Odyssey Tour (2)

Cold Foot - Deadhorse - Barrow
The tour to Barrow was drive up and fly back. Sounds easy........ Well not when you have a cold and every muscle in your body is aching!

Lucky for us there was only 6 tourists to fit into the van, so that meant 2 people to each bench seat that would normally have taken 3 people to each bench seat. Now that would have been very squishy.

To get to our destination, we travelled on the Dalton Highway. This has been built specifically for trucks travelling to and from the oil fields. Most of it is gravel with lots of pot holes. At one point we hit a hole so hard I thought I saw my kidney travelling behind us.

This is real wilderness. After driving for about 10 hours on the road we arrived at Coldfoot. This is not a town, it is a travel stop primarily for the truck drivers to stay overnight. However, more tourists are going to Barrow so they also use these facilities to stay and have a meal. The buildings are old site huts left over from when the pipeline was being built. The room was clean and the shower hot. Nothing special about the food but it was hot and filling.

Left at about 7.00am the next morning. After a few hours driving we turned off the road and  stopped at a place called Wiseman, population 20. A guy named Jack gave us a talk about living in Wiseman. He has lived there all his life. He went to other parts of America but couldn't handle the crowds or the fences ( no fencing in Alaska).

The people living in Wiseman have to love it. Living there is not easy. They do hunting in summer to ensure they have enough food for the long winter months. There are no shops, the closest town is Fairbanks and that takes a full day driving and costs bout $500 by the time he pays for petrol and an overnight room. Like most people in Alaska, Jack has a small plane, but the engine needs to be overhauled and he does not have the money at this point of time.

Back on the road again, some of the scenery is magnificent, miles and miles of wilderness. We came across a truck that rolled off the dirt road. The cab was very damaged. Emergency workers from one of the pipeline maintenance bases were on the scene, hopefully the driver was ok.

We crossed the arctic circle and finally got to Deadhorse (12 hours on the road), our over night stop. Once again this is not a town, the buildings are site huts left behind when the oil line was built. The mud and slosh is very deep. Both of us have become accustomed to such conditions and take itin our stride, we are glad to have a dry warm place to stay. The average temperature here is -11 Celsius.

Both Greg and myself are very excited about flying to Barrow the next day (yes, I have even become accustomed to flying on these little machines with propellers). We made sure we were well rugged up, eg I had 2 pairs track suit pants and a pair of wind proof/ waterproof pants on, 3 very warm tops and a water proof jacket, gloves, scarf, beanie.

It was bloody freezing, even with all my extra clothing on. Our guide, who says he doesn't like it when the temperature gets up to about 8 degrees Celsius because it is too hot, said he thought it was a pleasant day and was laughing at our suffering the whole time. Because he is anti e, he hS permission to hunt whales to provide food for the community, thank goodness nobody offered me anything to eat!

Barrow does not have made roads or footpaths and their homes are not well maintained. There are old cars and car parts scattered all over town on the side of the road and in the front and back yards of houses. Anyway, the people who live here are happy so I suppose that is all that matters. Definitely not my cup of tea.

Time to fly back to Deadhorse and pick up 2 more passengers for the flight back to Fairbanks.