Alaska: Juneau | A North American Bicycle Journey

Day97

Ferry to Juneau (Rest Day)[MAP]

Alaska21 August 1.41 miles 0:13 hours

Tried to book a ferry all the way to Seward, but found out that it doesn’t leave for a week. So much for my ferry timetable reading skills. Bought a ticket to Juneau instead and went and waited in a car queue to board the boat at 7:30am. Before getting onto the ferry it was necessary to go through US customs and as each car pulled up to the inspections officer he asked them if they had any fruit in the car. When I got to customs, he asked me a few friendly questions about my bike trip and gave me the ok. Being the good boy I am, I asked him if he was gonna ask me about all the fruit I had hanging in plastic bags from my handlebars and guitar.

“Ah, it’s a stupid rule anyway”, he said, and waved me through.

The ferry ride was similar to the BC ferry ride, mostly through beautiful but monotonous hills filled with trees. Did spot two humpback whale tails this morning but haven’t looked out that much. I’ve been getting absorbed in my two new books, Lance Armstrong’s “It’s not about the bike” and “Doctor Zhivago”. I claimed a spot in the lounge, grabbed a coffee and started reading. A really cute, blue-eyed, brunette sat down in the seat in front of me, with what I assumed were her parents. As the dad went past he asked me about the coffee in a familiar accent so I used the opportunity to ask him where he was from.

He was an old farmer from Wagga in New South Wales, and was with his wife Barb and daughter, the cute one, Meg. Meg was taking time off from her cruise ship job to show Barb and Peter around Canada and the Alaskan Inside Passage. Peter and I got talking about farming and retired farmers and the subject came upon his health and he told me how he has Coeliac disease, the intolerance to gluten, as well. So this got us really talking about our experiences and so there was plenty to talk about between farming and having the shits to fill in several hours.

When we stopped at Ketchikan, Megan invited me along for a tour of downtown. The ship only stops at the port for thirty minutes, but Meg, who had been here many times before on the cruise ship, knew exactly where to go and what to see. It was hilariously funny because we were literally running between sights and every time we passed a nice shop, Barb would give a tortured sigh. Thirty minutes was not enough time for shopping. Meg’s mum was a little hard of hearing so the tortured sighs were always quite loud, and she was often the loudest person in the ship’s lounge. Meg confided that when they were kids, Barb, even with her “bad hearing” could hear Meg or her twin brother mutter a “fuck” quietly under their breaths from over fifty yards away.

Day98

Juneau (Mendenhall Glacier Campground, Rest Day)[MAP]

Alaska22 August 42.74 miles 3:42 hours

Juneau ferry (Day 98)

It’s a bit hard to sleep in a stuffy ship’s lounge after spending the last three months living in a tent. Last night after dark, I grabbed my sleeping bag and mattress and made good use of the reclining chairs in the open air solarium at the back of the boat. I had a wonderful sleep and when I woke up with the sun I spotted a few humpback whales and icebergs. We got into Juneau at lunchtime and I rode up to the campground located on the edge of a lake opposite from an amazing glacier. Just being within sight of the glacier is like being in a bloody refrigerator, it’s so chilly even though the sun is out in force.

It’s a very fancy campground, flash toilets and showers and very private camping sites all very spread out. I found the backpacker sites and tried to squeeze my food into the small bear-proof food locker that’s meant to be shared between six sites. It’s almost a mile from my campsite to the entrance of the campgrounds and there’s virtually no one else here. Rode the fourteen miles into town and for the second time on this trip I got pulled over by a cop for riding on the freeway.

Day99

Juneau (Mendenhall Glacier Campground, Rest Day)[MAP]

Alaska23 August

Iceberg, Tracy Arm Fjord, Juneau (Day 99)

Meg gave me the idea of doing a boat tour today so I booked hoping it would also be a chance to see them (her) again. They were the last ones to show up and immediately got into an argument with the owner about prices, as they’d been given an old brochure with a cheaper price. From then on we referred to the captain as “the Arsehole”. It was really great to hang out with Meg again and I got to like her more and more. It was cold as buggery being around all these glaciers even though it was a very sunny day. Someone told me that Juneau averages thirty-three sunny days per year, so far we’ve been lucky to get two of them. The boat took us up a fjord and pretty soon we were seeing icebergs larger than houses that had broken off the glacier further upstream. The boat parked itself about a half mile from the glacier and we were treated to a magnificent display of ice carving. With a huge cracking noise, enormous shards would fall off the face of the glacier and into the water, making an enormous splash and sending a large swell in our direction. This went on for about ten minutes and pretty soon the water surrounding the boat was covered in pieces of ice.

The colour of the glacier ice and icebergs is an amazing vibrant blue, there’s some sort of physics to explain it, but buggered if I could repeat it here.

On the way back we stopped to let off a boyfriend and girlfriend who were doing some kayaking for three days. As they were lowered into the water everyone on the boat started singing “row, row, row your boat” much to the displeasure of the Arsehole. He was trying to get the kayakers’ attention to tell them to be at the same place in three days for pickup and to be careful of the tides and bears. The Arsehole did redeem himself somewhat when the glacier tour turned into a fantastic whale watching tour and thus saved us all from spending another hundred bucks.

I parted ways with Meg and her Mum and Dad and instantly felt the pangs of loneliness after having spent the last few days with them. She was a very cool girl, and a lovely family.