Monday, June 27, 2011

Tragic Halifax

Yes, Kerrie, 'we are there now'!  It felt like we would never get here though.  But, having got here, we managed to sleep for 14 hours straight last night, and are ready for the adventure.

Well thank goodness we are ready, as someone (ie not me....) mis-calculated how long it is going to take us to ride from Halifax to Digby, on the south coast of Nova Scotia, where we already have a ferry booked on 1st July.  Who knows how the actual 250km (ie 3 hard days riding), ended up being doable in 2 comfortable days!!!

Luckily, we can cancel the third night at the hotel with no penalty, and get on the road earlier. Now that we have decent maps, we have worked out that we should go a different way too, one with wineries, and lots of bike trails.  Not keen on riding on busy town roads (me) where someone can stop suddenly in front of me!!! we will get a taxi/mini van to the edge of town tomorrow then start the ride.

Weather is like a normal Wellington summers day, rain, wind, warm and cold. Hopefully it will get better as we go south.  Apparently this is one of the coldest springs here for years.

Halifax, cool little town.  Can certainly see how one could spend a week here, with nice food, bars, tourist spots.  We reckon we are going to see plenty of fishing villages along the way, so have confined ourselves to the Maritime Atlantic Museum and getting the rest of the gear for the trip.

One of my favourites was Theodore the tugboat:


Theodore takes trip to visit all his 'friends' in the harbour.  There is a display in the Museum about him and his friends and books.  Wellington would benefit from something like this!!!
Food last night great, anticipating lots of burgers and sandwiches on the trip, so nice to get some nice fish last night. Nova Scotia is biggest lobster fishery, but fishes the same locations as all down the north eastern coast.  sometime, we will have to try some!

Museum great - some pictures just for Michele:  Now who would have known about the Halifax role in the Titanic disaster.  Along with all the people from the 2 cruise ships in port today, we gawked at the exhibits about the Titanic.  Halifax is where the Atlantic communication cables come on board, and two days after the sinking of the Titanic, the White Line (owner of the Titanic), got the cable laying ships to go and see how many 'people' they could find.  They found around 380, none alive, many given funerals at sea.

In good 1912 style, the first class passengers got coffins, the second and third class passengers got canvas bags and if you were unfortunate enough to be a 'worker' - one of the crew, you only got a stretcher.  I forgot, but the ship sank within 3 hours of hitting the iceberg, and only 750 out of the 2200 on board survived.


Believed to be the only surviving original deck chair from theTitanic

A replica of the deck chair, quite comfortable, I wonder if this was only a First Class deckchair?
The other tragedy that Halifax was involved in was the December 16th 1917 explosion.  Two ships collided in the harbour, the French Mont Blanc and the Norwegian Imo.  The crew of the Mont Blanc jumped into life boats and made it to shore.  Unfortunately, the French Mont Blanc had a cargo of wartime explosives. It drifted in to shore after the first explosion, got the Pier and then blew totally.

All the buildings within 2 square km were obliterated. Over 2000 people were killed, more than 9000 were injured.  The blast was felt over 360km away.  Sadly, the training and methods for identification of people learned in the Titanic tragedy became useful.  Halifax has rebuilt, and this is believed to be the largest ever man-made explosion.

It made us think of what a museum to the Pike River disaster and the Christchurch earthquakes might be like.

The other photo worth mentioning highlights another historic feature of the region - piracy (sadly no Johnny Depp though).  The pirates used to get hung to rot, in view of the town.  I'm sure the birds loved it.  Interesting map of modern day (up to 22nd June this year) piracy locations and attacks in the museum.



Hopefully Peter has both bikes togehther now, and it is now nearly 7pm local time, so we need to head out to dinner and get a good sleep so that we are fit and hearty for our riding tomorrow.

Saturday, June 25, 2011

Ah, wonderful Los Angeles Airport

And here we were thinking that service and politeness was a concept!  I forgot how rude people can be in service roles.  Mind you, most of the people at the Airport were nice, but it only takes one or two to spoil the broth.

Auckland Airport was absolutely dead, with Qantas, Jetstar not flying.  Uneventful (thank goodness) flight, normal Air NZ. When we got to LAX, interminable queues, but I got to do the  most exciting thing I've ever done at LAX.  United wouldn't check our bikes through to the domestic flight so we had to take them over to United on the trolley.

There was only one trolley, and Peter was pushing it and we came across a group of US soldiers returning to base in Hawaii and they had more than one trolley each. So I got to push a trolley full of US rifles and firearms (in their black plastic containers with huge padlocks on them) across LAX. I didn't think my level of fitness and age would mean that anyone would mistake me for a soldier.  But then, as we waited in another queue to get our bikes on the plane, we were behind another group of military people (we know, cause the check in sign said 'military' - clever eh?). And looking at couple of those guys and their HUGE stomachs, way bigger than anyone we know, and they were old (well they looked old), I figure I could pass for a 'mature' soldier.

I think the holiday is working already, it's not even been 24 hours, but already I'm thinking of things other than work!  Mind you my dream of being in an architectural design competition to design a forecourt for a service station might mean that my subsconscious thinks a new career is an option!

We've got another 8 hours at LAX, Peter is already asleep, then another 24 hours from now till we actually stop travelling!

Thinking of you all - but happy to say, not missing NZ or work!

Thursday, June 23, 2011

Only one more sleep (as Kerrie and kids would say)

Its quite unbelievable, we've had so much work to do, and I still can't believe that everything is done, the bikes are packed, and we are ready to go!  Well almost, housework and one more sleep, and french champagne and cheese for dinner first!

It is really quite fun that Kerrie, Dave and Jackson, Marcus, Lachlan and Ella are getting ready for their BIG adventure, driving and busking around Australia until end of January and that they leave on Sunday - only about 12 hours after us.  It will be so much fun to follow their blog too!

Final preparations this week have included new bolts, bits of steel, and other complimicated things to do with the bikes, then Peter up till midnight breaking the bikes down and packing them.  I, on the other hand have been busy looking at the weather in Halifax and Portland Maine on my phone, to make sure there isn't going to be total rain and cold.  Sun looks like it's thinking of beckoning....

We now have 'fully loaded' bikes - we are the elite of touring cyclists (well we might be once we've reminded ourselves how to ride bikes and not just sit in an office working!).



We need to say huge thanks in advance to our lovely kind neighbour Kay, who has undertaken to make sure that the cats don't go hungry while we are away (I have no idea how she is going to do this as they have taken to waking us up at 5am to tell us how starving they are, then again at 6pm at night!) and hopefully keep the burglars away, while we are away!

Next stop, Koru Lounge Auckland International Airport and some nice bubbly!

Feel free to email us if you have any comments or news!

Carey and Peter

Saturday, June 11, 2011

Preparing and getting everything to work

Well, just testing to make sure the system all works.  Just seeing if all the camping gear fits in the new panniers (nice and shiny - looking forward to getting them dirty).  Packing more cold weather gear, as the temperatures in Halifax and Maine are about what we are experiencing here right now (ie winter ish!).

Next step, book flights to Halifax from Boston, and some accommodation.  We will be in Canada on Canada Day - 1st July and the US on 4th July.  Hope we get to see some celebrations, and don't have any problems with accommodation.  At least, with all our camping gear, we will have a lot more flexibility with accommodation options!

Still need to get the front racks set up on the bikes, Peters chore this week.

Don't worry, future blogs will be much more interesting!!!