17 May 2016: Shall we go to Alaska now?
T – It was time to leave Prince Rupert and move northwards. Our tyres were here and we were ready to go. Until we looked outside. Ugh. It was raining. Alot.
C – We rose early (and by early I mean 0630 – I do love that 0630 is now early!!!) so we could say goodbye to Allan before he left for work. Kristin made us a warming breakfast of porridge with maple syrup and berries as I kept checking to see if it was getting drier or warmer outside. It wasn’t.
T – After a nice breakfast we set about packing up our stuff. Im sure our loads are getting bigger as it seemed to take forever to pack the bikes up! Maybe it was just because we didn’t want to ride in the stinking rain.
Eventually we were ready to go and there was nothing left to do but say see ya to Kristin and little Larry the dog and hit the road. Both of us laughing at each others silly little overloaded bike with tyres hanging off the sides.
We had to backtrack a little bit back to Terrace. Around 140 km’s. But it was like a new ride as the view was one we hadn’t seen yet! Riding along the river was just so spectacular and there seemed to be very little traffic.
C – We were travelling at our usual 60km/hr and a few vehicles overtook us, as they usually do. It wasn’t long after that we arrived at a long stretch of road works. The traffic controller spied us sitting at the back of the line and called us forward, explaining it was loose gravel for about 4km and she didn’t want us to get showered by rocks from the cars in front. We really felt like the cars behind us were giving us the old stink eye as once again they were going to be stuck behind us!!! As soon as we got out of the road works, we pulled over and let everyone zoom past again.
T – We were quite lucky and only had the odd sprinkling little shower to contend with. In no time at all we made Terrace and after a quick dash of fuel we turned northwards onto Highway 113 towards Nass Valley. What a beautiful road. It was smooth and had some awesome curvey sections. Plus we saw only a few cars and they were all heading south. We rode along right next to lakes, with the road cut into the side of the cliffs. Just gorgeous! We passed Lava Lake and then rode into some old lava beds. The road was cut straight through the middle of them with lava rocks stretching off into the distance on either side.
C – As we rode through the beautiful lava beds, I wondered about the history of volcanos and the area. I asked Todd what he knew, but disappointingly, he couldn’t answer any of my questions and I felt disappointed I hadn’t actually learnt anything about the Nass Valley, other than apparently the volcano is the youngest in North America. Next time we have wifi, something to look up!
T – We got lucky here as there was a provincial park campground just off the road, and seemingly only just opened up for the season. So we had that all to ourselves. We lit a nice big warm fire and had hot milk and biscuits for dinner before going to bed.
Tomorrow we hope to make it to Stewart and Hyder.