The Dom way round: Bears

Monday 9 August 2010

Bears

Check out the claws on this Grizzly

The last three days have been awesome. It all started with a forest fire. Because of a fire in BC (British Columbia) just south of Watson Lake we had to get piloted through in a convoy. 25 motorbikes and dozens and dozens of camper vans. I met up with Patrick (Irish - Africa twin) Paul (USA - Kawasaki KLR 650) and Stuart (USA - BMW F800). We headed off down some dirt track for 70 miles to a place called Telegraph Creek. An excellent road full of swish backs and deep gorges and great views. We then hooked up with Nevil (Brit, BMW 1200 GS Adv.)Then we moved on to Stewart when there are BEARS. On the road we saw two bears and then at Hyder (just passed Stewart) there is a bear viewing stream. Salmon spawn in the stream and the bears come down to feast. It's not quite the pictures you get with a BBC Wildlife documentary - no little waterfall where the bears just stand with there mouths open, but nonetheless I saw a black bear and a big female Grizzly fishing. (See pictures - and when I have time to load it a video). Internet access is a little limited here but by the weekend I should be closer to civilisation.

Better get back on the road. Totem poles today...


Black bear

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Hello

Hi. My name is Dom and in July 2010 I rode a motorcycle (partly) around the world. I started in Alaska and headed for Panama. It took me 6 months and I covered 21,000 miles. I then shipped my bike from Panama to South Africa. I returned to the UK for February and in March 2011 I flew to South Africa. Starting in Cape Town I took three months (and 9,000 miles) to get to Nairobi.

As well as riding a bike I stopped off and did some voluntary work along the way. In Mexico I worked on a turtle rescue project for two weeks and in Costa Rica at a Sloth Sanctuary for three weeks. In Cape Town I taught for three weeks in a Primary school in a township.

In North America my wife, Tracy, came out for three weeks and also joined me for two months in Central America.

I returned to the UK in June 2011. Although I'd kept a blog (obviously) throughout the trip I honestly had no desire to try to write a book. But that changed. Within days of getting home I started writing. Then in Autumn 2011 I found out about The Ted Simon Foundation and applied to be a Jupiter's Traveller. Unbelievably they accepted me and I starting a whole new, and much more frightening, adventure... Trying to write a book about my trip.

'Gone Riding' was published in November 2013. Signed copies are available direct from me at www.domgiles.co.uk. The book is also on Amazon where you can also get the kindle edition. There is lots more information about my trip and the book on my website where you'll find links to my Facebook page and Twitter account.

I now use this blog to write about my current bike trips. In 2013 we went to Scandinavia for the summer and in 2014 we went to Romania. Summer 2015 was spent solo around the Balkans. In July 2016 I went to Poland, the Baltic and Finland.

In the summer of 2017 we went to Northern Spain and France and in 2018 we went to Ireland.

I sold my bike in January 2019!!!