Ruth toasted muffins (or English muffins, as they call them here), and, early, we were heading north, driven by Dave.

We parked at Horseshoe Bay ferry terminal, and took a big ferry, not all that far, to Bowen Island. Not a hop and a skip from the ferry landing, was Bowen Island Sea Kayaking, which was to provide our morning activity, arranged enthusiastically by Ruth. It was raining, in stark contrast to the previous run of hot sunny weather. This was probably better. With strong sunshine beating down, I’d prefer to be in the water than on it.
A friendly man named Tim dressed us in kayak skirts and life vests, and schooled us in the proper handling of paddles. Then our canoes were adjusted, and before long we were in the water, with nobody wet. Dave and Ruth each got their own kayak, while Debbie and I shared a double.

I don’t mind confessing that I found it a bit of a slog. The kayaks have a foot operated rudder. I was in charge of our rudder, and it always went in the opposite direction to the one I expected. Hence we probably traveled twice as far as necessary, as were were going in a very wavy line. Tim seemed to be moving with barely any effort at all. I could feel the lactic acid building up in my shoulders, and discomfort building in my back. It got especially difficult when we were heading upwind on choppy areas of sea. Debbie didn’t seem to be struggling as much as me, and some of the time I let her do all the paddling, which makes me a great big wuss I suppose.
We saw an eagle early on, and Tim told us lots of interesting stuff about the shoreline and the surrounding area. We now know what an arbutus is!

At least, when we returned to shore, everyone else admitted they were shattered too (except Tim, who promptly took another group out).

We checked the ferry timetable, to see when the next one was. To our surprise, there was a three hour gap in the timetable, meaning we couldn’t get back to the mainland for a little over two hours. On the one hand, this had the potential to make things a bit hectic for getting to the airport on time, but on the other hand, it relieved any pressure to rush our lunch, and we had a leisurely meal en terrace at a pub. There was an island community baseball match on, just out of our sight beyond some trees. An excitable waitress explained to us that after her shift she’d be serving beer at the after game party, and that she’d composed a humorous t-shirt caption to wear. The caption made reference to her breasts, while punning on the teams’ nicknames. I forget the details. She had once worked at Butlins in Bognor Regis.

We caught the ferry back to the mainland, eating ice cream cones as we boarded. Dave drove us home through heavy downtown traffic. In fact we had ample time to shower and change, pack, and get a taxi in plenty of time for our plane.

Fancy tickets or not, getting on a plane at Vancouver airport is not especially interesting, so I won’t get into details.

Before long we were being served wine on the plane. Then we ate some rather nice food. Then our beds were made up for us and we slept. Thanks Tesco.

We were late setting off again, especially since I sneaked in a few more turns of Civilisation before leaving. We got a pastry and a coffee at Starbucks, then caught a bus to Ruth’s office. Yesterday, we had walked past it unknowingly.

We went to a Malaysian restaurant very nearby, and while we were waiting for our table, the colleagues arrived. I’m ashamed to admit that their names were too exotic for me to remember. They were friendly and nice, and I think it’s OK for my sister to continue working with them.

My nasi goreng was huge and carb-heavy, and with my breakfast barely digested, I managed to eat less than half of it, which is a shame because it was very nice, and different from the Balinese version I’m used to, being sweeter and more tomato based.

After lunch, we caught a bus downtown. We both browsed the t-shirts and tat at Urban Outfitters, and found some fun things. Thereafter, we separated, so Debbie could do more shopping, and I could visit Vancouver Art Gallery.

I wanted to see their exhibition Krazy, which covers comics, graphic novels, manga, anime and video games.

I have mixed feelings about the exhibition. There were certainly a lot of fantastic exhibits, and I spent a long time looking at them in detail. Part of the show’s rationale was that although there have been exhibitions covering each of these areas in the past, none has combined them before. Yet by comparmentalising the exhibition into sections — you move from the comics section into the graphic novels section into the manga section, and so on — the show missed an opportunity to exploit the synergy within these art forms. I would rather have seen the art forms mixed up and grouped by theme or their place in history.

Anyway, why should manga and comics be in separate sections? Just because one is Japanese and the other is not? By that logic The Wrong Trousers should be in a separate section to Toy Story.

Each section had guest curators, and it seemed as if at least some of them felt the same way as me about this. Cartoonists Art Spiegelman and Seth, it was noted, had pointed out that the sections they curated, comics and graphic novels, really belonged together. A graphic novel is just a long comic. A comic is just a short graphic novel. It seems that the structure of the exhibition wasn’t flexible enough to absorb this realisation.

Every section showed the bias of the guest curator, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing, unless you’re claiming to be comprehensive or at least representative. In this case, for the comics, the focus was very much on the American golden age, followed by the underground comix of the 60s and 70s, and indie comics from the 80s onwards. There was no room for Marvel and DC, let alone anything that wasn’t North American. Still, what there was, was great, including lots and lots of original drawings, where the pencil guidelines were visible under the ink, alongside the final printed versions.

I’m really don’t know enough about manga or anime to comment on those sections, but Studio Ghibli was notably absent.

The computer game section was cursory. I suppose they couldn’t hope to rival the fantastic Game On exhibition that was shown at the London Science Museum recently, but all we had here was one room showing material relating to eight games chosen by Will Wright. How could he possibly sum up the visual art of gaming in eight games, especially when he needed to fit two games of his own in.

In case you’re wondering, the games were:

• Pac Man
• Super Mario World
• Civilization
• Quake
• Grand Theft Auto III (and sequels)
• Legend of Zelda
• The Sims (Will Wright’s most successful game)
• Spore (Will Wright’s upcoming game)

I think all of them would probably belong in a major exhibition of games, but there are lots of games I think are more representative. Of course, Will Wright has his own perspective, and if he was really limited to eight games, he had his work cut out.

The best part of the exhibition, however, was a part I almost didn’t notice was there, and that was the exhibition of ‘real’ art inspired by the consumer art shown in the rest of the exhibit. It was hit-and-miss as art must be.

Obviously, there was some Roy Lichtenstein. I have seen Blam!, elsewhere, an oil painting disguised as newsprint. The exhibits here were enameled steel disguised as newsprint. I longed to touch them, but it wasn’t allowed.

Christian Marclay’s works were so derivative of Lichtenstein, that I didn’t see any point in them.

The No Ghost - Just a Shell series of works in various media, by various artists, in which an unremarkable female manga 3D model bought from a catalogue is utilised in various artsy ways, works better as conceptual art than as anything you’d want to spend time looking at.

The three best works were all in the same room, and really made the exhibition worthwhile.

Dominating the room, was Strawberry Voice by “Mr”, a huge manga-esque pigtailed girl’s head, like the head of an enormous Strawberry Shortcake doll. Her eyes were painted with the reflection of a happy family scene, she wore a huge smile. The huge ties holding her huge pigtails in place were adorned with huge beads. If you weren’t observant, you might miss that there was a door in the back of the head, through which you could see a bedroom absolutely crammed with girlish dolls and toys. Snoopy was in there, asleep on his kennel. I don’t know what it all meant, but it was cool.

A friendly warden occasionally directed people towards the door in the back of the head, which I’m sure was helpful.

Opposite Strawberry Voice, was City Glow, a video installation by Chiho Aoshima and Bruce Ferguson. Spread over five  widescreen monitors, it was like a panoramic, super-colourful, modern Yellow Submarine, in which the viewer traverses a psychedelic city through various moods as buildings, trees and flowers grow and morph. It held me transfixed for its seven minutes. I want to share it with people, but without dragging them to Vancouver and paying $20, it’s tricky. If it’s shown near you, see it. Chiho Aoshima  has other works in other media with the same title and the same basic look, including a permanent set of murals at Union Square station in New York.

Finally, Mariko Mori’s Play with Me, is a giant photograph in which the artist (a strikingly attractive Japanese woman) stands dressed in body-hugging fantasy armour straight out of an anime inspired video game. She is at the doorway of an arcade, probably in Tokyo’s gaming hotspot, Akihabara, looking bored and needy, as arcade customers file past, studiously ignoring her.

In the museum shop, I scanned the expensive exhibition book to see if it contained my favourite bits in any worthwhile format, and decided it wasn’t worth getting. I bought Seth’s graphic novel Wimbledon Green, actually mistaking it for a completely different work, by a completely different artist, Milt Gross’s 1930 He Done Her Wrong: The Great American Novel (With No Words), which was exhibited. Clumsy. That’s what comes of looking at the pictures and vaguely comparing drawing style from memory, instead of actually reading the front cover. Still, Wimbledon Green appears to be worth having.

Trying to get home, I was advised not to take the bus which later turned out to be the right one,  and instead took a different bus, which took me to Kitsilano Beach, a short but steep uphill walk to Ruth and Dave’s house. Debbie was still shopping, it seemed. I half read my comic, and half shared with Dave in his exploration of various Xbox demo downloads.
Once Debbie had returned, and shown us her purchases (a paltry haul for such a long session - she is an inefficient shopper, almost as if there is pleasure in the process itself), we plotted dinner.

We walked a short distance to a sukiyaki restaurant on Broadway. They were busier than expected, but they took Dave’s phone number and promised to call when our table was ready. We spent this time getting tipsy on cocktails at Earl’s, a chain restaurant down the road, then staggering around Future Shop looking at gadgets and DVDs until they threw us out. I must stress that they threw us out because they were closing, not because we were unruly.

The sukiyaki was interesting and good. It was also very cheap, at $14 for all you can eat. The table gets a gas burner over which there is a bubbling pot of thin, sweet, brown sauce in which some cabbage is cooking. The waiter brings plates of raw pork and beef, along with a plate piled high with noodles, raw vegetables, leaves, tofu and funghi. As beginners, we allowed him to make a selection for us, but there are order slips on which you can request a specific mixture.

With chopsticks, we put bits and pieces into the bowl, and ate them when they were ready. We each had a bowl into which we cracked a raw egg. This was to dip the hot freshly cooked meat into.  It worked.

At the start of the meal, there was a terrifying moment when it appeared the restaurant didn’t serve alcohol. Everyone was nervous to broach the subject. The menu was turned over and everything was OK.

Tomorrow is an early start, so we went straight bed when we got home.

The Atomic Diner has “crazy crap on the walls”. You know the score: vintage photos, old toys, kitsch. In the mix there were a few photos of the queen in her younger days, a Charles and Di cushion and a Dragon’s Lair lunch box.

Full of food, we walked on towards Granville Island. We took an early left, which didn’t turn out to be right, but did take us past some sights. It seemed to be the Brollywood area - there were buildings with parking spaces outside marked “20th Century Fox” and “Universal”, and there were a lot of high-end car dealers in the area. We emerged next to the Molson brewery, which smelled nice, and walked some way over the Burrard Bridge, in order to get an overview and hence our bearings.

Once we had our bearings, we walked off the Burrard Bridge the way we came, and onto the scrubby area below, where I was pleased to point out a dead rat to Debbie. This (path, not rat) led us to the marina, from which we could follow the shore round to Granville Island.

We bought some cold drinks from a market stall, and sat outside to drink them. I was feeling a bit weak from the heat. We poked around the market a bit, but the heat was really getting to me, and it wasn’t much fun, especially since it was crowded.

We left the market, and found ourselves looking at some of the craft workshops. There was some lovely woodwork for sale, and we watched a glass blower do his thing (blowing glass). By now I had perked up a bit.
We walked off Granville Island, and made our way south to Broadway, where there are shops. We had promised to look for a Toronto football shirt for nice neighbour Steve. In the Running Room, we asked if they knew of anywhere that might sell them. “Well, you could try Soccer Cents, it’s about 15 blocks down the street. Or there’s Soccer West, that’s next door. They’re both in the soccer district.”

We chose to walk there, just taking in the kinds of shops there were, the views over Downtown, where we crossed a major intersection, the people on the streets and snippets of their conversations. There’s an excellent range of restaurant types along this street - Russian, Mongolian, Mexican, you name it. Especially, there’s a sushi restaurant on almost every block.

Soccer Cents and Soccer West turned out to be the same shop, and it did indeed stock a lot of football stuff. However, they didn’t stoop to stocking Toronto things, so we left empty handed. We caught a bus back towards Ruth and Dave’s.

It was mid afternoon, and because of our late and large breakfast, we hadn’t had lunch. We didn’t know what was in store for dinner, so we decided to get a light late lunch. We paused, fascinated, outside Transylvania, a Romanian restaurant. I’m eager to go, or at least hear from someone who’s been. Their comfort food looked as if it would be better suited to hungrier people on a colder day. We ate at BC Sushi, and seemingly started a trend, for it it was empty when we went in, and respectably busy when we left. The sushi and sashimi plates we ordered were bigger than expected, but didn’t defeat us. It wasn’t gourmet sushi, but it was cheap and good. I think Britain needs to embrace cheap basic sushi.

On the way home, we popped into Rogers Video — it’s a Blockbuster-like chain — where I bought two Xbox 360 games, Soul Calibur IV and Civilisation: Revolution. I’m sure I could have found a better price by shopping around, but Canadian prices are sufficiently low compared to the crazy European prices of games, that it didn’t seem necessary.

(Aside: some 360 games are region locked. Check before you buy! I did.)

Back at the house, Dave was home and playing Red Alert. I watched until he won his scenario. We hoped to play some Civilisation, two player,  but alas you can only do that with two consoles, which makes sense given the nature of the game. Instead, I played while Dave watched and made suggestions. This went on for longer than expected, during which Ruth arrived, a lot of pizza was delivered and some wine was opened — our hosts taking advantage of a clause in their household rules which allowed such luxuries when guests were present.

Eventually the two girls got bored of watching Civilisation, and demanded it come to a stop. I saved the game with England threatening to capture all my cities, and we selected a DVD to watch: Wasabi, in which Jean Reno discovers that almost everyone in Tokyo speaks perfect French.

… and with that, everyone was exhausted, and went to bed.

We homed in on Fraserway RV Rental, missing it a couple of times before finally getting the right entrance.

It was busy but efficient. We were guided to a final parking place, where are mileage was checked, and a cursory examination of the vehicle’s condition was made. We spent an hour or so packing our bags, and found that we had a lot of stuff. We threw away a lot of rubbish and recycling, and we donated some left over cans and noodles to the food bank box in the office.

It was oppressively hot. The combination of this and heaving suitcases around soon made me drip with sweat.

Staff were spray-washing RVs as they arrived, and it was amusing to see the way they hared around in them as if they were golf carts, after we’d been so careful when ours was in our care.

After doing the final paperwork in the office, we were offered a shuttle bus to a downtown hotel of our choice. Although we weren’t staying at a hotel, nor downtown, we could have used this to get us closer, and hence get a cheaper taxi to Ruth and Dave’s. However, there were several large families also waiting for shuttles. They had as much, or more, luggage than us. It was hot (did I mention). So, we asked them to order us a taxi to take us directly to the house.

The taxi driver told us we must enter the national lottery — there’s some sort of huge jackpot. Time was, Britons could laugh in a condescending manner at countries with a national lottery. That privilege was lost a long time ago.

We arrived, let ourselves in, heaved luggage up the stairs, and found that their robot vacuum cleaner was on the loose. We placed our luggage off the floor in order to avoid confusing it. Then we took half an hour to recover from the effort in the heat.

We walked down towards Kitsilano Beach, and had a delicious late lunch of blackened salmon salad, at the “Fish!” cafe. Then we added a new item to our “things we have done” list, and queued for a swimming pool. This was Kitsilano’s outdoor pool, and it was doing a roaring trade. We did three lengths, slowly, with rests in between. We could tell it was more than 25 metres long. It was only later on that we learned it was 137 metres long, and Canada’s longest swimming pool.

Having cooled down, we managed our temperature for the walk uphill back to the house, by eating ice cream cones.

Dave turned up shortly after us, having taken an after-work swim himself, then Ruth arrived a little after that.

Later in the evening, they took us to Hapa Izayaki, a short walk away, for dinner. As is the Izayaki way, we ordered lots of small dishes to share. I think the highlight for everyone was the self-seared beef — eight thin raw slices of marbled steak, a very hot slab of marble, a pot of sesame dressing, and some garnish. Everything else was good too, and Ruth and Dave tasted their first kimchi.

When we got home, everyone was tired. Ruth and Dave are apologetic about going to bed so early, because of their working hours, but we were grateful for the excuse to sleep early ourselves.

Today was a no bear day. It was another day of serious driving. Since I’d done most of the driving yesterday, Debbie did all the driving today!

Before we set off, we noticed that the campsite had a pressure wash hose, so we gave the van a once-over, removing the worst of the dead insects and mud. It’s by no means clean, but at least the rental company will stand half a chance of telling whether we’ve damaged it or not.

South of Prince George, it’s pretty enough, but it’s understated in comparison to what we’ve seen. Also, this was repeated road for us.

In Quesnel, we stopped to buy coffee and donuts at Tim Horton’s. I am gradually converting Debbie into a coffee fiend. We got them “to go”, because there was driving to be done. In the car park, there was a van, with eccentric graffiti drawn into the dust on the back. “This Machine Kills Fascists” was written on Woody Guthrie’s guitar, I believe.

By now it was hot, and we were grateful for the van’s air conditioning.

We stopped at Lac la Hache Provincial Park for lunch. Families were cavorting in the lake. We had meat to use up, so I sliced up some steak that was probably too good to be treated in this way, fried it on the van’s gas hob, and we had steak sandwiches.

The scenery remained pleasant but undramatic, until we reached the Fraser Canyon. This was spectacular on the way up, and it was just as spectacular on the way back.

We intended to press on, but we couldn’t help but stop at Alexandra Bridge Provincial Park, where a ten minute walk through the woods, along old road surface, took us to the suspension bridge that used to carry cars over the Fraser River. Now the winding around the cables is rusting, but it’s fit for foot traffic, and it has a kind of faded glory — not to mention views down the churning Fraser river.

We had planned to stay the night at Harrison Hot Springs, but by the time we reached nearby Hope, somewhere we know our way around from the journey North, it was approaching eight o’clock. We reasoned that (a) it would be an unseemly rush to make use of hot springs before the closed, and eat too, and (b) it was too hot to be seeking out even hotter water.

So, we stopped at a lakeside campsite in Hope. I impressed myself by lighting a roaring fire with startling efficiency, and we cooked our last meat product - marinated lamb kebabs from the real Canadian Superstore. We reflected on the fact that we’d had essentially the same meal six nights out of seven for the last three weeks: meat cooked over a fire, salad and bread. Still, it’s been different meat, and nice.

Debbie has been packing things and sorting out rubbish, to facilitate an easier handover when we return the van tomorrow.

Today was a five bear day. I have not invented a rating system using bears instead of stars. We saw five bears. Count ‘em.

Within ten minutes of leaving Bell II, with very nice coffee from their coffee shop in our travel mugs, a small black bear lolloped over the road in front of us. One bear. A couple of minutes later, a moose did much the same.

The Stewart-Cassiar Highway is smooth and easy from here all the way south, incidentally.

We took the side road to Stewart. It’s not on our way, but every source insists it’s unmissable. They’re right. The scenery on this road has everything: snow capped mountains, waterfalls, lakes, trees, white water, a glacier, the year-round snow mound from an avalanche area. As we approached Bear Glacier (which melts into Bear Lake, which empties into Bear River), a wet black bear similar in size to the last one trotted over the road. It had probably been in the river. Two bears.

We stopped to admire the glacier. It’s not as big as the one we hiked on (at least, not the visible part), but the way it comes down the mountain steeply, ending at the lake with a torrent of melt, is very dramatic indeed.

We carried on into Stewart. Here, the slightly surly lady at the visitor information centre advised me that Iskut Hot Springs Provincial Park, that we tried to reach yesterday, simply does not exist. Two guidebooks and the official British Columbia Parks map agree. So, MapArt Publishing’s BC road atlas contains at least one complete fabrication. Bad show.

It was not quite lunchtime, and we killed time by walking out onto the boardwalks that the people of Stewart have kindly built into their estuary. It was pretty. Birdwatchers and botanists would have especially loved it. I liked the nurse logs scattered around.

We bought sandwiches at a bakery/deli, and drove into adjoining Hyder in search of a scenic overview at which to eat. Hyder is an interesting place: it’s in Alaska, but it’s completely cut off from any other part of Alaska. The residents of Stewart go there for tax-free shopping. It has a US Post Office, a campsite, and lots of souvenir shops. As soon as you cross the (unmanned - on the way into the US) border, the smooth Canadian road is replaced by a bumpy gravel surface more suited to a farm driveway.

We headed towards the Salmon Glacier, some 20 miles up the road - but the road condition was against us. We did the sums: 20 miles each way, 20mph, that’s two hours out of our schedule — and we were a long way from Vancouver, where we need to be on Wednesday morning. So, we turned back. Heading back through Hyder — where people were around, chatting, riding bikes, manning their shops, generally doing people things — another bear ambled over the road. Three bears.

It was at this point that I decided to blog about the three bears we’d seen, and note that we’d named the moose Goldilocks. This was not to be. Unless you count that just now.

We went back into Stewart through Canadian customs — no issues except that we had to back up to avoid their awning, since our vehicle was too tall. We returned to Bear Glacier, and ate our sandwiches at a picnic table in Bear Glacier Provincial Park Picnic Area. Many people might be a little disappointed to find that this picnic area does not have a view of the glacier. What did we care? We’d already seen the glacier. It had a great view of the lake, the mountain, and some waterfalls.

While we were eating, a large group of people arrived and started setting up an elaborate picnic, with tablecloths and everything. The women were dressed similarly to Amish women. The men were dressed smartly, but not outlandishly. We speculated that it’s the men that make the rules.

Returning to the main route South, we stopped to admire a bridge. What’s wrong with that? I like bridges. Don’t you?

Debbie joked that we should be careful getting out of the van, as there are bears in these parts. As we pottered around on the other side of the road, getting photos, Debbie pointed over the bridge and said “John, there’s a bear over the bridge. It’s coming right at us!”. Now, Debbie is the girl who cried “bear”, and I did not actually believe her until I looked, but there it was. It wasn’t coming right at us. mind you. It sloped into the undergrowth without crossing the bridge.

Returning to the van, we found an occupied car in the layby. He was about the drive over the bridge, so I told him to look left, and if he was lucky, he might see the bear. He replied “Oh, I live on Vancouver Island. They come and poke around our back yard all the time.” So much for our excitement.

Four bears.

After that, it was solid driving. There was a nervous period during which the fuel warning light came on, and all we could do was keep driving and hope to find somewhere. During that time, we passed a bear on the verge. We didn’t stop, because the fuel issue was a priority, and anyway, it was only a bear. We were sick to the back teeth of bears by now.

Five bears.

Once we’d fueled up, it was just driving. We’d set a target of Prince George, and we stuck to it. For the first time, we were driving south and late enough that it got dark. I had to work out where the headlight switch was. Debbie saw a deer. One deer.

We arrived in Prince George at 9:15 — 15 minutes earlier than I’d predicted. We’d used up another tank of petrol, so we filled up. There was a Shell station and another station next to each other. Still angry with Shell about their user-unfriendly pump in Whitehorse, I opted for the other one. It was no self-service, and a nice man washed our windscreen very thoroughly while the pump did its thing. I tipped him handsomely, because we’d run out of screenwash some miles back, and the windscreen was caked with flies.

We drove through Prince George, and are camped in a large, well-kept RV park on the Southern outskirts. It was too late to spend time cooking, so we had kimchi flavour bowl noodles (always a treat) and we’re sharing some wine.

We had done very well fending off Northern Canada and Alaska’s notorious biting insects, through a combination of DEET, insect repellent smoke spirals, mesh on our doors, vents and windows, and covering up with clothes.

That ended last night, when Debbie woke up in the middle of the night to find that I hadn’t closed the door fully — it was just open a fraction of a crack — and a couple of dozen mosquitoes had sneaked into the van. At around 4am, we had a frantic 20 minutes of bug squashing, which didn’t get them all. At around 5am, we were still paranoid about insects, and Debbie suggested that since neither of us could sleep, we should give it half an hour, then give up, get up and start driving. It was already light, after all.

At a quarter to nine, we both woke from deep slumber.

Usually I bear the brunt of insect attacks. I get the most bites, and react worst - but today Debbie has more bites than me, and they have swollen up more dramatically. Let’s hope they fade quickly.

By lunchtime, we’d covered our last repeated part of the Alaska Highway, and turned south on route 37, the Stewart-Cassiar Highway. According to Lonely Planet it has a “fearsome reputation”. The first few miles lived up to it - rough gravel every few hundred metres, sharp turns and humps. And, it was narrow. Not a single lane road, but narrow enough to have no centre line. This was what we’d been led to expect on the Alaska Highway, and we’d felt a little short changed when it was so wide and smooth most of the way. So, we were glad to get a road with personality now.

After the first 20 miles or so, it got a lot smoother. Perhaps the rough road is there to preserve the reputation, for those who just dip a toe in?

We stopped at a rest area, for a lunch of tinned chilli, tortillas, dip and bread.

The Stewart-Cassiar highway is gorgeous. Around every corner there’s a new view. It’s also more direct than the Alaska Highway. Despite having to pay more attention to things like corners, I’d recommend it to anyone as the best way to go North or South in British Columbia. There really are very few settlements on this road, but there are petrol stations around as often as you need them.

We got out of the van at the bridge crossing the Stikine River, to admire the view along the river, and the bridge itself. After that, things got alpine, with yet more snow-capped mountains coming into view. The verges became colourful with pink, yellow and white wild flowers.

There were three unpaved sections, each around 25km long, bit even these weren’t as tough as you might expect. We found ourselves overtaking a lot of vehicles that were taking it very slowly - but we didn’t feel we were taking risks. There didn’t seem to be any likelihood of our ending up like the unfortunate car we encountered abandoned in a roadside ditch. Either they were going much faster than us, or they just let their attention drift.

Although it wasn’t mentioned in any of our guide books, the road atlas showed ‘Iscut Hot Springs Provincial Park’ on our route, and that sounded like a great place to spend the night. But, we never saw it. My working theory is that it’s only accessible via the Iscut River, and the map’s not detailed enough to show it.

Once we’d established it wasn’t there, we resolved to stop in the first campsite we saw, which turned out to be the ‘Bell II Lodge’. It’s a Scandinavian feeling resort, with log cabins, a gym, sauna, hot tub and restaurant. In winter, it’s a base for heliskiing tours. In summer, it’s sort of seeking a purpose, but houses passing travelers like us.

There is no fire pit, and although we have a gas cooker, it’s not as much fun, so we went to their restaurant. We both wanted salmon from the specials menu, but others had beaten us to the last of the salmon. Debbie had fish’n'chips, and I had a burger. They were big helpings and it was good stuff.

Afterwards, we used the sauna because it was there. We’d have used the hot tub too, but it was full (”of dweebs”, adds Debbie).

I haven’t all that much to report today. Our Alaskan activities left us behind schedule for getting home, so we’re doing lots of driving to catch up. Today was all retreading Alaskan Highway we’ve already done in the other direction.

It’s not a bad thing, though. The scenery is different going in the other direction. Not only that, but half an hour into the drive, we came upon a moose in the road. At last! It was quite small compared to the stuffed ones in museums. We stopped near it. It didn’t charge us. It gave us a slow look, then ambled into the undergrowth. I scrabbled for my camera, but failed.

This time, our views of Kluane National Park were uninterrupted by cloud, and it looked wonderful - snow peaked mountains towering over forests and lakes. This is the North you see on the covers of travel books.

We had lunch in a cafe in Haines Junction - 300km from our start.

Shortly after Haines Junction, we saw an old wooden bridge that we hadn’t spotted coming the other way. We had to stop for a closer look. An information board explained that it dated from the original 1942 building of the Alaska Highway, and replaced a previous bridge that was built in 1902. I would have liked to have walked across it, and I’m sure we could have (despite a broken support), were it not for our obedience when it comes to signs.

As we left Kluane behind, we came to realise that the best views were through our rear window, for now.

We stopped in Whitehorse for some food and supply shopping, and to belatedly move our clocks forward to Canadian time. I got irritated enough with the pump at a Shell petrol station, that I left and filled up elsewhere instead.

We drove another hour or so, to our current RV site in Johnson’s crossing, around 600km from Beaver Creek. Johnson’s crossing has a bridge, and a combined motel, petrol station and RV park — and that’s it. The whole motel/petrol/RV concern is for sale. We arrived at around 8, and the office was closed, so motel customers would be out of luck. We got to choose a site, and will pay in the morning. This business (and presumably the property it’s on) could be yours for CA$520,000.

One of the benefits of getting to the office when it’s open, is that they tell you the key code for the toilet block. We didn’t get that luxury.

Now, at a previous site, the combination lock had five buttons, and the code was two digits long. I’ll leave it as an exercise to the reader, to work out how many attempts it would take to find the combination by brute-force. Actually, if I told you it would probably take you ten attempts, you could have a reasonable guess at the actual combination.

Today, Debbie did try a brute-force attack, and failed. So, she asked our neighbours, who told her the single digit code…

Meanwhile, I lit a fire, and investigated why there were so many insects around the front of our van. In so doing, I found a small mangled bird embedded in the grille. It was about the size of a chaffinch. Prizing it out at throwing it away some distance from the van did nothing to reduce the insects’ numbers. Perhaps they were feasting on the remains of their less fortunate brethren? Still, better they were there than at our picnic table.

I was very proud of the fire I made today — it produced just enough intensely hot embers to cook our buffalo burgers, leaving a tiny heap to be extinguished with a couple of beer bottles of water.

After eating, we walked down to the Teslin river, mostly to look at the handsome road bridge. Under the bridge, there’s a boat ramp, and signs telling fishermen what the regulations are.

Tomorrow: more driving!

It didn’t take long to get going today - we were going to get wet (or so we thought). I used that as an excuse not to shower. Debbie did shower, but skipped her normal haircare regime.

We went back to the Nova Tours base camp, where five locals were also on our trip. We’d been told we’d be wearing drysuits, which I’d assumed to mean the waterproof version of a wetsuit, as worn by divers. In fact, our suits were loose waterproof outfits, sealed at the feet, with watertight rubber seals at the neck and wrists, which we wore over our normal clothes. So in fact, even if either of us fell in, in theory only our heads and hands would get wet.

We drove a short way up the road, to Caribou Creek. The rest of the group were in a large raft with another guide, while Debbie and I were in a smaller raft with Craig, the same guide from yesterday. We had paddles, while he had oars. I’m really not sure to what extent our paddling contributed.

On gentle water, moving towards the exciting bit, I saw what I thought might be a bird on the shore. Then I decided it was just a funny shaped bit of wood. In fact it was a young bald eagle, probably on the lookout for fish.

The white water was a lot of fun, perhaps not quite as intense as my previous experience in Switzerland, during which I fell in, but yes, lots of fun. From the spray on our faces, and the water on our hands as we paddled, I could tell it was as cold as you’d expect glacier melt to be, and even fully clothed under my drysuit, I wouldn’t have liked to fall in.

On dry land again, we both commented that we felt as if there was water in the suit - but when we took them off, we were bone dry. Magic, and very convenient, because five minutes later, we were driving away, very satisfied with our experience.

We stopped at the viewing half of last night’s recreation site, made some tuna sandwiches, and ate them while looking down on the glacier, and the spectacular mountains behind it.

After that, we drove.

I find it quite heartening that we drove for seven hours, without passing through anything but the tiniest settlement. We reached the end of the Glenn Highway at Glennallen, then took the Tok Cutoff to Tok. This is the only sensible route from Anchorage to Canada, so it was surprising just how few vehicles there were on the road.

We bought large coffees and nutritious gas station hot dogs, with gloop from all the sachets (mustard, ketchup, sweet relish, chopped onion), in Tok.

From Tok onwards, we were retreading old ground - this was the Alaska Highway again, in the opposite direction. It was a rough stretch, with frequent short gravel sections. These sections are generally just 20 metres or so long, but you have to slow right down for them, which gets irritating.

We were approaching the Canadian border. I realised that we had American currency left over, and it would be useful to use it up. I also realised that it would be a good idea to fill up on petrol, in order to take advantage of the cheaper American price. It was Debbie, though, who noticed the synergy between these two ideas.

We stopped at the second-to-last petrol station before the border (spreading our custom around - we’d used the other one last time we passed). The proprietor liked to exploit his geographical position by selling alcohol and tobacco and anything else that’s taxed more in Canada. Debbie heard him advising two young men to buy Red Bull from him. A couple of minutes later, just before I got in the van, I heard him say to them “They’re like, six dollars each in Canada”. “Oooof!”, they both responded, sounding genuinely pained.

Canadian customs: no problems. We may have sneaked in one more bottle of wine than is strictly allowed. Breakin’ the law!

“Canada’s most westerly settlement”, Beaver Creek’s main reason for existing is to give us somewhere to sleep. So says Lonely Planet, and who are we to argue? So, we parked in the first RV site we saw, which is nothing but a big car park with a few trees, power and water, and a shower block. It was past nine when we got here, so it’s not as if the ambience is all that important.

This place has barbeque grills on legs, and I made a fire that I’m particularly proud of. We cooked reindeer sausages (mostly pork and beef though, according to the label) over perfect flameless hot glowing wood embers. The meal was spoiled by insects flitting around us. I don’t think they were biters (and anyway, we’re DEETed to the hilt), but they were annoying nonetheless. In fact they continue to annoy. One just landed on my laptop screen. They sure do come apart easily.

Once again, because of an unpowered campsite, I write as if I’m writing in the evening of the day in question, but in fact it’s a day later than that.

We didn’t sleep all that well in Anchorage. I’m not sure why. I don’t want to blame the trains, because there were only about three all night, although they did a lot of tooting because of crossings. Still, we made a prompt exit because we had an appointment.

We had a mental shopping list to get before our appointment. This included gloves for Debbie, a scouring pad, breakfast goods, and American priced beer and wine (before we return to Canada). We were both convinced there was a Fred Meyer (new favourite shop!) on the way out of Anchorage. Navigation onto the main road out turned out to be much easier than anticipated. However, if we’d seen Fred Meyer on our way in, we didn’t see it this time. We carried on regardless, on the Glenn Highway, thinking one of the settlements en route to our appointment would have a suitable shop.

In Palmer, we decided to take a 10 mile detour back to Wasilla, because there didn’t seem to be anything there, and it was the last dot on the map. Just before we took the turning towards Wasilla, we spotted a Fred Meyer. Phew.

The only gloves they had were gardening gloves and mechanic’s gloves, so we left those out.

Scouring pads are not very interesting things, and so they completely slipped both our minds, so we left those out too.

We kept our eye out for shops selling gloves, as we drove out of Palmer, but Palmer Glove Center wasn’t just around the corner, and we carried on our way gloveless.

The scenery along the Glenn Highway is gorgeous, and as we approached the site of our appointment, it became more dramatic. Perhaps the clear weather helped, but to me this was better than Denali.

In Chickaloon, we pulled into King’s Mountain State Recreation Area, to heat up a tin of soup for lunch. It was goldfish soup - but don’t worry, the goldfish were made of pasta. This was right opposite the place of our appointment, a word I have been emphasising in order to spark curiosity and suspense.

We were ten minutes early at Nova Tours’ office. Here, we were booked in for a glacier hike today, and some white water rafting tomorrow. How active of us! It turned out that the office was only for the administrative stuff — paying and signing release forms. We then drove 20 miles or so, through some rather tortuous roadworks. We often speculate on the sheer tedium of being a flag lady (they’re almost always ladies), holding a stop/slow sign at roadworks. Here, we speculated about whether the truly remarkable mountain view compensated.

Right after the roadworks, we drove down a steep gravel road, to Nova’s temporary base (their usual home having been occupied by the road workers). Along with a group of four women from San Francisco, we were equipped with boots and helmets. Our guide, Craig, a graduate in Wilderness Leadership (”Liberal arts colleges, they’ll teach you pretty much anything”) drove us ten minutes to the face of Matanuska Glacier, gave us crampons and walking sticks, and led us onto it.

At first, we were on moraine, piled up glacier silt, with ice underneath. It’s not too pretty. Nitrogen poor, not much grows on it, until it’s colonised by the few plants that fix nitrogen from the air. Once you’re off the moraine, though, it’s predominantly beautiful blue-white ice. Without crampons is would have been very difficult to balance, although a few foolhardy souls were trying their chances (”If you’re gonna be stupid, you’d better be tough.” said Craig).

Soon we were shown our first moulin. This is where water that’s melted off the glacier, and grit carried with it, has worn a hole into the ice. This one plunged down as far as the eye could see, as water poured down it in a spout. Its actual depth isn’t known — it’s not worth measuring since the glacier is dynamic, and moulins come and go. The ice is known to be 5,000 metres deep in places, though. We were treated to the story of a teenager a few years ago, coming to the end of a glacier safety course, who got cocky, slipped into a moulin and was never seen again. After that, we were careful.

We saw more moulins, some large, some small, one of which had appeared since this morning, and a huge crevasse. It was all fascinating, exciting and beautiful.

After that adventure, we wanted to find somewhere nearby to camp. At the office, we’d half listened to some advice about a fully serviced RV site further along the road. We went in search of it, but when we seemed to have gone a bit far and nothing suitable showed up, we turned back, and camped at the Matanuska Glacier State Recreation Area. This is divided into two areas - a day area with a panoramic view over the glacier, and a camping area, with no views at all. It’s very cosy though - we’re in the woods and each site has its own clearing with a picnic table and a fire pit.

As I was tending our fire, a voice called “Anyone home? It’s your neighbour!”. He was a dramatically mustachioed Texan, with a heightened sense of bear caution. He had already asked his other neighbours whether they’d seen a bear, and now he was asking us. When I said we hadn’t seen any, and that our tour guide today believed most of the bears in the area stayed on the other side of the river, he nodded seriously. “Good, good. We should all be safe then.”

We cooked reindeer burgers over the fire, then retired to the van to play Chrononauts (I keep winning - but I’m sure it’s 80% luck), then get some sleep. Tomorrow: rafting!