Category Archives: roadtrip

Africa, bikes, Canada, city, event, friends, MTB, national park, roadtrip, travel, UK, USA

2013 – a lot more biking than the previous year

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After reading last year’s Christmas letter, I can see just how different 2013 has ended up being.  The main driver for that is that my shoulder is completely normal after last year’s surgery & rehab (so much so that when people occasionally ask after it, I’m always slightly taken aback).  That has meant that excessive travelling fell by the wayside as I spent much time biking.  Before much biking, there was last winter to get through – I escaped to Egypt for sun at Christmas last; Christmas morning at the pyramids was certainly unusual. A country still in a state of upheaval & flux, it was a fascinating trip.

I moved into a new role at work about a year ago, which meant quite a few months of learning plenty while still trying to tidy up things in my previous position.  Along with my car comprehensively failing its annual inspection & many problems with the replacement, what turned out to be some of the best concentrated biking I’ve had was a welcome change.

After a couple of days having a look around Chicago, I met Megan, Alex & their son, Finn, in Utah.  We went to mountain-bike mecca Moab and did little except camp, ride bikes (a lot) and eat. As on my last visit, the scenery was stunning and the riding exceptional. STOP PRESS – Megan has just made a rather fun video that makes me yearn for sun, rocky trails, & great riding – much more interesting than me prattling on about Moab.

The summer was bookended by two big trips biking – Moab being the first.  That meant that I travelled very little during the summer – but that worked out well as we actually had a cracking summer of weather in the UK & the riding was plentiful.  Preparing for a three-day stage race in September I entered a number of longer-distance events around the south-west UK & Wales.  This being about the only photo of I have me “racing” – on a strangely scorching Shropshire day:

The other bookend event for the summer was the three-day Rift Valley Odyssey in Kenya.  Partly an excuse to get back to Africa & visit Adrian and partly a nice big riding adventure to train for & achieve, I was pleased to return to Africa – it’s a fascinating place after all.  The summer of preparation did me well & the only real difficulty in the 5500 metres of climbing over three days and 260 kilometres was a bit of digestive trouble at the top of a huge, hot & humid climb halfway through Day Two – not sure if it was the heat, too much food or the anti-malarial tablets; anyway, I survived the remainder of the day on next to no food and recovered enough that the last day (eighty-odd kilometres) was easy.

I was too busy riding to get many photos, but I quite like these two taken while riding along:

The second week of the trip was spent in Tanzania with Adrian, Carmen & their two children.  As they’d only just moved there, it was a relaxed week as they settled in a bit more and I recovered from the big bike ride.  Adrian & I did grab the chance for an overnight trip to a relatively close national park – there were many more elephants around than I saw on my last safari four years ago; an excellent end to another fantastic trip visiting Adrian & Carm.

Many months before, it seemed a good idea to book a trip to New England in the fall – after a particularly busy return to work, it wasn’t seeming so smart.  Nonetheless, I was pretty sure that I’d enjoy a short road trip around the north-east of North America.  With little biking, beautiful autumnal colours, nice cities (Montreal & Boston particular favourites) and absolutely fabulous food it turned out to be a very relaxing trip which was well worth it.  Although the photos don’t really compare to Utah and Africa – here’s one of Ottawa:

Shortly after my return from Canada, all medium-term plans got thrown to the wind as it was revealed that the plant where I work would close next year.  It was a sudden, but not altogether surprising announcement; things are becoming clearer now & I’m looking forward to a 2014 that will be very different to what I was expecting.  As far as I can tell, I’ll have work for about half the year – during which I will frantically save & prepare for extensive time biking in places yet to be decided.  Mum, & probably Adele, plan on visiting for a cousin’s wedding in May – so I’m well looking forward to that.

Merry Christmas & may the new year be a great one for you.

roadtrip, travel, USA

Through New York to Niagara

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Time constraints dictated that I get back to Toronto in only two days, so the Friday was very boring driving much too far on I-90 (which I hadn’t been on since Montana, Wyoming & South Dakota two years ago).  The west of Massachusetts was much more heavily wooded & hilly than I was expecting.  Still, state highways would have been preferable.

I stayed with a very lovely almost-retired airbnb couple in northern Rochester for the night.  Just to stretch the legs I took the short walk down to Lake Ontario.  I wasn’t expecting to see deer roaming the suburbs.

There were still plenty of red trees around in the fading daylight

I got down to the lake & this storm rolled in, so I retreated back to the house & had a big Skype chat with Mum – which after a week of meeting strangers was nice.

Once again, I managed to get fed not just breakfast (a delicious [goes without saying] bacon & egg roll from a food-van decades in business at the local Farmers Market), but dinner too from my hosts.  But hoping to get to Toronto mid-afternoon via the Falls, I left pretty early & took the gentle drive around the lake to Niagara on a miserable-weather morning.

I managed to view the Falls pretty well from both the American & Canadian side – you definitely get the best wide-angle view from Ontario.  On this particular day, the American side was good for feeling the Falls blowing in your face.  Not much to say really as they’re so well know – there’s a lot of water falling a fair way & it’s all very spectacular.  I opted out of the Maid of the Mist boat trip for time reasons, plus I was getting plenty wet standing above plummeting water.

Looking down at all those that are about to get soaked through their matching ponchos.

The sideshow American & Bridal Veil Falls.

I swapped photos with a couple of other tourists – it’s a rubbish one of the falls & only slightly better of me. But oh well, I was there.

The Horseshoe Falls

Watching a fair current of water plummet into much peril.

There I am again – perhaps I’m trying to smile, it’s a little hard to tell.

The drive to Toronto started out in dire conditions & was much shorter than I thought.  By the time I arrived the sun was out & I was back where I had been nine days before picking up Jane.  What a completely enjoyable trip, I do so enjoy travelling in North America; although after the last two big trips (Moab & Kenya) had been MTBing focused, it was a little odd to have a less strenuous trip.  At least I managed a fair bit of city-biking & walking – that helped to counter all the fantastic food, I suppose.

One last dinner out, this time in the old Distillery district – which Cat was keen to visit for the first time & with the largest collection of Victorian industrial buildings in North America, I was hardly about to say no.  There was too much choice as far as cafes & restaurants went; we briefly contemplating skipping dinner altogether and just camping in the divinely smelling chocolate shop.  But we did find a very good brew-pub & an even-better-than-the-last pumpkin ale. I dropped Cat off at work and packed before spending a sleepless night lying on the lounge floor (I was determined to not have carried my sleeping bag & thermarest all the way for no reason) listening to the traffic outside.

I snuck out at awful o’clock, returned the car & started the trip home – crossing pretty much the last thing off my food-to-eat-once-for-old-times’-sake list by grabbing some timbits for the flight home.  They proved invaluable when I discovered them in my hand-luggage before setting off on the nasty storm strewn drive home from Heathrow.

city, history, roadtrip, travel, USA

Boston

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Boston also, like Montreal, is a city of charming neighbourhoods – so I made sure I found one on airbnb to stay in.  As usual, my plan to see the city was to get downtown & walk a lot.  The four kilometre Freedom Trail is very well marked (follow the red line on the ground) & starts at the large Boston Common & the Massachusetts State House.

I got a little distracted & wandered around the Beacon Hill neighbourhood for a while first.  Even out in the suburbs in the dark of the previous night I’d noticed these odd fire call points dotted around – I suppose they’re a bit like the police call boxes that were once more common in London.  At over a hundred & sixty years old, it was the first system of the kind in the world – originally linking the various call points to the central Fire Alarm Office by telegraph signals.  Quite ingenious, but I’m surprised it’s still going as the call points were far enough apart to not really give any advantage over a phone.

I zigged and zagged a bit at the start of the Freedom Trail (which links sites connected to Boston’s large role in American independence) as I stumbled across the shorter Walk to the Sea – which provided interesting titbits of Boston maritime history & also took me down to the water’s edge. I wandered, soaked in the history & found a jalapeno & cheddar bagel – which I was most pleased with as that was my favourite when I made bagels, although I think I put more peppers in.

Old State House

Old Customs House

There seemed to be this small baseball event called the World Series in town & Boston was pretty excited about it – with Paul Revere below getting the Red Sox treatment.

The trail ends at the Bunker Hill monument, which was the site of an early battle in the War of Independence. From what I could work out, it’s a big monument to what was supposed to a strategically useful, but still big, defeat – the colonials held off the British a lot longer than they were expected to & therefore delayed them reaching some other objective.

Anyway, there are two hundred & ninety-four steps to the top, so I charged up them too quickly & then admired the cloudy view while I caught my breath – there are a lot of roof-top patios in the surrounding area that look fantastic for summer.

It looked like there were sufficient parks & paths to walk most of the way along the north bank of the Charles River to MIT – it also looked a lot shorter distance than it really was.

I then ended up on the other side of the river in amongst the crowds heading to Fenway Park for the first match of the series against the St Louis Cardinals.  Having the city’s Trip Advisor app loaded on your phone is always helpful for finding excellent places to eat – in this case a cafe in a large independent bookshop, the momos (dumplings) were superb.  Dark & a little chilly by now I continued the walking alongside the fens (a type of wetland & that for which Fenway Park is named).  I was rather tired when I got home after walking well over twenty kilometres in all sorts of different parts of Boston.

At breakfast that morning, my host told me that the Samuel Adams brewery tour was not that far away.  Jamaica Plain (where I was staying) used have twenty-odd breweries – few remain.  For some reason, I’d always thought Samuel Adams was brewed by a huge company – but the Boston Brewing Company had quite humble beginnings in the 1980s & might still claim to be a craft brewer, although when you’re the (joint) largest American owned brewery it’s a little hard to believe.  The Boston site is now mostly R&D, but they do good little free tours.  As far as manufacturing equipment goes, there isn’t much to see – but the tasting of barley & hops was interesting to see how different flavours get into beer.  And the last twenty minutes or so is tasting pitcher after pitcher of beer.  Possibly, I should have gone on the tour after lunch – needless to say the rest of the day was quite enjoyable.

More walking that afternoon – more local this time as close by is the Arnold Arboretum (managed by Harvard).  There were lots of trees to see & many nice streets to stroll down to get there.  Although I did cheat a bit & get a Hubway bike (the Boston version of Bixi).  There were a few streets near where I was staying that are still gravelled – very odd in the middle of a big city to find gravel streets.


Lunch was spent in Doyle’s Cafe, which has a close association with Samuel Adams (being the first to sell the company’s lager).  It’s all very old & a favourite haunt of Boston politicians apparently, the Kennedy family used to frequent the place. The kale soup was very good indeed, with a nice kick to it.  So far I haven’t mentioned all the Halloween decorations that I’d been seeing almost everywhere, as well the huge stalls selling pumpkins – mostly because I’m not really interested.  But in what may be the best thing as far as I can see about the holiday, craft brewers like to put out a seasonal drink – & pumpkin ale is ridiculously good.

I rode down to the river, crossed it & was wandering through Harvard in the twilight.  Lots of people around & plenty of impressive buildings, but not much to keep me from finding another bike & heading back towards Fenway.

I wasn’t really intending going to see what all the fuss was about at Fenway, rather hoping to spend whatever excess USD funds I had on outdoor gear at REI.  But they were so close to each other, it was worth a look.  Plus there was a Chipotle – always useful.

That was about my time in Boston – I’m glad I finally made it to what is a great city to walk & eat your way around.

Canada, city, roadtrip, travel, USA

A province & five states

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I could have easily driven from Montreal to Boston in a day, but where’s the fun in sitting on the freeway all day when there hills & different New England states to explore?

I watched the sun rise across fields of wheat as I left Quebec & then wished I’d cleaned the lens.

Getting off the Interstate to cross the border makes it all very easy & quick – in no time & six dollars later I was in New York.  My stay was short lived as I quickly moved into the north-west of Vermont driving down a series of islands that sit in Lake Champlain.  Vermont has the second smallest population of any of the states (only Wyoming has less than its 625000 people) and I was fast approaching the largest city in the state – Burlington, booming with just over forty thousand people.  So there wasn’t a lot of traffic around and the morning drive continued in its pleasantness.


There was, an odd round church:

A capitol building in Montpelier, a town not really much bigger than the one I grew up in in New Zealand.  At less than eight thousand people its claim to fame is being the smallest state capital & the only one without a McDonald’s.

Big old houses:

Covered bridges galore:

Whitewashed churches:

A little covered bridge:

I was at my airbnb stay before lunch – my hosts were lovely & had a big old house & an almost-bigger attached barn.  Even though I was only paying for the bed & possibly breakfast, somehow I ended up being fed lunch, dinner & breakfast.  Jim was quite the chef, so the food & local amber ale was excellent for sharing many travel stories over.  Generally I find that those that host airbnb have travelled quite a bit themselves and always enjoy talking about far off places – this trip in the north-east USA consolidated that thought.

After a bit of a nap to sleep off the early start & large lunch, it was time to wander around the village.  In the next village I found the oldest military college, Norwich, in the country – which seemed a little out of the way.  But as they have a lot of winter training, it made sense as one could tell as fall progressed the whole area was preparing for another huge winter of snowfall.  I walked up a big hill on walking & biking trails that the college had built – the whole time views were promised by sneaking glances of an extraordinary vista; but as the light faded, they never really eventuated.  Apparently I had a few more miles to go back into the hills before reaching the fire tower.


All rather serene looking to be a military college

Within an hour of driving the next morning I was in New Hampshire.  A state whose motto is Live Free or Die they are all for minimal interference from government.  As such there is no state sales or income tax & incredibly, if you are over eighteen years old, there is no legal requirement to wear a seatbelt.  That just seems a bit nuts, but I suppose it helps natural selection.

I continued to take poor photos while driving slowly through villages

My rather loose route of day was to avoid major highways again & aim towards an interesting-looking group of lakes in central New Hampshire.  The largest of which is Lake Winnipesaukee – I got out to stretch my legs & walked up & back down a hill for the best part of an hour.  I’m getting a tired of saying everything was pretty, even in the gloom, but it was and a good break from the rather easy driving.

Maine wasn’t far away – so why not? Although I definitely got the feeling pretty much everything on the south coast had closed for the season. Shock, horror I stopped & bought some new clothes because I had the spare time & they were much needed – after a summer of riding, having to remove my belt for security screening now brings with it a much increased risk of finding jeans at my ankles. Soon I was following plenty of Massachusetts number plates & the spelling of the state was ingrained in my head.