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.

Where am I?

So it's been a while since the last post. The snow is long gone, as are any memories of winter. The summer has brought Toronto out of hibernation.

There are festivals, barbecue smells everywhere you go and lots of cyclists on the road.
That's where I fit in.
Yesterday was Sunday the 22nd of June; the day of the TNT Hairshirt.

The Hairshirt, a personal cycling challenge whose name comes from a medieval form of monasterial punishment and penance, in which monks wore shirts woven of very coarse horse hair, causing them to experience extreme discomfort. Founded in 1978 the Hairshirt pits the lonely rider and his/her bicycle against the road and the elements, and for this reason the organizers provide no support other than a map and encouragement.

We began at 6am from Square One Mall in Mississauga (Mississauga is to Toronto as the Hutt Valley is to Wellington).
If truth be told, we began by driving the 30km to the start line, so the day really started with breakfast at 4:30am to allow digestion time for preventing cramps.

Anyway, at about 18 degrees and cloudy, today wasn't going to be too hot so was shaping up to be a good ride. Aimee had jumped into a car, so she and Suzy (Wife, Mum and Aunt to my fellow riders to Rob, Jake, Greg and Adam) provided support by way of food, water and most importantly directions.



We headed off in search of some smooth roads, and were rewarded with some relatively quiet and smooth roads for the first 60km or so. It was overcast, so cooler temperatures meant hydration wasn't too much of a problem.
As I was the only rookie in our group, the boys replayed memories "remember that's where I punctured in '06"; "this is where I hit the wall last year" etc.
Since my preparation hadn't been exactly full of endurance efforts, I spent the first half of the race wondering if I was going to make it.
The longest ride I've done before coming to Canada was 160km around Taupo.
The longest distance I've ever covered was last weekend with a 180km effort out into the countryside and I arrived home in pretty bad shape, so setting out today in search of 320km would be really pushing it.

As we moved further west we also inched south. Due to the idea of the ride being a 'double century' or 200 miles, we weren't taking a direct route to Niagara. The wind was kind, and the pavement just seemed to melt away behind us.
The first missed turn happened as we pulled into a nice village, and we'd fished in our pockets for sustenance. I had to make a U-turn with a banana in my hand, while Greg did it holding his delicious strawberry granola bars, of their taste he reminded us of throughout the ride.

At one point after telling me all about how he had avoided the thin tyres this year and going for the cheaper thicker ones, Rob had a puncture.

Still we continued and passed through a 'tunnel' which the guys kept talking about and were excited by the descent into it. It turned out to be merely an underpass under a river, with 300m of a nice steady slope, not much to write home about since I come from Wellington! We know tunnels and hills.

Shortly after we were joining up with the cancer riders.
This same weekend as the hairshirt was the Princess Margaret ride to conquer cancer;
A 2 day ride from Toronto to Niagara with an overnight stop half way.
Still no mean feat and well done to the 2000 or so people who completed it, and each raised the minimum $2000 for charity.
The marshalls for that ride got rather concerned when we ignored their signals and shouted after us "NO, LEFT TURN - LEFT TURN!!!".
Before actually arriving at the falls, we stopped in a grassy area for a break and some lunch.
A few seconds later the car with Aimee and Suzy showed up with sandwiches, more water and even a picnic blanket.

We had an enjoyable rest in the sun while we mentally prepared for the ride home.

Toronto?

Toronto has changed.
Its gone all green; when we left there were snow piles and bare trees, yet now all the snow has gone and the trees have started to grow leaves again =)
It looks pretty good and can only get better.

I did hear that while we were away, all the snow that was piled up in the area melted and actually raised the level of the lake significantly enough to cause flooding in boatsheds and put some piers underwater.

For those of you worried about me now giving a weather forecast, don't worry. I'm not going to talk about how the temperatures here have been warmer than NZ, or about how when we arrived it suddenly got cold, just like it did when we when we got to Wellington.

My workmates were also kind enough to sell one of my monitors while I was away.
I arrived back to only one 19" LCD and a 19" square of cardboard with an error message written on it, and "Made in NZ" on the back...
Haha, funny guys

Today is May 24th which is Mayday. According to one of my neighbors, after the 24th you can safely plant flowers outside without fear of frosts. Now that's something I didn't know. In any case, flowers are suddenly on sale everywhere, and the shops have gone form advertising snow blowers to gardening supplies and outdoor hammocks.
All the tour operators are running full steam again too, downtown traffic now has large red or yellow tour buses, and of course the hippo. An amphibious tour bus that not only gives you a tour of the city, but also takes you on a tour of lake Ontario.
The beach community sprung up 70 volleyball nets and Toronto is coming alive with festivals.
No wonder people are so depressed in winter, there's so much that happens in summer it's hard to think about anything else.

Right, I'm off to do another lap of the city on my bike, will add to my first sunburn of the year that I got yesterday

Aimee and Chris back in Canada

So we're back.
We've actually been back a couple of weeks now, things are moving along like we'd never left.

Getting back to NZ was great, thank you to all the people with whom we were able to share dinners, lunches and even a brunch (although our tardiness made it lunch).

As most of you will know, flying around the world is very tiring. On the way back to NZ we had managed to score seats close to the front on all 4 legs of the trip, however coming back to Canada was a different story. Only four rows from the back of the plane meant we felt every flick and waggle of the 777's tail as we bumped our way across a turbulent pacific.
At one air pocket, people even screamed as the whole plane dropped a couple of feet. You could hear the pilots powering up the engines to pull the plane through and it was rather disconcerting.

As usual, American customs agents welcomed us with open arms, fingerprints, iris scans, metal detectors and having to re-check our bags even though we were transiting.
I think part of the problem there is LAX isn't designed for transit passengers. You have to clear customs because there's no link back to the outgoing planes. To get to departures you have to go outside and up a level; perhaps some internal stairs like at Sydney would help?

Whatever the design problems, transiting thru LAX was pretty painless, except for the lack of signage.

After finally arriving back in toronto, we were treated to a most excellent midnight feast and then safely transported back to our beds.