more glorious place to be during a global pandemic than overlanding western Canada? Talk about social distancing… there’s more awesome open space to get away from people here than you can shake a shakey stick at. So here’s how our wilderness social distancing has allowed us to test the mobility of our Starlink system, and we also come clean with a couple of overlanding confessions…
Well this is a short and sweet update! Just in case you thought we’d frozen into the ice of a Canadian winter, you’ll no doubt be relieved to know that we’ve been enjoying the snow, skiing our socks off for a full season in Big White, British Columbia and we’ve recently acquired a cool new Starlink satellite internet gadget for Cuthbert…
