My first windy pack up of camp this morning, so that was
quite interesting, to say the least – You take out the tent pegs and the whole
tent blows down through the camp site !!!
You have to find a whole new way of doing it, and folding everything up
when all it wants to do is blow up like a parachute in the wind !! However, all successfully accomplished, and I
was on the road by a surprisingly early 7.45 am.
After about 15 miles I came to the major roadworks they were
doing, and just before arriving there a green SUV passed me and the lady driver
waved vigorously at, as many do, so I waved back. Shortly afterwards I pull up at the stop sin
for the road works, right behind the green SUV, from which the lady suddeny
emerges and runs back towards me. “Are
you REALLY from Surfers Paradise?” she asks. “Yes I am”, I reply. “Oh, that’s amazing she says – My best friend
lives there and I have been there too !!!!
Welcome to Alaska ! Here, if you
are ever going to be in Fairbanks, and need anything, here is my pone number. And you will need these (she hands me two
packets of hand warmers) to keep you warm here, and these (handing me some
Vitamin C powder sachets) to keep you from catching a cold. Have a nice time in Alaska”. At which time the stop sign changes to go, and
she gives me a big “welcome to Alaska hug” right there in the middle of the
roadworks with the bemused people in the vehicles behind watching on at all of
this with a smile on their faces ! And
I am left thinking “How good is this place ?
You can even get a hug at 8.30 am from a stranger right there at the roadworks
in the middle of nowhere !!!”
I like Alaska !!
Liz, you made my day !! I smiled for the next hour !!!!
The drive to Homer is……..different. After all this time of
mountains and scenery, almost the whole drive is forest. I won’t say it is boring, because after so
many mountains, it isn’t. Initially,
there are mountains as you go through the Moose Pass, but after the Homer turn
off it is all forest and fly river
fishing, Lodges and camps signposted off
the road down into the forest one after the other. Even one called Cooper Landing !! And from
then on it is mostly flat forest, and you can’t really see any scenery for the trees.
It is like this for 50 miles as you cross the centre of the Kenai
Peninsula until you get to Soldotna. This is a real surprise as Soldotna is a
surprisingly large town that you suddenly come across after all the forests. After Soldotna you turn south west, following
the coast line but seveal miles inland, so you still don’t see very much apart
from trees. Then around Ninilchik, you
suddenly come out on the coast, and can see Mt Redoubt and Mt Iliamna Volcanoes
over on the western side of the Cook Inlet. These are 10,000 ft tall active
volcanoes, and form an impressive sight across the bay – From there west is an
enormous wilderness area which stretches several hundred miles all the way to
the Yukon Delta region, where the mighty Yukon river eventually flows out to
the sea.
After that, you go back into the forests again, until Anchor
Point, just before Homer, where you come
over the brow of a hill and suddenly, in front of you, is this magnificent
panorama of the back of the Kenai Mountains that, when I left Seward this
morning, I was actually on the other side of !
I had essentially come all the way around them, and glaciers that I could
now see from Homer were fed out of the same massive Harding Ice Field that
feeds the Exit Glacier, near Seward, where I had been walking just yesterday,
but here coming out of the opposite end of the ice field. But between Homer and the mountains is the
Kachemak Bay.
At the bottom of the main town of Homer is The Spit – This
is a 4 ½ mile long natural spit of land out into Kachemak Bay, left over from
one of the periods when this whole area was glaciated. It is just the two lane road down the middle,
with about 50 yards on either side providing enough space for buildings (all
built on stilts) and lots of camping and boat marina facilities to house what
is called the biggest Halibut fishing centre in the world !! Everything here is fishing – Tours, competitions,
cleaning, freezing, shipping, and of course restaurants to eat them !! You come to Homer to fish. And the backdrop to all this fishing are the magnificent Kenai Mountains on the
other side of the bay. Camping is mainly
how you stay on the Spit – All the hotels are back up in the main part of
town. And the camping is beside the
beach, on the beach, at whatever level you want from basically free with no
facilities right up to the full hook up and service for the many motorhomes
that are here. My camp site is right
overlooking the water, beside a rocky beach, and although it is fairly squashed
in (I would NOT like to be here in late June / early July when the hoards
arrive – Apparently the 4th July weekend here is an absolute
nightmare !!
Anyway, I am here now, and it is good – About half
full. Once I had arrived and pitched my
tent, I went off exploring the area to find out what I could do. Someone along the way had told me to go out
for a trip on a vessel called the Danny J, so I o this – it is just a Kachemak
Bay ferry that goes over past some bird and wildlife populated islands to
Halibut Cove, an island which is primarily a residence for artists, but which
also has a very nice restaurant called The Saltry. Anyway, booked that for noon tomorrow. I looked at flights over to Kodiak to see
bears, but these are incredibly expensive, and as I have already seen quite a
lot of bears with no one around except me, I felt they were not really
necessary at this time, even though they do look superb. Eventually I hooked up with some Motorhomers Woody,
Wendy, Ray and Wilma who I have met several times along the way since Valdez,
and they are going out on an all day fishing charter on Sunday and invited me
along ! So on Sunday I am going fishing
for Halibut !! Should be interesting !
For now, I am set up on the beach. The wind is incredibly cold, but it is
fine. And Homer Spit is a great place to
be (as long as you have your thermals on !!!
