We're Married!

Yes, we got married on January 9th, 2010 in Manila Philippines.
Search for photos of us on Facebook - we don't get the official photos for a few months yet.

Out East

So we've decided to sample the air out in the East coast of Canada.

A couple of days ago we picked up our Kiwi friends Annie and Chris from Toronto airport and gave them the whirlwind tour of Toronto - including a whirlwind ride around the roller coasters at Canada's Wonderland.

From Wonderland with Kiwis

Then after a brief glimpse of the CN Tower, they disappeard off on the train out to Ottawa.
A couple of days later we all met up again in Halifax, Nova Scotia.
We picked up a rental car and headed north west toward Truro, Moncton and our destination of Fredericton, but not without taking the scenic route and stopping off to see the flowerpot rocks at Hopewell cape.





So far we've been very kindly looked after by the parents of my Toronto workmate, who have showed us that New Brunswick hospitality.
Fredericton isn't a big town, we compare it in size to Taupo, maybe a little larger.
It's built straddling a wide river and is very picturesque.

Huh?

Where did the time go?
It's September already...

Road Trippin

So it's been a busy time with Ma and Pa taking us places we hadn't thought of.

A couple of weeks ago we rented a car and took Friday and Monday off work.



The 2008, V6 Buick Allure may not have been the best choice in times of high petrol prices, but it certainly helped when you had to accelerate to overtake a truck or two. Despite being an American car, it was ok to drive; it didn't like to take corners too well but softer suspension than a Japanese car helped a lot on the bumpy Canadian roads.

The weather had been really hot lately, and the lack of wind had caused pollution to rise and cause Toronto's first smog alerts of the year. Buses displayed messages alongside their route numbers "Smog advisory, take transit".
The smog really was bad, it was like a rainy haze on the horizon. The further we got from Toronto the more we expected it to clear, but it never did...

Our first stop on the trip was Kingston, a nice little town about the size of Taupo with a lot of limestone buildings about 200km East of Toronto.



We did a tour of the Town Hall and Mum sat in the Mayor's seat, then had some lunch at a local steakhouse and moved on.



Ottawa was only another 200km northeast now, the destination for our first overnight stop.
The weather really hit us on this leg of the journey, it went from hot and smoggy to a wicked storm with forked lightning and rain so strong I could barely see the road in front of me!
After 10 minutes the rain eased off a bit, and shortly after we pulled into Ottawa.
It didn't take us long to really like Ottawa. One walk across the canal, through the art gallery and past the amazing town hall was all it took.



We stayed two nights in Ottawa which gave us time to take a ride on the canal and see the light show where they used the town hall as a canvass for a huge light and sound show.



Just like NZ's capital, Ottawa is a place where you can see yourself staying. We really loved it, and would relish an opportunity to go back again.

On Sunday we moved on down the road into Montreal. Now Aimee and I have been to Montreal before, so kinda knew what to expect, and after the experience of Ottawa, there was no real excitement.
It didn't help that we were pretty tired but we still had a nice night out and got to see some of the area.

The drive home was pretty uneventful, total tally for the trip:
KM's driven - 1200
Night's in hotels - 3
Stops at Tim Hortons - 8
Iced Capp's purchased - 20ish
Stops at dairy Queen - 3

The dark night

So I'm now starting to play catchup with the blog here. I have photos that date back earlier in the month so the story is a little old.
Never mind dear reader, you don't mind being 15 days behind do you?

So, Mum and Dad have been here with me for 3 weeks now, we've been having a great time getting out and seeing things in Toronto we haven't seen before, and showing them the things we have enjoyed.
We have had at least 3 thunderstorms which have brought some exciting light shows.

Firstly, Batman.
HUGE movie, we haven't seen it yet because we're trying to see it on the massive downtown IMAX screen but tickets are selling out before we can get them. Soon my pretties, soon...




So, moving along.
Stay tuned for the story of our road trip out to Ottawa and Montreal,

coming soon

NZ on TV again

I saw this on comedy central the other night, just had to link to it.


Edit - So youtube took the video down because it breached somebody's copyright of intellectual property.
It was a funny dig at NZ because we are betterer that America.

We're coming home

...Continued from below.

After a nice rest in the sun we decided it was time to press on.
No bus was coming to pick us up, no helicopter ride back was organised, it was pedal power all the way.

As we descended down the riverside and approached the falls we again came under the direction of marshalls, who laughed when we told them we had just come from and were riding back to Toronto. It took some convincing to let them pass us straight through.

We went through some very nice little towns as the clouds cleared and my speedo indicated that I had reached the longest ride of my life. Only 130 more km to go...

We were joined by a couple of other hairshirt participants and for a while our group numbered seven. Shortly after we struck a steepish hill, and in a fit of power Jake managed to burst a spoke out of his back wheel. Given that his bike only has 16 spokes in each wheel this effectively ended his ride and the car was called in.

Our group split up, and I rode on with Greg and Adam as we approached 'death valley' or Fly road - a 30km stretch of relatively flat, straight blacktop which radiates the sun's heat back up at you. It's a long boring piece, and the mind wanders as you have little visual stimulation.
After over an hour of slogging along Fly road we began looking for our turn on Eleventh line. We had passed 14th, 12th, and then 34th. Certain we had missed it, a quick phone call revealed the others to be waiting for us just around the bend and we gladly stopped and re-filled water bottles.

Jake and Adam swapped places so that Jake who had been training for this ride was able to finish on Adam's bike.

We continued on further and the closer we got, the more comfortable I became that I was going to finish. With only 50km to go, we started passing through towns and the scenery and town names became more familiar to me.

We crossed the bridge at Burlington which was rather interesting. The main highway goes over a high bridge not unlike the Auckland harbour bridge.
We went over a much lower bridge, with a surface of sharp metal laid out like chicken wire and I felt very uneasy riding on it. I could have slipped or punctured at any second.
We were fortunate that there were no boats trying to get through either, as the whole bridge lifts up twenty metres or so and could have delayed us half an hour at worst. But the bridge was down so we rode on over into Burlington - Oakville and finally into Mississauga.
With the towers fast approaching Rob and I took off with whatever energy we had left, just to be done with this ride. The final 10km disappeared and suddenly there was our welcoming party waiting with big smiles of congratulations.

We had done it. 330km from Toronto to Niagara and back in only 14 hours total time.
Max speed 70kph, Average 27kph.