To Chicken

We decide to spend the morning in town as we need to buy an axe and a penknife from the hardware store, and we spot a nice cafe which does excellent coffee and muffins.

Filling up with fuel and water, and taking advantage of being able to use the RV park dump station, we then join the queue for the ferry and after an hour or so we are on our way.

We drive for several miles along an incredibly panoramic road, called the Top of the World Highway - and we can see why it is so aptly named. The road curves up and down through beautiful valleys and mountains all covered in green pines.

It is hot again - 80F - and we eventually reach the US/Canadian border, handing our passports over to the border guard. The customs house is a remote pre-fabricated building perched on the side of the mountain road, rather incongruous in the surroundings, with both US and Candian flags billowing in the breeze. We have to leave the couple of bits of firewood we still have on board so as not to transfer any bugs or disease into the new territory.

The road is hard work - pitted, uneven, gravelly and with lots of potholes and undulations, and the truck takes a bit of a battering.

We stop briefly at the side of the Jack Wade Creek to see if we can spot any gold - there are still 120 miners who work in the area mining for gold. There are millions of tiny flecks in the water so we decide to leave it to the experts to extract the gold dust!

We find a trail called Mosquito Dredge Creek - yes it is full of mosquitos - so we spray ourselves liberally in repellent and set off on a delightful woodland walk which ends after a mile or so at the edge of a hill overlooking the creek. There on the sand below us is an abandoned dredge from the 1960s, a huge piece of equipment used by the miners to dredge the soil for gold.

We retrace our steps accompanied by lots of colourful butterflies and plenty of noisy chirruping from squirrels and jays and continue on our journey.

Arriving in Chicken - so called because no-one could spell its original name of ptarmigan - and it turns out to be the quirkiest, funny and endearing little place. There are a row of old shacks all joined together containing the gift shop, the liquor store, the bar and the cafe, all run by a very engaging Spaniard called Mario.

We go into the very dark bar which has an unrivalled collection of caps hanging from the ceiling, plus lots of funny signs and neon lights, and have a chilled beer and a good chat to Mario and see other fellow travellers who have also turned up.

We end up sitting at the bar for far too long, but have a bowl of delicious chicken soup before calling it a day and retiring to the rig which is in the car park - a fairly regular occurrence we understand. We learn about Chicken Stock, the annual music festival which is on the following weekend and for which they are getting set up.

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Sunset: