All posts by bpheasant

Canada, city, roadtrip, travel

A day in Ottawa

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First priority in Ottawa was a trip to MEC (the big outdoors store in Canada) for Jane to buy useful things after Air Canada predictably lost her bag somewhere between Buenos Aires and Toronto.  Usually I could spend ages in there, but the after a few minutes all the driving and the time-zone change caught up with me & I proper fell asleep in the car – which was just as well, as I had ages to wait.  Our hotel suite was surprisingly massive with a full kitchen – much pasta & cheese sauce was cooked, slightly less consumed.  For some reason, Jane thought it a good idea to bring a feijoa flavoured bottle of vodka all the way from NZ.  But feijoas & vodka (!) – it smelt & tasted like I haven’t had for years & remember fondly from growing up with many such trees in the yard.

A crisp fall morning arrived & after over-indulging in the breakfast buffet we set out for a fair bit of walking.  Ottawa is a very nice capital indeed – with plenty of grand buildings, lots of parks and a great big river (that forms part of the border between Ontario & Quebec).  Confederation Boulevard is a 7.5 km route around Ottawa & Gatineau (the adjoining city that is in Quebec – a bit like Buda & Pest, but you can’t join the names together in a catchy manner) that links many of the capital’s important sights & is used ceremonially for state visits.  Being so, it makes a good easy walk around to see such things if one has limited time – we walked most of it, stopping off near the start to get tickets to a tour of the Parliament Buildings. Most notably on the walk, we saw a beaver – I’d only seen their dams before; this one looked a little lost in the Rideau canal’s locks.

Parliament

The Round Library (the only part of the centre block of the old parliament to survive a big fire in 1916) & Parliament across the Ottawa.

Museum of Civilisation

Back at Parliament a little early, there was enough time to sneak in to the Commons chamber while it was in session.  I say sneak: we had to got through security & then still leave our bags at the desk.  I’ve never been to a session of the Commons in either of the two countries I’ve voted in – so this was a new experience.  It was a little underwhelming – of the 308 members that the Commons has at the moment, there were between twenty & thirty present.  Obviously the debate wasn’t really that interesting – something to do with drugs in communities if I remember correctly.  Thankfully, we had a tour start-time to meet – so we exited.

The tour and guide were quite interesting with a good mix of history of the buildings & Canada as a country.  Strangely, there were a lot of questions – we managed to get into the Senate room as it wasn’t in session, that wasn’t so interesting.  Going up the Peace Tower (that’s the big tower in the center of the complex), the elevator has small windows so you can see some of the large bells that form part of the carillon – which is a musical instrument made up of at least twenty-three bells that is played using a keyboard linked to those bells.  I had previously heard the chimes on the hour & thought it a particularly musical bell tower – with fifty-three bells, it was not surprising.



Back across the Ottawa to Gatineau – we’d just walked across that far shore & bridge.

Jane hadn’t made it out to the rather large Gatineau Park on her previous visit & had wanted to, so after scoffing some more of the previous night’s pasta we left Ottawa-proper and headed out for a very pleasant drive through many beautiful trees changing colour.  Eventually, we got to Pink Lake (stupid bridges that go right over a rural road, but don’t connect to it). Always nice to get out of the city for a brisk walk, we fair charged around with still plenty of time to marvel at all the shades of yellows, orange, red, green & brown – but I still didn’t manage any decent photos.

Confusingly, Pink Lake is named for a family that once owned nearby land & is in fact more likely to be bright green due to algae.

Perhaps taking a quick photo is safer than texting – my poor attempt at capturing all the marvellous colours we were seeing.

With just a couple of hours along the scenic route (north bank of the Ottawa) to go, we set off for Montreal.  Just in case it wasn’t clear – Ottawa was really nice. With no success in finding a short notice airbnb place for Ottawa, it was great to get notice on the drive we had a whole apartment to ourselves for three nights in a nice neighbourhood.

Canada, city, roadtrip, travel

Back in Canada!

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Back when I had a list of places I wanted to spend a week or so visiting before I eventually head back to New Zealand, Boston was high on that list. If one is going to go to Boston, one may as well get there for a New England fall – many months ago it seemed like a good idea to book a trip to the USA (the fourth in four years, who’d have thunk?) less than three weeks after getting back from the RVO & Africa. Along the way it transpired that it was much easier to get nice flight times in & out of Toronto than Boston. As I’d never visited eastern Canada while I lived out west in the Rockies, it seemed logical to tie such a visit in with Boston and make a mini-roadtrip of it – after all, driving around North America is such fun. Mid-year the list went out the window as I realised I wanted to ride my bike more…

Well, as I got back from the RVO & Africa and straight back into a demanding month-end at work and then got a cold – none of this seemed all that sensible. Not to mention two inter-continential vacations almost back-to-back seemed just a little self-indulgent – thankfully the spring & summer through which I took no time off work was a cracker and let me ride a lot. Consequently, & very strangely, I wasn’t particularly excited by the prospect of more travel so soon – I managed to keep the trip pretty quiet by only letting on if asked rather direct questions that I couldn’t worm out of – so I didn’t have to talk about it & pretend to be wildly excited. Of course, through all that, even if I wasn’t excited I knew I would love the trip and all doubts would disappear as soon as I landed in Canada – I mean, I’ve loved each of my previous American road trips & this would be same with Ottawa, Montreal, Boston & Niagara Falls being the main destinations to string together.

By some fluke of timing, very good friend of my sister & the family, Jane was due to land in Toronto for a year in Canada only twelve hours or so after my arrival. First store seen on landing at Pearson – Tim Hortons, of course. After deciding a Fiat 500 is a ridiculous vehicle for a American roadtrip & that I should upgrade to a small SUV, I was straight back to driving on the other side of the road. Once safely & comfortably ensconced in my airbnb room, it was time to head out & wander. I was not far off Lake Ontario, & like Lake Michigan earlier in the year, it’s hard to believe a lake can be so big – or Great if you will (the five Great Lakes have a surface area less than ten percent smaller than all of New Zealand). I’m not sure if it’s just a reflection on Toronto, but I don’t have a single photo of the city. Nonetheless I was loving just wandering the city blocks, seeing buildings & stadia I’d previously heard about; being Wednesday night, half-price wings with yam (sweet potato) fries & a beer seemed entirely appropriate.

Picking Jane up from her friend’s house (disturbingly both she & her friend thought I sounded English, which is just weird – they definitely had Kiwi accents) we hit the road east with many hours to catch up on news as we got off the freeway as soon as possible to drive around the lakeside. Most facilities had closed for the season, but the Thousand Islands area was rather quaint. To officially be included in the group, an island must be above the lake level all year long, be more than one square foot and have at least one living tree – so there are some pretty small islands to see. What was surprising was just how small some of the islands were that had proper big houses on them. But I never quite captured those well when we were driving – so imagination needed below.



Wow, there are photos of me on this trip – well, a few

The fall/autumn timing was already paying off as the countryside was littered with very pretty foliage in the midst of changing colour.

Africa, friends, national park, travel

Tarangire NP camping

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AD was determined that my entire week in Tanzania was not to be spent relaxing around the house – & when someone is willing to take me camping and on a big game drive in an Africa national park I am hardly going to offer a dissenting voice.  Tarangire National Park was one I had never heard of & AD had not been too – so that was chosen as our destination.  A relatively easy (especially for me in the passenger seat) two-hour drive south-east later we were at the park gates around noon on Friday.  Camp was quickly set up in the public campground and we set off for a game drive for the afternoon.  The previously much-derided Range Rover came in to its own off road – very capable & very comfortable.  As AD was driving, I became chief photographer – it sure was nice to have a proper big camera, even if my photography skills are rudimentary at best.

We couldn’t believe how many elephants there were – hundreds!  All the other usual suspects were present: giraffe (much darker than those I saw on my last trip), zebra, ostriches, big vultures, buffalo, water buck, various antelope, mongoose, monkeys, baboons.  We finally saw a couple of lions nearing the end of the afternoon.  It was more than fun to be two guys from NZ just driving abound a huge national park in an ageing 4WD in amongst so many animals & tourists on proper expensive safari trips. Enough talking, the photos are better (more and better versions are here).

Apparently a large herd of elephants came to pay our tent a lot of attention after we drove off.

AD tried to take promotional photos, I minded the barbecue – sort of

Thankfully more large steaks didn’t attract the lion(s) we heard a little distance from camp

So many large baobab trees

Up & decamped early, there was enough time to marvel at plenty more elephants before returning to Arusha. I hastily packed, said my goodbyes and started what turned out to be a thirty hour trip home (that’s almost as bad as returning from NZ). It turns out carrying a Thermarest Neoair in your hand luggage is great for napping on boring airport (Nairobi) floors. Arriving home Sunday afternoon to the order of England, not too tired considering, it was hard to believe just the morning before I was out camping in a fantastic African park and seeing so much extraordinary wildlife.  Thanks AD & Carm for an excellent African break.

Africa, friends, travel

A restful week in Arusha

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I’d previously vetoed the idea of returning to the Mara or even climbing Kilimanjaro (not enough time & $2000 seems a bit much for a big walk) after the rather tiring RVO.  The proposed Mara trip was originally to have been if Adele had joined me on this Africa trip, but as I have such great memories I didn’t really feel the need to go back this time without her – especially as AD & Carm had only just moved to Tanzania the week before returning to Kenya for the RVO it seemed a little unfair to drag them all the way to the Mara when they should be settling into their new adventure.

So the thirty year old Range Rover (it sort of came with the business that AD & Carm have taken over) was loaded and we left for what was a six hour trip over the border to Arusha.  Everyone was pretty sick of the Range Rover & all it’s various quirks (the polite term) by the time we even set off, but it got us there OK.  Unfortunately, being Mum to an almost two year old (Ethan/Bug – who it turns out really likes to dance to Lady Gaga) and a two month old (the very well behaved Chloe/Plum – who is already sleeping through until six am each night!), Carm got stuck in the back seat all the way – I tried, albeit not that hard, to get her to swap: to no avail.

African land border crossings are always so much more chaotic & fun (sort of) than just strolling right through as one does in most of Europe.  The one at Namanga was no different.  AD went through the drama of getting a private vehicle across the border (this seemed more difficult than getting a person across), while Carm & I tried to stop Bug running out into the melee of oversized trucks.  I think I somehow got cast in the role of father to the kids as AD was off sorting out the vehicle – with the bonus that the border agent seemed to think I was a returning resident & therefore didn’t charge me the $50 fee for a tourist visa.

It wasn’t long down the road before discovering that while most of the Tanzanian highway was very good – although with that strange propensity for speed bumps in the middle of an otherwise fast open road (I think it must be the only way they have of slowing traffic down). If any work was needed on the road, a diversion would be put in place.  I’m used to a diversion being routed down existing roads, but out in the country in Tanzania there are so few roads and so much land – they simply close stretches of highway miles long and build a temporary road (gravelled, potholed & bumpy to the extreme) parallel to the real road.  It does tend to slow progress a fair bit.

Eventually we made it to the new home.  AD & Carm have taken over a small business that runs safaris (there’s a small fleet of safari vehicles, of various ages & conditions) and does bike tours in the wilderness (also a sizeable fleet of mountain-bikes).  With two young kids in the craziness that is Africa it all looks very adventurous to me, but I’m sure they’ll settle in and make a good go of it.  I’m already starting to think about what escapade I can persuade AD to organise for us for a future visit.

After those four days of strenuous riding & the slow trip down, much of the week was relatively inactive and relaxing.  But when you’re somewhere like Arusha, just driving into town is an adventure in itself.  The week quickly passed with AD working but still around (the office being a minute’s walk away), Carm juggling being a Mum & learning some of the administration of the business while I was/we were reading, entertaining children (the trampoline is a favourite already for Bug),  holding screaming baby, playing games, quoting too much of The Castle & classic Big Bang, baking, eating (National Braai [South African for barbecue] Day was duly commemorated), making a slow start on the varied liquor collection that was left with the house, sleeping and just generally spending time in the company of good friends.

All I have to show for it is some rather average phone snaps:

Keeping Bug occupied in the behemoth of a Land Rover (below) while Mum & Dad work

This behemoth – used as a safari support vehicle

It’s much easier to be a millionaire in Tanzania

Celebrating National Braai Day – an occasion I was previously unfamiliar with, but considering the massive piece of steak consumed, one I’m in favour of