Wednesday 27 June 2012

Dust To Dawson 2012 20th Year


D2D 2012 20th Year
Dawson is a old gold mine town, it has lots of old buildings, looks like Granity on the West Coast of New Zealand. The pub in town sell “sour toe” cocktail. A toe from old miner’s dead body has removed and put in a cocktail, you can drink it.



How gross!

We sat at Midnight Sun Hotel for a drink, the waitress said we can buy a bottle of wine with off sale price, but still drink in the pub. We believed her, it turned out the off sale price was $11 and we paid $27, what a ripe off for naive Kiwis.

The rest of the evening was enjoying street shenanigans on motorcycles, skill event with slow races, slalom, blindfold ride  and eat the sausage.





Ellen wasn't used to something so small so she failed 

Street games ... blindfolded







Hobbit and Chiwi in the main street









Here is a bunch of Dawson City town photos, to see more go to our photobucket album so we don't bore you to tears   .. .this town is a good energy town and very very cool, even tho we are only borrowing energy and we return it to earth when we die there is plenty of good karma and a nice feeling with the place, dirt roads and all  













We also met up with some other RTW bikers www.2tmoto.com


Dawson To Eagle Plains On The Dempster/Dumpster/Duster Highway
On conclusion of D2D we packed down, tanked up and headed off to Eagle Plains on the way to Inuvik, we dropped off our new front tyres to “The Dick” and left them in his workshop.

The Dempster/Dumpster/Duster ... well what can I say .....

It started off as any normal (to us) trip does, tarseal ... then shingle, 407 km of it, the road varied from beautiful Calcium Chlorided nicely bound together road i.e. 50 - 69 mph stuff down to 3rd world pakistan potholes.

N o i c e wee lunch spot



We arrived safe and sound after a pretty uneventful trip with our only misdemeanor being Ellens little stop over a grader windrow of shingle and an exciting deluge of heavy rain and lightening beyond belief the rain was bouncing back upwards about 1 metre and carrying with it mud and clay which made a brown mist of sludge hovering in the air and the road flowing like a river.



The campground at Eagle Plains was great, hot shower (WOH HOH), flushing toilets, Wifi (sorta) and a few other ADVers to chat to and some cyclists from Switzerland (the next level of nuttership from adventure motorcycling)

The mozzies weren’t too bad as we had padlocked our bikes down so they couldn’t take them away, the following morning dawned a nice day so we packed up house and contents and headed on our merry way after we had left our keys in the tent!!!!

It was only 5 minutes down the road and I had to stop and we tipped out the tent on the road to make sure we still had the said keys, once settled in my mind, spare keys back in the top box and original keys back in the ignition we were on our way.

This is the bridge we stopped at ... quite neat and a beautiful place to sort our shit out!!.



The road deteriorated badly and quickly, we had managed to ride the Dempster on what was to turn out to be one of the biggest road works we have ever encountered, we are talking probably 250km long of riding on hard base with ball bearings with soft dust in between .. then it rained ... for F@$&s sake it turned into puffy mud and the fun factor diminished somewhat.









We too were Chiwi and Hobbit comets with quite the tail following us .... it was just ten fold bigger with the trucks.

We later found out there were three bike wrecks on the road that day with two going back on trucks, one was straightened out enough to ride back. (Robins who I would later help)

The Arctic Circle on the Dempster





Northern territories border



There are two Ferry crossings with ver boggy entry ramps, this created entertainment for GS rider who came to greif and tore off the left pannier 



U dead? ya mun!!





Photo from the bridge of the Ferry



We arrived at Rengling river at about 6.30 pm and decided to have some food as Ellen was spent and I was tired too, we then decided to set up camp and call it a day, we were in bed by about 8.30pm, we were both woken by big winds that was shuffling the tent around, we had placed some pretty big rocks on the guy ropes so we hoped up and nailed them down with pegs, the ground was like concrete hence the rocks idea.

The following morning was hot, we packed up amidst a sea of mozzies and big black flies that actually bite a chunk out of you .... hmmmm.... just to elongate our stay Ellen binned her bike (again) as we were leaving camp.

Hitting the road and assuming the terror of bad road it improved literally within a mile of camp to our surprise, outstanding reprieve from the roadworks so a reasonable pace was set, the light was weird, very gamma looking and hard to pick the soft spots, unusual light for us that do not live within the Arctic Circle.

We arrived in Inuvik and it was HOT, about 35 degrees C, we stopped at a cafe and had a cold coffee, the girls in there let us leave our gear so we could walk around town in our civy gear.





The local supermarket store was a winner with food and drink as well as air cond, so a hot pizza and cold tea we were fed and watered. We bought some energy drinks for our long haul back to Eagle Plains as we could not camp wild for reasons of being in Grizzly Bear country and womans monthly things on the go so to avoid being on the Grizzly lunch menu it was best to head to the safety of partial civilization.

The is the Deli/bike section 



Honourary Kiwis





Inuvik back to Eagle Plains

Well on the way back we came upon an epic thunderstorm so we decided to sit it out as they normally race through pretty quickly however this one had a brother and sister and before we knew the whole family surrounded us.





It was all around us and that is where we were heading



The wind was so strong it blew Hobbit of his side stand ... Ellen then lost her footing with the wind and she went down too...this was caught on camera.



We finally made it back to Eagle Plains campground at 11.00pm and set up camp ... hot shower and relax down however the energy drink was still doing its jobs so we got our moneys worth.

Next morning was cool and mostly clear however the wild fires had created quite a brown haze which did cut down the scenery somewhat and there were burnt patches for miles along the road where the fire had started after we had been through on the way in.

The trip for us was uneventful with time to take pics of the sulphur rivers with rust coloured water so out came Two Photo Kiwis and some artistic sessions.

To prove the danger we put ourselves through to get goo pics for you guys see the mozzies trying to bite the lense off the camera 





The river



The road



Hobbit turn 5000 miles old on the way out



Andis Playstation ... forget the poxy Xbox!!!



The road had changed dramatically even over the three days and for the better so our exit pace was far much smoother and quicker.

On returning to Dawson we went back to Dicks to pick up our front tyres we had left, Dick offered us space to put down our beds as we wanted to clean air filters, re-inflate tyres, clean the Calcium Chloride off the bikes and change the front sprockets out.



We ended up staying the first night with the vision of finishing the bikes in the am then off to Whitehorse, we then heard that Robin who had binned her 1200 GS on the Dempster (note rolled the bike completely over buckling to two side cases, engine bars and wind screen mounts) was coming to Dicks workshop to straighten it out as good as they can, Ross turned up and it was game on.

Being there I offered to help so I spent 3 hrs with them and knocked the two cases into shape to make them watertight again, repaired the latches, straightened the screen and engine protection bars, it is not perfect but it is 100% better than when it came in, they too are doing the Dalton so they too still have some traveling to do.

Best to you guys and we hope you trip up there goes smoother.

Upon finishing her bike I set too and finished ours, we sat down to a tea of Ellens home made Sushi and Dicks sashimi Tuna, outstanding it was too.

Tomorrow morning Thursday 28th June we set off South.... next report will be in a few days again, stay safe, enjoy your riding if you are getting out and luv from Two Moto Kiwis.