On what had turned out to be a 16 week ‘Go Big or Go Home’ trip, it was time to do the Going Home bit. After Grants Pass in Oregon, we eked out our last few weeks of the trip on the California coast, with a week in Santa Cruz and a week in Santa Barbara, before finally heading home to Santa Clarita.

What a wet write off of a weekend driving down to Santa Cruz.

Santa Cruz:

As the weather transitioned to more of what we expected from California, we made the most of the waning after-work light to enjoy a brief sunset walk along the bluffs.

Other pleasant evenings gave us an opportunity to enjoy al fresco cooking and dining at the BaseCamp, it felt a long time since we’d been able to do that. I was well chuffed to find both Wholefoods and Trader Joe’s supermarkets within spitting distance of NextSpace (after what seemed like an eternity of sub-par grocery stores!). And for pre-dinner snacks, I was still working my way through the Canadian salt and vinegar crisps stash.

In keeping with our trend of bumping into friends and work colleagues, we met up with one of Darren’s Twilio buddies for a lighthouse promenade and beach walk.

As luck would have it, our penultimate week coincided with the reintroduction of Flex Fridays, meaning I got to take Friday off work. Which meant a sunrise walk and an opportunity to explore a bit more of Santa Cruz.

The Weekend:

The driving distances from one place to the next seemed tiny down here after Alaska. Getting to our next destination was measured in hours, not days. However, the rugged coastal drive down Big Sur, one of the coolest highways in California, is notoriously slow and winding with lots of scenic viewpoint distractions and hikes along the way. It’s been a few years since we’ve done the drive and we had the time, so why not.

Luckily, we checked on the roads before committing to the Big Sur drive. All that rain in last week’s storms had caused erosion and landslides, putting paid to any through trips. Plan B it is then.

We didn’t actually have a Plan B, so we pulled in for coffee and biscuits and a little chill out in the BaseCamp. Out came the phones, and while Darren was diligently doing some Google research, I had a quick skive on Facebook. I did a double take when I saw a FB post from our good friends Brian and Lindsay. They were in Monterey for the weekend celebrating Brian’s birthday. And we were about 10 miles from Monterey. Not days or even hours away, we were like right there.

A few frantic back and forth messages of the “No way?” “Way!” variety later, and we’d arranged to meet up for brunch. Yet another of those bizarre yet fortuitous meet ups – and we got to wish Brian a happy birthday in person. Cheers Brian & Lindsay, so great to see you!

With Big Sur out of the question, we headed inland and down the alternative 101 route. The wineland area of Paso Robles was just a few hours south, and we set our sights on nearby Tin City, a little huddle of wineries and other artisanal outlets, including gelato (ice cream), cider and Barrelhouse Brewing.

Santa Barbara:

Santa Barbara is only an hour and a half away from home (Santa Clarita), but we’ve never spent a full week there before. Nestled in the Santa Ynez mountains overlooking the Pacific Ocean, SB is an upmarket resort destination, often referred to as the American Riviera. If you want any more indication of its poshness, Meghan and Harry live in them there Montecito foothills.

I’m going to have to do you another stock photo, because yet again we were cursed by the weather. This time the gloom and doom of thick all-encompassing fog, with occasional clearer yet overcast patches.

We did have one evening – ONE – when it was clear. Perfect for a sunset wander along the Mesa and Arroyo Burro beach.

And then it was back to this…

My mum asked me to take a picture from the pier. She’s been here before and has a bit of a soft spot for Santa Barbara, being called Barbara herself. I think she was expecting something along the lines of the stock photo above. Sorry mum, here’s what we got!

And with that, it really did feel like it was time to call it a day. Go Big or Go Home? I’m officially renaming the trip Go Big AND Go Home!

Just one last border crossing to go to get us back into the US. I dutifully checked in advance a) it was open, and b) no Covid test required. The Canada US border represented a notable milestone on our Go Big Or Go Home trip, as we inched ever closer to home. So we were cheerful and upbeat as we rolled up to the customs booth. The customs official, unfortunately had gotten out of bed the wrong side that morning and cheery he was not. With the border closure still in place for Canadians, the crossing was super quiet. Which left the brunt of his sullen temper to be borne by us.

He handled our British passports with disdain and practically threw them back at us saying we should only have given him our US Resident Green Cards. Whoah, it’s not like we gave him a mouldy cheese sandwich! I think most people could be forgiven for innocently handing over their passport to a customs official.

Darren kept his cool with the questioning: “Any guns?” “Nope” “Any drugs?” “Nope” “Any alcohol?” “Erm, some wine and beer” “How much?” “Erm, about a Yeti cooler full”.

The interrogation continued. This guy was on a mission and he wasn’t going to stop there. Brutally, he handed us a red card and we were pulled over to the sidelines for a strip search. We opened the BaseCamp, laid bare at his mercy, as he brought in reinforcements with latex gloves. (I can’t help thinking one of them spotted us way in the distance and said “ooh look, there’s one of those cool BaseCamps, let’s pull it over so we can have a proper look inside”).

After an eternity of searching, the SWAT team emerged from the BaseCamp triumphant, satisfied smiles all around. They skulked off back into the shadows as just one official approached us, arm raised holding some confiscated contraband found in our trailer. At this point, I started getting nervous. I had an undeclared stash of Canadian salt and vinegar crisps – I was really hoping they weren’t going to confiscate those. At the same time, I was pretty confident we had no drugs or guns.

As the customs official drew closer, we could see that she was brandishing a punnet of blueberries. As part of the earlier interrogation, we’d admitted to carrots and onions but forgot the damn blueberries. Turns out they were illegal blueberries from Peru. This time and this time only, we were to get away with a telling off, a wagging finger and a slap on the wrist. And they got to keep the blueberries.

Seemed like a lot of drama but with that we were on our way. And I made a mental note to add to my next border crossing checklist: check it’s open, check on Covid requirements, check we’ve got no blueberries!

Of course, no pics at the border (didn’t dare add that to our list of misdemeanors). But here we have the next section of the trip, as we continued down through Washington, and into Oregon.

Astoria, Oregon:

The Weekend: The Oregon Coast

Grants Pass, Oregon

From Whitehorse down to Squamish in British Columbia (near Vancouver) is just shy of 1,500 miles. So another three day driving weekend was needed, with 10+ hours on the road each day. Rather than just reverse our northbound journey on the Alcan, we turned off at Watson Lake and took the Cassiar highway instead.

No great wildlife pictures unfortunately but we did see mooses galore, even a few bears. I’ll spare you another detailed road trip post – I tried to pick out just a few photo highlights this time – here you go.

We arrived to a drizzly overcast Squamish and that’s pretty much how it stayed. Seemed like a nice enough place, what little of it we could see through the oppressive grey clouds and relentless rain. Morning, noon and night through the week, the rain persisted.

The poor BaseCamp is a SoCal gal (like my good self), not made for this nonsense. The campsite was heavily forested, the BC tucked hiding among the trees, craving shelter from the elements. To no avail. The trees captured the rain in their leaves, collecting water more effectively than an inverted umbrella, only to hurl it down in large water bombs. The false sense of protection from the trees belied their wicked sense of humor. We patched up the worst of the BaseCamp leaks outside. Inside, the supporting cast of dishcloths, sponges and good ole kitchen roll did their bit to stem any remaining inflow.

I happily stocked up on Horlicks, mint sauce, Galaxy minstrels and sherbet lemons. No crisps but I’ve rather got a taste for Canadian crisps now anyway.

All the while, our work life continued at Aligned Collective.

And then one day, just like that, the rain stopped raining and the clouds cleared. Before our eyes, Squamish was revealed in all its glory. I did a double take. We were surrounded by mountains we didn’t even know existed.

After two weekends of heavy mileage on the road, we felt the need to stay put for a weekend – to enjoy our surroundings and get back to some of that hiking and biking we know and love. And as luck would have it, a friend of ours Martin was staying at a condo in nearby Whistler.

Which meant that the boys had each other’s company to go play at being boys on their mountain bikes. They did some hardcore trails, steep muddy single tracks and obstacles. I think they call that fun. Anyway, it freed me up nicely to go pootle around Lost Lake on wide, gentle, unassuming gravel trails. My main obstacles were unruly toddlers on rental trikes.

Some rather exceptional food and drink followed, courtesy of the Rimrock Cafe. Which is the most decent place we’ve dined out at in a long time. It is nothing like a cafe and every bit like a restaurant, the only exception being they let riff raff like us in.

Come the next day and we were delighted to find it wasn’t raining 🙂 Perfect hiking weather then! Off we popped to Joffre Lakes Provincial Park to do a steady uphill trail climb with stunning scenery, waterfalls and glacier-fed turquoise lakes.

The Joffre Lakes Trail is unsurprisingly one of the most popular hikes in the area. It’s also one of the most popular hangouts for Whiskey Jacks (also known as Canadian Jays). These grey and white feathered friends are bold yet endearing. They politely introduce themselves to tourists by landing on their outstretched arms to say “Hi”. (“Hi and what’ve you got to eat”, more like.)

After a rewarding hike and a weekend that really felt like a weekend, all that remained was to hit the brewery. A well-earned beer at The Beer Farm.

Bit of cheating going on with the Whitehorse post cos I skipped the blog on the way up, knowing that we’d be spending another week here on the way back down. Whitehorse is strategically positioned along the Yukon stretch of the Alaska Canada highway. Check out its location on a map and you’ll see it’s a bit of lone wolf, the only more-than-one-horse town for hundreds of miles, and therefore a beacon in the night to us digital nomads. That said, who would have thought it would have Yukonstruct – one of the coolest, not to mention busiest co-working spaces of anywhere we’ve worked in the last 18 months.

Maybe it had something to do with having La Petite Maison downstairs in the co-working office, serving sweet and savory crepes to rival any French establishment.

Our favorite camping spot was not a campsite but a little scenic overlook parking spot (luckily for us, without a ‘no overnight parking or camping’ sign, the bane of our lives). We spent a few nights there, enjoying how the view changed with the elements.

And we had a visitor.

So adorable, just check out that tail, almost bigger than she is! Of course, we didn’t feed the fox, although it was obvious that others had, given how close she came up to us. Keep wildlife wild people!

While nowhere else came close to our scenic overlook, we camped at a couple of proper campsites too.

The opportunities to get out and about before/after work were waning considerably, as the days were getting shorter and the weather didn’t particularly want to play ball. So some very random shots of Whitehorse coming up…

So we did what we do best and ended up in the brewery. Cheers!

I should probably have been navigating. But this time luckily, we took the direct route and there was no detour to the Top of the World as we journeyed between Alaska and Canada. Instead, as we were driving along with nothing better to do than gaze in awe at the passing wilderness and try to capture a million videos of the long road ahead, I was inspired to write. Not my journal or something particularly useful for the blog. Oh no, I was inspired to write a short story from the perspective of an Aspen tree.

So instead of “we drove from here to here and stopped for lunch here and camped here blah blah blah, and then the next day we drove some more”, all you need to know is we got from Homer, Alaska back to Whitehorse, Yukon. And here’s the Aspen to give you her story.

In the undertones of the whispering wind, she thinks she hears an ominous warning “Winter is Coming”.

With the wind comes a drop in temperature. Her leaves are startled to realize that this is their time to shine. They give a confident show of glory, brazen with golden yellows and burnt ambers. What was once the sun’s rays morphs into the dazzling radiance of autumn leaves.

But their prime performance is fleeting. The chill inevitably takes a hold and each leaf shivers in the wind before parting ways with its umbilical branch. Freedom both engulfs and liberates. Emboldened by their new found, unrestricted maturity, they feel truly free for the first time.

Once they leave their mother tree’s embrace, their mood is subject to the wind’s follies. One leaf floats effortlessly to the frigid ground, awaiting the comforting blanket soon to be provided by its siblings. Another’s journey lasts for hours, blurring into days as it is blown frivolously to a new resting place far far away. Who knows what adventures it has on the way. Yet others dance jubilantly, swirling and whirling, enlivened by the wind’s frenzy. A sixth sense telling them to dance like there’s no tomorrow.

However they spend their final moments, sleep eventually overcomes them all. Today’s leaves destined to become tomorrow’s forgotten mulch.

Her job is done for another year. She feels naked and exposed without her cloak of leaves. And yet she knows they were not hers to keep; she had to let them go.

She reflects fondly on the brief time they spent together. Spring was characterized by their bursts of enthusiasm and sense of wonder as they emerged, aphid green and eager. The lazy, hazy, crazy days of Summer were spent basking in the gentle sunshine as the midnight sun merged day and night into one.

But that precious time is a fleeting memory. It is now time for her to be stoic and resolute. She may look pale, delicate and vulnerable, but as an Aspen, her core is strong. She is shielded from the elements by her faith in the seasons. She lapses into a dreamlike state, induced by the shorter days and longer nights. Her dreams are peppered with flashes of muted pinks and greens of the aurora across the night sky.

And through the haze, she feels the first snowflakes drifting around her and settling. Silent white above, below and all around. Again the whispering wind… “Winter is Here…”.

And now here’s the scenery and journey that inspired my little story.

Dawn of day two got a little hairy when we rocked up to the alleged petrol station with less than 50 miles of fuel to go, to find this.

Before you ask, we couldn’t just pump and pay. No credit card machine at the pump and the pump itself wasn’t switched on. We tried hollering at the lodge, but the posted opening hours of 11am were not promising. There was some vague sign of life at an outbuilding but turned out to be a (luckily friendly) guard dog. We hung around for a while, hoping someone would turn up.

They didn’t.

Well if you’re gonna break down, I guess there’s worse places.

With no cavalry to save us, we resorted to our phones and their frustrating now you see it, now you don’t bars of signal strength. Apple Maps, Google Maps and Yelp revealed not a petrol station in sight for 100 miles either way. But some of Darren’s advanced research, corroborated by a potential sighting on satellite map view and an online review from three years ago, yielded a potential thumbs up just 30 miles further on. With no other feasible option, we continued down the road.

Our journey continued less eventfully to Destruction Bay, where we saw the grizzly bear on our way out. No bears this time but we did have more time to stop and appreciate the view (what without that 600+ mile detour).

We found the most awesome place to boondock for the night.

All good things must come to an end, and that includes vacations in Alaska. Boo. Although the good thing about our nomadic lifestyle is that we didn’t have to pack our things and fly home – like a hermit crab or a tortoise with its shell, we already had our home with us. We were camped up on Homer Spit at Fishing Hole campground. To some it might look like a ship junkyard, but to us it was a prime waterfront spot.

And all was not lost, we still had the rest of the weekend to play with. Oh hang on a minute, the weather had something to say about that.

Our planned floatplane day trip to Brooks Falls in Katmai National Park was cancelled (to be fair, much as I love watching bears I didn’t much fancy standing around in the wind and rain all day, not to mention being out in a storm in a iddy biddy plane).

Plan B started with crepes and coffee for brunch at Wild Honey Bistro. We then holed up in the cozy Basecamp for the rest of the day – journaling, blogging and planning the return journey of our trip, a beef bourgignon one pot simmering slowly on the stove.

By late afternoon, as the relentless thud and thrum of the rain finally abated (a cat on a hot tin roof could not have been louder), we emerged blinking into the light.

And then we went to the pub. Not just any pub, the rather quirky Salty Dawg Saloon, beloved by tourists and locals alike, it doesn’t get any more Alaska than this.

The whole dollar bill pinned on the ceiling (or wall or any available space these days) seems to have started as a way of putting a down payment on a future drink, whether it be sailors leaving for an expedition, soldiers heading to war, or gold prospectors plunging into the earth’s depths. They would pin their dollar in a prominent place in the bar so if all else was lost when they returned, they could at least be happy in the knowledge they could get a beer.

Made me think of the now commonplace ‘Beer it Forward’ schemes in place at local breweries, the key difference being you’re paying for someone else’s future drink rather than your own. I guess that’s what you call progress.

Being the metropolis at the end of the world that Homer is (note the End, not the Top of the world), it didn’t have a co-working office. So it kind of felt like an extended holiday to book an Airbnb for a few days to work out of. Especially one with expansive windows and views.

While our remaining days in Homer were limited, we still managed to check out the local craft brewery, closely guarded by an oddly life sized bear. At least he had his mask on.

And we still had light enough to get some fresh air after work, in between rain showers. Along the beach…

Along the prom and marina on Homer Spit…

And up a hill for a view…

If there’s one thing we know now about US locations, it’s that whatever their calling, they’ll blow their trumpet, loudly and proudly. Homer’s claim to fame is as the Halibut capital of the world. OK then, bring it on, we’re on a fish n chips awesomeness mission.

What we didn’t quite factor in was the timing. Labor Day in the US is widely considered to be the end of Summer and the unofficial yet rather abrupt end to seasonal tourist attractions. Turns out this applies to fish n chips too. A whole week the wrong side of Labor Day and all the cafes were closed – not a fish or a chip to be found.

Luckily the seafood market stays open year round 🙂 We stocked up with halibut cheeks, halibut fillets, spot prawns and more. And resorted to cooking our own fish n chips.

I’m not an oyster fan. I really wish I was. To me, oysters and champagne sounds hopelessly high end elusive and romantic. In reality, I like to drink the champagne and pass on the oysters. But with all fish, chip (and peas) avenues officially closed, I reluctantly agreed to an oyster bar instead. The important point being it was one of the few establishments in Homer still open.

And what a warming, welcoming spot the Broken Oar Oyster Bar turned out to be. The perfect blend of a tiny friendly establishment – seated maybe 10 people indoors max, the warmth of the ovens and the deliciousness of the food. I don’t know if we’ll ever make it back to Homer, but if we do this place will be on the list for sure.

It’s not often an entire post is dedicated to just one day, even less so just one hike. But I kinda sorta over-indexed on the photos for this one.

At the furthest south west tip of the Kenai peninsula, the road runs out at Homer. From there, the only way to reach Kachemak Bay State Park, the peninsula’s most remote southern wilderness, is by boat.

Armed with a couple of ham, cheese and Branston pickle sandwiches and a couple of beers for good measure, we joined a handful of other hikers to take a small water taxi from Homer marina to Halibut Cove. It was a cool boat ride, lots of sea otters chilling out along the way.

As we neared the beach at Glacier Spit, we were told the tide was too… low/high/up/down I don’t remember, other than it was far from ideal. But the skipper thought there was a chance we could time it just right between the waves to disembark. And then out came a ladder. Yes, a common or garden stepladder.

After watching a couple of the others successfully navigate the improvised gangway, I gingerly descended the ladder. Then like my life depended on avoiding wet feet at all costs, I launched myself up the beach arms and legs akimbo, only to find Darren was filming me.

Our route took us along the beach and then inland through coastal rainforest, the vivid autumn colors just bursting with enthusiasm to show us what they’d got.

One of the distractions along the way was the Grewingk tram – a pulley system used to transport people in an open metal contraption loosely resembling a tram across the very wide, very fast flowing and very cold glacial meltwater river. With some lighthearted banter around making a good 1SE video clip, I was the one put into the ‘tram’, while Darren tugged heartily on the metal rope to ease me into the middle of the gorge, way above the raging waters.

The intention was not to reach the other side, this was just a dalliance on our planned hike that continued on the same side of the river. “OK now, this is far enough, bring me back please!” I hollered. Too far away to hear each other properly over the roaring river, there was some pantomime gesturing on my side, mirrored by nonchalant shrugs on his. I caught something along the lines of “Damn blueberries” and “Top of the World” and “You thought I’d forgiven you, hah!” Or maybe I imagined it.

Turns out it takes a lot more huff and puff than you’d think to get some momentum going on the tram. And maybe a few less pies on my part. But eventually Darren’s relentless hauling on the pulley meant that I made it back to solid ground in one piece.

As we continued, we caught glimpses of the Grewingk glacier through the Fall foliage. (Side note – I know Fall sounds terribly American to the Brits but after ten years I’m pretty ambivalent about the vocab differences and quite honestly, just milking the alliteration here. I also kinda struggled with the name Grewingk, thinking it must be spelt wrong, what kind of word has a g then a k? One named after a Baltic German geologist apparently.)

I really wasn’t quite prepared for Grewingk Lake. One of those blow you away destinations with wait for it, icebergs floating in the lake. Not to mention we were surrounded by yellow-tree awesomeness, a full-on 13 mile glacier at the far end of the lake, and a poetic pebble beach strewn with weathered driftwood.

Out came the Alaskan Brewing Company Icy Bay IPA. We could not have staged a better beer for the photos – anyone would think Darren gave it some forethought. The Pleasure Town beer barely got a look in. As for the ham, cheese and branston sarnies, they didn’t last even long enough for a photo.

Not that it was exactly busy but I guess the other hikers had more foresight to plan their water taxi timing than we did. We thought we’d be twiddling our thumbs as our boat pick up time was way later than everyone else’s. But the silver lining was that we ended up having the entire lakeshore to ourselves to enjoy.

The final stretch of our hike took us up and over the saddle trail, past lots of fresh bear scat (but no bears) and down to our pick up point for the return boat ride to Homer.

Not quite a step ladder this time, but the makeshift steps still extended into the water and required maneuvering way beyond my natural agility. Somehow I collapsed into the boat unscathed. And this time, I was the one with the camera.

All that remained was the boat trip back. All in all, a fantastic day and for us a new addition to our Top 10 Hikes in the World Ever.

One of the perks of working for a cruise company, in particular this cruise company, is that we don’t just have cruise ships. We also have a number of upscale lodges, which as luck would have it happen to be in Alaska. We’d booked in for a night at the Kenai Princess Wilderness Lodge, which just so happened to be the very last night they were open for the season.

We spent a relaxing afternoon wandering down by the river looking for bears, then drying off in the rustic cabin room with a cozy wood-fired stove and private porch.

The afternoon was completed with hot as you like showers (no tokens required!) and truly a luxury – a hairdryer. Might not seem like much to you, but my new normal is towel-dry, essentially damp hair. Never dry hair. Wet hair. In the summer not a problem. But ugh, damp hair in the cold – for me means long chilly fingers seeping ever so gradually through my scalp to my bones, making me cold from the inside out. Not tonight though. Indeed, very happy to have hairdryer hair. And a hearty meal rounded off the evening.

One of the Must Do’s in Alaska is salmon fishing. Now I happen to know a thing or two about pacific salmon, having become closely acquainted with the different types and quality for a project at work a couple of years ago. It can get a bit confusing with various names for each type of salmon but I can give you a quick version if you like….

There are five types of Alaskan salmon, and you can remember them by counting them off on the fingers of your hand:

The first, is Chum – rhymes with thumb (also known in Alaska as Dog salmon because it’s just about good enough to feed your dog. If you see it in the supermarket, it’s usually smoked and likely to be called by its Latin name Keta). Next up is your pointy index finger, which you could use to sock ‘em in the eye, or Sockeye salmon. Then you have your middle finger, the biggest of the lot, think King salmon (also known as Chinook, considered the most supreme in flavor as well as in size). Followed by your ring finger, used to denote Silver salmon (Coho). And lastly, your little finger – your pinky – think Pink salmon (humpy).

So Chum, Sockeye, King, Silver and Pink. Ta-da, consider yourself an Alaska salmon expert. (And in case you’re wondering, Atlantic salmon is just one species so no need for a round two).

All of this didn’t help one diddly squat with our fishing trip, mind. The salmon have different migratory patterns and timing, and therefore on the Kenai river in early September, like it or not you’re fishing for Coho.

It was dark when we got up at 5am. It was dark when we drove to our boat launch and it was still dark when we left the riverbank at 6am. We sat in the boat in the dark – and the drizzle I might add. Four of us plus the captain in a tiny fishing boat, anchored maybe a hundred yards from where we set off. And we waited. No sign of any fish and get this, no sign of even any fishing rods. Huh?

The gruff skipper explained that the fish didn’t start biting until after sunrise – but it’s important to get out early on the river to get a good spot. We should think ourselves lucky – just last month the trips started at 4am instead of 6! Hmm.

There was no sunlight getting through those rain clouds believe me, but gradually the grey sky turned a lighter shade of grey, indicating the passing of time, and out came the fishing rods. And then we waited some more.

Anyone who’s ever been fishing knows that a modicum of patience is required. As we sat around doing nothing, I looked to our compatriots in the boat, fully kitted out in head to toe camouflage, that’ll fool those pesky fish!

The conversation between them and the skipper turned to hunting moose and caribou. Noooo! I wanted to put my fingers in my ears and tune out but found it impossible. Deep breaths. Probably not the right time to start a feisty discussion on the ethics of hunting, especially when we’re essentially hunting salmon!

Throughout the long morning, we had a few nibbles but they weren’t exactly coming thick and fast. The skipper was pretty much tearing his hair out and spent most of the morning on the phone to his other buddies on the river. Seems like everyone else was having a similarly dry day. Muttered conversations overheard included “It don’t get any tougher than this.” “This’ll drive a man to drinking.” And my personal favorite “It’s like fishing in the Mojave desert”.

Luckily we were saved from an empty-handed tail between your legs retreat by a lucky catch from Darren. He was the only one of the four of us to land an edible fish, a Silver Coho in its prime, kudos indeed.

Meanwhile, the Sockeye I caught was well past the optimum stage for being edible, so she was returned to the river to complete her journey and the next generation. I could not be happier that I caught (in my opinion) by far the coolest salmon and yet that fish still got to complete its lifecycle and its destiny. Good luck Sockeye!

Seward:

From Hope, the port city of Seward is a mere hop, skip and a jump away across the Kenai peninsula, nestled in Resurrection Bay. Seward greeted us with some cool mammatus clouds and a spot of sunshine. Camping was rather busy, it being Labor Day weekend, but we managed to bag ourselves a prime waterfront camping spot and settled in to stay a few days.

Bring on the barbecue! In the UK, all it takes is a sniff of nice weather to get that bbq party feeling. A few hasty phone calls to friends is followed by an impromptu trip to Tesco express for burgers, sausages and chicken kebabs. I don’t think we’ve ever lost that carpe diem mentality when it comes to getting the bbq out.

Nothing major, but we fit in a few little hikes while we were in Seward.

On the Tonsina Creek trail, we heard the seagulls making a racket long before we saw them. Wondered what on earth was going on. Turns out they were seizing the day too. Think they’d been on the jungle drums to round up all their friends for the last minute salmon party, no bbq required.

The walk to Exit Glacier, peppered with signs showing where the face of the glacier was in prior years, was the most popular hike in the area.

And then you have Mount Marathon. For the nutters out there, there’s an annual race on 4th July up the runner’s route with 3,000ft of elevation gain, known as The Toughest 5K on the Planet (yes, up and back down again in 3.1 miles).

Even the hiker’s route is a steep scramble of a slog to the top, one for another time maybe, c’mon we’re on our holidays! But we did do enough of the lower slopes to get a view back down over Resurrection Bay.

Kayaker’s Cove:

Seward also happened to be our jumping off point for a trip to Kayakers Cove. Which does what it says on the tin – it’s a secluded cove accessible only by sea, where kayakers can explore the nearby shores and stay in a little log cabin overnight. We were the last guests of the season and had the run of the place to ourselves.

Got just a few pictures of our trip to Kayaker’s Cove so you can see for yourselves…

It might seem like we’re on a permanent holiday but we’re really not. We’ve taken odd days here and there to give us some long weekends, but this is our first full week’s holiday of the year. And we were excited to be spending it in Alaska.

First up: Hope AK. We hoped it was going to be good and it was. Hope is a quintessential gold rush era small town (maybe even city), which in the UK would be considered a village or a hamlet. And like in the UK, it has a pub. The iconic Seaview Cafe and Bar, no less. We first came here in 2012 and the place hasn’t changed a bit, from the decor to the sole barman. It’s timelessness is part of its charm.

Our hike through the forest up to Hope Point shall forever be known as The Fungi Walk. I have never seen such diversity of mushrooms and toadstools in the wild before. Including the Super Mario Super Mushroom, which looked like it belonged on a pixie field trip.

After all that hiking, it was about time we hit up the Seaview Bar.

The next day: a drizzly morning, a cozy BaseCamp, and a long drive from Canada finally caught up on us. Ah, maybe last night’s beers had something to do with it too.