So, we had the opportunity to explore the Kenai peninsula by campervan, south of Anchorage. Such luxury because of the fridge and because we could take as much stuff (food) as we wanted. We didn’t have to cycle with it, so it didn’t matter if something was big or heavy.

We picked up the camper at Cooper Landing, a forested area along the Lake Kenai, and we travelled the whole peninsula. It is beautiful over there, with mountains and green hills in the center and snowy mountains with glaciers at the coast (on the other side of the water).

The little town of Homer is at the far south end of the peninsula. There’s a spit where you can camp and where many of the touristy businesses are. When you’re camping there, you’re basically surrounded by water. The scenery is beautiful; on the other side of the water (Cook Inlet) there are snowcapped mountains and big glaciers. Homer is also the hometown of one of the fishing vessels from the Discovery show ‘Deadliest Catch’; the ‘Time Bandit’. We didn’t see it there, so it must have been out fishing. We did see some of the crab pods that are being used in crab fishing.

About in the center of the peninsula, on the shores of the Kenai River, are the towns of Soldotna and Kenai. The towns themselves are not special at all, but the fact that they are situated on the banks of the Kenai River makes them very popular with fishermen. And there are a lot of them! It seems that everybody who comes to the peninsula is there just for fishing. And they are; there are many rivers, lakes and ofcourse the ocean and there are many fish in there!

Every summer there’s a special event in the Kenai River; dipnetting. Every year, around June/July/August, the salmons return to the river to lay their eggs. And that happenes in large quantaties; huge schools of fish come in together. Alaska residents are allowed to fish for those salmons. Every head of a household is allowed 25 salmons per season and another 10 per additional person in the household. Because those salmons come in so many at a time, it’s not lucrative to try to catch them with a rod because then you can only catch one at a time. So there are huge, mostly round, nets on long sticks; dipnets. People take one of those and go stand in the (cold!) water to wait for the fish to come in. Those fish just swim in the nets and can be lifted out of the water just like that. The people who own a boat, take the boat and try their luck on the water. Where the river floats into the ocean, there are thousands of people waiting for fish to come in. We went to watch and it really was a big thing. Unfortunately there wasn’t a school coming in when we were there and it appears to be a bad salmon year, so we didn’t see any salmon.

Seward is another one of those small oceanfront towns where you have a great view on the water and the mountains behind it. There too, we camped on the beach and watched the sea otters float by on their backs.There’s also the Kenai Fjords National Park, that for a large part exists of the huge icefield Harding Icefield from where many glaciers flow down the mountains. The icefield is a remnant of the last ice age. Unfortunately the glaciers keep retracting. You can walk to the Exit Glacier, a short walk. During the ride to the parkinglot and the walk to the glacier you see signs with years on them. Those years are the years when the glacier came to that point. It’s sad to see how far it has retracted the last years.

Now we’re back in Anchorage, with Tom and Susie, and getting ready for the ferry ride to Prince Rupert in Canada. The ferry leaves on Monday evening, first (back) to Juneau and then continuing to Prince Rupert.

We had a great time in Anchorage again. We went to an airshow on the joint base in Anchorage. A beautiful, impressive show with stuntplanes and fighterjets. Click here for a little impression and admire the capabilities of the pilots: Airshow

Amongst the acts were the Thunderbirds, part of the US airforce, specialized in shows like this. They fly in perfect formation and do other amazing things; very impressive!

There also was a demonstration of the F22 Raptor, an amazing plane that seems to be able to do everything and makes a lot of noise,

and there were a couple of stuntpilots who travel the world and perform in shows. All of those pilots play with their planes as if it were just simple toys, they can do whatever they want with them!

Susie’s parents were having a party at their lakeside cabin close to the small town of Willow. They also invited us to come. It was a great day with a lot of good food, games, sailing, kayaking and a nice warm campfire. Thanks family, it was great meeting you all!

The ferry from Whittier to Juneau leaves tonight. After a few days in Juneau we’ll continue to Prince Rupert in Canada where we’ll get back on our bikes. That will be hard after more than 3 weeks of (almost) not cycling.