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Planet Yukon
It’s hard to believe that Yukon is a part of Canada because it feels like another planet – or at least a place that should be somewhere far far away on the other side of the planet. Let’s explore the things and review some numbers from Mission: Yukon. We were on the ground in Yukon for 9 days. During that time we toured 7 “places” and surrounding areas: Whitehorse Haines Junction (+ Kathleen Lake + Silver City) Kluane park (pronounced “clue-a-nee”) Skagway (Alaska) Carcross (Caribou Crossing OMG – though we didn’t see any there) Dawson City (home of the gold rush) Tombstone park We went on 6(ish) hikes: Miles Canyon…
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Yukon: Thanks for adventuring!
One of my favourite conversations on this trip was with a server at Klondike Brewing in Skagway, Alaska. She was super friendly and happy to chat about life in Alaska. I love hearing about people who have made deliberate moves to live somewhere they fell in love with, and in my experience, Alaska is a hotbed for these journeys. We heard about her life without internet from April to September, and had a lively discussion about her limited restaurant recommendations in town. When she realized we hadn’t just rolled off the docked cruise ships like most of the other patrons, she became particularly chatty and wanted to know about our…
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Yukon: The gold rush and other old-timey things (no internet required)
I’ve never been that interested in the Wild West or olden timey days. Everything about it seems very dusty, with few vegetarian meal options and limited opportunity for women. Also, gold really isn’t my jewelry of choice. So it came as a real surprise that Dawson City and everything about this area was so darned cool! We had planned to hike in Tombstone, but a brief to stop at their visitor centre confirmed that we were ill-prepared for unmaintained trails and snowy peaks. So instead of an active day, we worked on completing our wildlife bingo cards. This time, with porcupine caribou! Before leaving town we stopped in the Bonanza…
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Yukon: Larger than Life
We’re making up for lost time here – both in actual Travels, and on this blog. So let’s catch up! Whitehorse was a little sleepier than we’d expected. We imagined a small, hip city and probably should have paid attention to its population which barely tops 30,000. But it’s population was outsized by its charm, and we really enjoyed our weekend there. It was also where we got the first of many wow views. The MacBride Museum was a great stop in Whitehorse. So much great information on Canada’s indigenous peoples, which we don’t know nearly enough about, and great info on the Gold Rush and history of the Yukon.…
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Hideeho from Yukon!
It’s been a long two years of no travel and we’re out in the world again. It’s weird, and freeing, and the pandemic is seemingly over here, and most places, except home. People are friendly in Yukon. Too friendly. Everywhere we go people say hi. They go out of their way to greet us. It’s weird. We were even told to say hi to animals. Specifically bears. And specifically “Hideeho!”. While out in the wild we may choose to have casual conversation. However, at indeterminate intervals we were told to yell “Hideeho!” so as to warn the bears of our presence. So this became our trail (and now our sporadic…
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Aus + NZ: And… that’s a wrap!
So it’s been almost a month since we got back, and I’ve been busy with other stuff, but I figured, I should stop procrastinating and do my summary / best of / worst of, before I forget it all! So, first and foremost, to put perspective on where we actually went, I did some mapping. We started our journey New Zealand. We juggled between road tripping, and hanging out for a few days, here and there in random spots. We visited the following places in this rough order: Next we visited Mainland Australia, although technically, the Sydney portion was our last stop. Our journey was a little less comprehensive compared…
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Aus + NZ: The longest blog post in the Southern Hemisphere!
Throughout our trip we’ve heard about endless things that are the largest of their kind in the Southern Hemisphere. The largest suspension bridge (in the Southern Hemisphere)? Traversed it. The longest pedestrian bridge (in the Southern Hemisphere)? Crossed it. The longest single span chairlift (in the Southern Hemisphere)? Sat along it. The largest fish market (in the Southern Hemisphere)? Smelt it. But all of these things pale in comparison to what we experienced our first night in Tasmania. We booked our flight to Hobart and we’d figure the rest out. We’d done it so far, we’d do it now. Right? Well, there was one problem, the largest wooden boat festival…
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The Goat Ocean Road
The Great Ocean Road is filled with wonders of nature and beyond. Case in point… But I knew I was somewhere special when going for a morning walk meant running into Pademelons, everywhere. These guys are the cutest creatures ever (Leia, earmuffs!) I want one. And sure, we’ve seen some other cool stuff. But come on. So that’s the Great Ocean Road. Rocky cliffs, Pademelons, and everything else! Miranda already posted about our hiking day in the Grampians… next stop, Tasmania!
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A less hipster laneway
So we left Melbourne behind, in favour of a great, albeit short, road trip. We rented a car for 3 days and set off for the Great Ocean road. Our first stop was Geelong, or as we assume the locals call it, Geels, pronounced “Jeels”. Everything is given a cute name here. Toasted Sandwiches are called “Toasties”, Kangaroos are called “Roos”, McDonalds is called “Maccas”, the list goes on. Geels was filled with why can only be described as Peg People. It also has a large brewery that used to be a clothing factory (we guessed). Oh, and a barber that operates out of a truck (you may have seen…
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A series of fortunate events – Part 3
Welcome to Part 3 of our fortunate events. If you haven’t read Part 1 or Part 2, you may want to. After our day cruise of Abel Tasman, and our nature spotting of Sea Lions, we were apprehensive to use our one free day to drive 2 hours north just to see the “best beach in NZ”, but we had nothing better to do other than hike or be beachy (and I have trouble standing still when I’m traveling). So off we went. Jan 18: We hit the road, peanut butter and jelly sandwiches in tow (that VIP peanut butter factory experience has paid us back in spades!). We head…
