Managing to escape Canada (with reservations about leaving) and finding ourselves in the USA it is on to the next groovy location, destination Glacier Park.
We continued down Highway 95, turned off left onto Highway 2 then 508 into the back and beyond, stunning road that got narrower with less traffic as we carried on, perfect. This road took us through various small shingle roads and tar seal roads, we thought we were lost but turns out our navigational skills had improved so we should have trusted our own judgement first off.
Koocanusa Lake was our destination to camp that night however we stumbled across a small camp ground at Caribou Creek, there was only two other neighbours.
The family that was staying there had two VW campers and a MG car... not very American you lot!!!, Cath came out and promptly shifted her MG so we could park Hobbit and Chiwi and welcomed us in, totally cool, this will do us down to the ground!!
We had set up and organised ourselves when Thingymajig (sorry I can’t remember your name) pulled up on a 6 cylinder 1500 Valkerie Honda with a camper trailer, great setup you have mate (Ellen was specifically told not to get any good ideas)
He joined us and Toms family for a fire and coupled with some red wines and a chats we had a great evening, subject of discussion was my Star Wars Yoda chair and how I managed to fit my man bum into it ...... does this chair make my bum look big??
The following morning we set off toward Whitefish for supplies etc after watching the girls go fishing for breakfast.
Cath (sp) if you read this can you email the picture of us standing on the road with your big breaky catch, ta
twomotokiwis at gmail dot com
This bridge appeared .... quite a big bridge for such a back road ..... it then on to Glacier National Park, it was 103 F or 39.44 C for us normal people so just warm enough.
On arriving at the park we purchased a National Park Pass as we will be in and out of the parks throughout our US part of the trip, next thing was to find lodgings for the night so we went to the information centre, the place was packed with people pouring in and out like bees from a beehive, the only campground showing up as available being 40 miles away at Lake Bowman so off we went to get there before it filed up.
Now.. we have two directions, Mrs.Garmins and the Park map ... who to believe as they both showed different stuff.
Sensibility won over on this occasion and we used the Park map, this turned out to be an adventure in the making as some roads had been blocked by slips so it was combo to get to camp, Mrs.Garmin then sent us down a goat track in which a local agreed we should go that way... I don’t think he liked us.
From shingle road to dirt track to gravel lump to quad track we came upon a dry creek, the only way through was down across and back up, I knew Ellen did not have the skills so I did the riding part, only another 50 meters and we were back on relatively normalish shingle roads, this then took us into Bowman Lake a neat ride in itself and good practice for Ellen standing on the pegs on loose gravel, powder, rocks twisting and turning up and down.
This was camp for the night and look at the map to see what to do, the following morning we rode up to Kintla Lake and Ellen decided it was good enough for a swim, we mulled around for a while then made our way back down the road to hit the main attraction Going To The Sun.
The road was choca and it turned out to be a snail ride in a line of hundreds of cars...literally. Smoke filled the air from some wild fires further south but the views were still amazing, we stopped about half way up to have some lunch and pics still very very hot, spot the Harleys near the bottom of the pic.
Waterfalls everywhere there was so much to choose from to photograph, then right on the road side... very cool indeed.
Just a bit further up there was major roadworks so it was down to one lane and a sit in the cue, we only had about a 10 minute wait of the possible 30 so that wasn’t too bad... did I mention it was hot...warning moobs
Unfortunately from there was stop start stop start ride the clutch bla bla bla so not much fun to the top.
Stopping at the top the people were like ants all over the place so it was a quick stop and carry on down the other side to Highway 2, on the way down we were treated to seeing a young grizzly having a chomp on berries, nice looking animal he/she was.
We continued round the bottom of the park on Highway 2, Devils Creeks was the next destination to set up camp, was some soggy sweat filled gruds, socks and tees.
Wifi was on our list of wants at this point so we could update our ride reports and get some emailing done to sort Chiwis case change, just up the road from the camp is a cool pub with Wifi so everything came together.
ADV rider came to the rescue as we contacted shezonit (a Dudette from the tent sign up ) and she kindly took Two Dodgy Kiwis in, just happened a Hotrod show was on the weekend so our timing was mint.
We continued down Highway 95, turned off left onto Highway 2 then 508 into the back and beyond, stunning road that got narrower with less traffic as we carried on, perfect. This road took us through various small shingle roads and tar seal roads, we thought we were lost but turns out our navigational skills had improved so we should have trusted our own judgement first off.
Koocanusa Lake was our destination to camp that night however we stumbled across a small camp ground at Caribou Creek, there was only two other neighbours.
The family that was staying there had two VW campers and a MG car... not very American you lot!!!, Cath came out and promptly shifted her MG so we could park Hobbit and Chiwi and welcomed us in, totally cool, this will do us down to the ground!!
We had set up and organised ourselves when Thingymajig (sorry I can’t remember your name) pulled up on a 6 cylinder 1500 Valkerie Honda with a camper trailer, great setup you have mate (Ellen was specifically told not to get any good ideas)
He joined us and Toms family for a fire and coupled with some red wines and a chats we had a great evening, subject of discussion was my Star Wars Yoda chair and how I managed to fit my man bum into it ...... does this chair make my bum look big??
The following morning we set off toward Whitefish for supplies etc after watching the girls go fishing for breakfast.
Cath (sp) if you read this can you email the picture of us standing on the road with your big breaky catch, ta
twomotokiwis at gmail dot comThis bridge appeared .... quite a big bridge for such a back road ..... it then on to Glacier National Park, it was 103 F or 39.44 C for us normal people so just warm enough.
On arriving at the park we purchased a National Park Pass as we will be in and out of the parks throughout our US part of the trip, next thing was to find lodgings for the night so we went to the information centre, the place was packed with people pouring in and out like bees from a beehive, the only campground showing up as available being 40 miles away at Lake Bowman so off we went to get there before it filed up.
Now.. we have two directions, Mrs.Garmins and the Park map ... who to believe as they both showed different stuff.
Sensibility won over on this occasion and we used the Park map, this turned out to be an adventure in the making as some roads had been blocked by slips so it was combo to get to camp, Mrs.Garmin then sent us down a goat track in which a local agreed we should go that way... I don’t think he liked us.
From shingle road to dirt track to gravel lump to quad track we came upon a dry creek, the only way through was down across and back up, I knew Ellen did not have the skills so I did the riding part, only another 50 meters and we were back on relatively normalish shingle roads, this then took us into Bowman Lake a neat ride in itself and good practice for Ellen standing on the pegs on loose gravel, powder, rocks twisting and turning up and down.
This was camp for the night and look at the map to see what to do, the following morning we rode up to Kintla Lake and Ellen decided it was good enough for a swim, we mulled around for a while then made our way back down the road to hit the main attraction Going To The Sun.
The road was choca and it turned out to be a snail ride in a line of hundreds of cars...literally. Smoke filled the air from some wild fires further south but the views were still amazing, we stopped about half way up to have some lunch and pics still very very hot, spot the Harleys near the bottom of the pic.
Waterfalls everywhere there was so much to choose from to photograph, then right on the road side... very cool indeed.
Just a bit further up there was major roadworks so it was down to one lane and a sit in the cue, we only had about a 10 minute wait of the possible 30 so that wasn’t too bad... did I mention it was hot...warning moobs
Unfortunately from there was stop start stop start ride the clutch bla bla bla so not much fun to the top.
Stopping at the top the people were like ants all over the place so it was a quick stop and carry on down the other side to Highway 2, on the way down we were treated to seeing a young grizzly having a chomp on berries, nice looking animal he/she was.
We continued round the bottom of the park on Highway 2, Devils Creeks was the next destination to set up camp, was some soggy sweat filled gruds, socks and tees.
Wifi was on our list of wants at this point so we could update our ride reports and get some emailing done to sort Chiwis case change, just up the road from the camp is a cool pub with Wifi so everything came together.
ADV rider came to the rescue as we contacted shezonit (a Dudette from the tent sign up ) and she kindly took Two Dodgy Kiwis in, just happened a Hotrod show was on the weekend so our timing was mint.
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