It's the journey not the destination!

For the entire ride up the Alaskan Highway, any other riders that we'd met have been going on about how rough the roads were, how rough the Dalton Highway up to Deadhorse was, telling me this as is if they I shouldn't attempt it. It's slippery, full of potholes and the trucks are just downright dangerous, not slowing down to pass. This made me a little nervous about the final stretch of our little adventure. Would the bike break down on the 900 miles of gravel up to Deadhorse and back? Would I have an accident so close to the finish line etc....? But as I finally got around to telling one particular biker, 'Hey, we'd survived riding through Bolivia in the wet season, nothing could be worse than that!'

The Dalton Highway, a good gravel road!

Either we got lucky or these other riders just weren't up to the task. We managed to miss the rain that makes the road so slippery, we arrived just after the grader had been through, so no deep ruts of gravel, and what do you know, the trucks slowed down for us.
Other people had said to us 'Why do you want to go to Deadhorse and Prudhoe Bay? There's nothing there but an oil refinery!' Well for us it was a must. It was the end of the line, from tip to top. It wasn't about the destination so much as it was about the journey, but we had to finish somewhere.
So we set off from Fairbanks at the reasonable hour of midday and meandered our way through the many roadworks and potholes, stopping briefly to chat to other riders, most of whom had made it to the Arctic Circle and decided that that was far enough.

Another imaginery line to cross, the Arctic Circle

Ourselves at the Arctic Circle got lucky. An extended family travelling up from Anchorage in their motorhome were so excited at meeting us at the end of our journey, they fed us sandwiches and gave us beer for us to celebrate. Ham sandwiches beat pot noodles any day of the week.

We ran into Jeffrey, who we'd shared a tent pitch with in Watson Lake and I was very glad to see that he had made it all the way to Deadhorse as he seemed a little wary about the road, like I was, after listening to all the stories. Jeffrey warned us the mosquitoes get bad on the North Slope, and he wasn't far off.
Our first night we pitched at Galbraith Lake, overlooking the Arctic tundra. I would liked to have stayed awake to watch the changing sky - passing rain storms, which were thankfully in the distance - and the midnight sun, but the mosquitoes kept us well and truly wrapped up in our tent and I couldn't help but fall asleep, despite it still being light.

Galbraith Lake, and mosquitoes!

It was exciting, our last day's ride before reaching Deadhorse! I'd booked a tour for 2pm that takes you to the Arctic Ocean and drives you around two of the sixteen oil fields on the North Slope. It's the only way to get to the Arctic Ocean. We'd heard that the last 50 miles into Deadhorse were hard (worse than the rest of the highway apparently) and I'll admit that they weren't the easiest 50 miles we'd ridden. But we were still making good time for our 2pm appointment to the end of the road. That was until Mike got a puncture in his 'beyond bald' rear tyre (He was carrying a brand new tyre but didn't want to wear it out on the sharp edged gravel roads, so had refused to change them until after the Dalton Highway). Fortunately we didn't have any banditos about to shoot us here and we manage to get it plugged with no dramas. Pulling into the carpark with five minutes to spare for our tour, the BMW's next stunt was to run out of petrol, maybe Herr Bertie was doing his best to prolong to the adventure.
Loaded onto the bus after passing our security checks and an introductory video, we're given the tour of the oil field. It's obvious that most of the passengers aboard are there for one thing only, to get to the Arctic Ocean. So the tour guide does his best to make the oil field sound as interesting as possible, which I guess, it is, and we arrive at the ocean. After being instructed that if we hear the horn of the bus we're to gather into a group and head for the bus in an orderly manner, no running, as there is a bear in the area, we're allowed out. Mike and I prove to be the not-so-hardcore ones of our group and only dip our toes in the water. The other few passengers get changed into their swimsuits and lay down (It's very shallow and to actually go swimming you need to walk out a couple of miles) in the below 1 degree temperature water. Hmmm....... I guess each to their own. Mike and I instead crack open the beer and celebrate, the end of the line!

Celebrating in the Arctic Ocean!