OUR OVERLAND ODYSSEY, OVER & OUT

Well this is it, the final blog entry of our twenty six month trip around the world. When we left back in April 08, we were both looking forward to our two years away and the thought that it would actually come to an end seemed light years away. But all good things must come to an end and in reality for us the time has just flown by, now we are back here on the sunshine coast in England, otherwise known as Felixstowe. As I published last month’s blog in Halifax we had only a few days left before flying home, but so as to keep our return a surprise, we made out that we would not be returning for a few more weeks this worked very well and we were able to surprise many members of our family upon our return, even getting my parents out of bed as we arrived on their doorstep from Gatwick airport at seven o’clock in the morning. We left Halifax in the sunshine on the 3rd of June after selling the car at auction the week previously, unfortunately we didn’t get quite the deal as we did when we sold our camper in Oz, but at a cost of £1,200 pounds for six months motoring across Canada, we felt we had done pretty well. If you take into consideration the profit we on the camper, then we are still £600 up after buying & selling both vehicles, now that’s my kind of motoring! 

We arrive at the airport complete with backpacks and skis quite an unusual sight in June & it didn’t take long before we got into a big discussion on the baggage surcharge that we would have to pay. We had been prepared for a surcharge, as we now had all our ski gear with us, but $500 was certainly not the figure that we had been expecting, but good news after the check in staff checked the web site, and had several discussions amongst themselves because it still wasn’t clear & nobody knew for sure, they came up with a total baggage allowance of 82 kilograms, which meant not only did we not have any surcharges, we still had enough allowance left to take another bag if we had wanted, good job Jan didn’t know this or we would have been shopping in Halifax all the previous day! We arrive back in the UK at Gatwick airport on June the 4th at 0445 in the morning, the sky is blue, the sun is out, is this really the same England we left over two years earlier in the snow from Dover. For us the experience has been everything & more than we were ever expecting, a time that we will look back on with fond memories. Right from the very beginning with the overland trip which took us halfway around the world, on a truck with no suspension to speak of, heating or air conditioning, we have enjoyed it all.

Even the difficult moments like travellers sickness in Pakistan & visiting the hospital in Peshawar, we now look back on these times as fond memories, rather than the unpleasant experiences they were at the time! During our travels we’ve seen some sights, like the people bathing in the Ganges right next to where bodies are being cremated into the river, sun rises in the Himalayas, below is one of the few early morning sunrises we actually made.

and the magic of the Taj Mahal in Agra & Angkor Wot in Cambodia.

We’ve both learnt some new skills, for me scuba diving and digging the neatest deepest hole for the toilet tent during our camps around the world. Our Ensuite facilities!!

Jan has learnt to swim without having to hold her nose while doing so, thanks to Jo in Koa Tao, and also became quite a dab hand at pancakes and French toast for breakfast over the open fire in the mornings.

That trip in itself was the trip of a lifetime, but we were fortunate enough to be able to continue further and spent the next ten months in our campervan driving around Australia. Another great time but different to the overland group trip, where we had only ourselves to consider as we travelled around this huge continent. We look back on this part as our most relaxing part of the round the world trip, deserted beaches, night skies filled with stars. Getting up close and personal with Tawny Nurse Sharks and Tiger snakes,

probably a little too close with the snakes if the truth be known!! We were so enjoying the laid back style of ozzy life that we could go to bed and sleep for a solid 10 hours a night while camping out in the boonies something we have never been able to do before. There she goes wandering off into the outback!!

It was time to start heading home from Australia and this part of our trip was still to take a further nine months, enjoying the even further laid back lifestyle of Fiji, even if the weather wasn’t the kindest to us there, it’s still one of our favourite spots, and a potential relocation destination for us in the future.

Our last stop in the southern hemisphere was New Zealand, here we encountered our only bad experience in the whole trip with the campervan that we hired having so many faults, and the company “Apollo campers” having such a poor customer service help line, it was a constant battle for the first week to get things sorted out. This coupled with the fact that my parents could not join us as planned due to my father’s motorbike accident, certainly took the shine off, what should have been a very enjoyable seven weeks touring both islands. From there we headed off to the northern hemisphere and Canada in winter, wow what an eye opener this was. Not realising at the time, but we certainly do now, just how long the Canadian winter goes on for. We spent an enjoyable Xmas with family in Vancouver and six weeks skiing at Big White with family & friends flying out from England. Driving back across North America through a mixture of sun and winter storms,

we come across our biggest surprise of the trip so far, America. Before we left home neither of us had any desire to visit the states but after talking to a few people about the best route across Canada, the consensus of opinion was to drop down below Lake Superior & into the states where there would be more to see. Michigan right under Lake Superior was a complete revelation for us, with friendly people, clean spacious towns and lots of forested areas surrounding the lakes. Below Lake Superior shoreline.

This coupled with a cheap cost of living and very affordable housing also gives us food for thought as a potential future relocation destination. So there we have it twenty six months of travel, during which time we have visited twenty six different countries, taking in everything from the modern cities of Europe and North America to the sleepy backwaters of Nepal and Cambodia. We have met up with family members dotted around the world, some we never even realised we had before setting out on this trip. The friendly people that we have met during our travels have outnumbered by far the few bad experiences that we encountered. We have made lots of new friends and met up with old friends who left England years ago for a new life abroad, all of whom seem to have found their ideal place somewhere. We now look forward to spending the next couple of months touring the UK, catching up with some of these new friends during this time. To all the friends & family who have helped and hosted us during our trip, we would like to say a big thank you, we really did appreciate it, and would love to be able to return your hospitality one day when we are finally settled somewhere? Now it’s time for further reflection, & research on just where and what we are going to do in the future. There is no immediate rush, for there is a lot to weigh up but I’m sure that whatever decision we arrive at, it will be the right one for both us and our family. For us this has been the trip of a lifetime, a dream that we had, and were fortunate enough to be able to achieve. Our advice to anyone would be to take the opportunities when they arise and while you have your health because you never know what might be waiting just around the corner, life’s too short to hesitate.

CANADA'S CLIMATE & CAMPGROUNDS CONQUERED

Sault Ste Marie, one of our last stops in the U.S, & a visit to Soo locks, a must do for me, being an ex mariner, to see the shipping passing through from Lake Huron to Lake Superior. These locks are maintained by the Army Corps of Engineers & are supposed to be one of America’s finest tourist attractions complete with viewing platforms & visitors centre. These locks allow shipping to overcome the 21 foot difference in height between the two lakes. Again being the Jell late winter tour, the visitor centre hasn’t yet opened but the viewing platforms are, & we are lucky enough to visit as an ore carrier passes through, one of the eleven thousand ships that use the locks annually.

Crossing back into Canada, is the smoothest border crossing so far, a few pleasant questions about the weather and we are through, only one border crossing left to do now and that’s the one back home, so I’ll expect we will join the queues then. We look to camp beside Lake Erie, on our way to Niagara Falls, we are still struggling to find sites that are open, mid May seems to be the time when everything starts up. But we spot a sign for Knights Beach resort and decide to take a look, we are greeted by Suzi Quatro’s twin or could this actually be her, with the prices she’s quoting, she can certainly afford the lifestyle. We are her first campers of the season and so that supposedly gets us a discount, a basic tent pitch (we are sleeping in the back of the car after all) and use of the toilet & shower, comes to a staggering $55.00. This you have to bear in mind, comes after a night where we paid $52.00 for a motel room in the U.S with TV, WIFI & ensuite. We tell her that we are surprised with the price and no thanks, she then says she made a mistake and charged us for water so it will only be $44.00, $11.00 for water wow!!!! We still decline, then she comes back with her final price of $25.00, which is what it should have been in the first place, oh well I suppose she’s got to be able to afford those guitars somehow! this could have been a very expensive bit of grass.

It’s only a short hop the next morning to Niagara Falls, this is something we have been looking forward too, and are not disappointed, although they are not that high compared to some falls we have seen on this trip, the width and volume of water going over them is truly spectacular.

We took the walk down through the tunnels that take you behind the falls for another perspective, the only way to get closer than this is to go over them in a barrel, and Jan certainly wasn’t up for that, even if there had been a barrel big enough (for both of us).Spot what the well dressed woman is wearing!!!!

The only downside to the whole experience is the surrounding area of the falls which consists of artificial attractions, casinos, cinemas and hotels a sort of large scale Blackpool in Canada, something we can definitely do without. We follow the Niagara River down through the gorge to Niagara on the Lake one of the best persevered 19th century towns in North America a complete contrast to the tourist tacky falls area only 20km south. We are now on Lake Ontario and it is here at St Catharines that the Welland Canal emerges some 27 miles after leaving Lake Erie at Port Colborne. This canal allows shipping to bypass Niagara Falls via eight locks rising some 165 metres in height over 27 miles through Canada. At least now it’s May and this visitor centre is open so we spend a very nice day driving alongside the canal and watching the locks in action.

As we head off towards Toronto we notice how the roads are getting crowded, over half the population of Canada live in the provinces of Ontario & Quebec, it’s starting to remind us what the roads back home are like or at least used to be when we left just over two years ago. The GPS starts showing delays of twenty minutes ahead on the road, things to look forward too (deep joy). Once we actually get into Toronto we are surprised on just how empty the city appears, they must spend all day circulating the suburbs much like the M25 back home.

The one thing on our to do list is the CNN tower, the tallest free standing building in the world, now we have done several tall buildings in the world most in the southern hemisphere, but this is the tallest & the glass elevators and glass floor viewing deck make it quite an experience. Even Jan enjoyed the 50 second elevator ride to the top, something that before this trip she would never have done.

Our last stop in Ontario is Ottawa, the Canadian capital and the houses of parliament. We visit on the day that the general election takes place at home, let’s hope the new coalition government at home make more sense than the debate that we listened to here. Because Canada is a bilingual country the debates here go on in English & French with one MP speaking in one language and another answering in the other, very confusing, fortunately the public gallery has listening devices that interpret as the debate goes on, perhaps we could do something similar back home, although we might all speak the same language it’s always been difficult to understand exactly what a politician is saying!

The next province after Ontario is Quebec or is it France?, we thought we had just arrived at Calais, with all signs on shops, roads & billboards now in French, & the first language being spoken is French, it’s hard to believe that we are still in Canada. Although we met a few people who were more understanding of English speaking people, the vast majority were very unhelpful even when we did attempt a few sentences of French we would be laughed at or just get a shrug of their shoulders as if they didn’t understand. This was more the case for the younger generation who we would like to think had been taught both languages in school but it certainly didn’t come across that way during our travels. Even though France lost the battle on the plains of Abraham in Quebec city in the 18th century and handed over New France as it was known to the British, they still carry out daily re-enactments of the battle with school children in Quebec city, perhaps some form of therapy might help them get over their history and then they could move forward and actually try to become a part of Canada, instead of trying to be more French than even France is. It’s a shame if we were in France we would expect to speak French and struggle through, when we have been in France our French has always been sufficient to get us through, but in Canada you would think that English should be a perfectly acceptable language to use, definitely not in Quebec or rather New France as they like to be known!!!! Montreal the quaint cobbled streets of the old city mix nicely with the newer tower blocks in the 16 hours of rain and cold weather that greets us during our stay there. We were going to camp for two nights, but after checking out the weather forecast we opt for a motel room, and a good job too as temperatures plummet and the rain starts to fall. When we arrive on Friday afternoon it’s nice, so we quickly check out the old city making the most of the weather before Saturday’s constant rain, roll on summer!

Saturday’s a day for either the umbrella or in the car and we drive across to the island called Ile Notre Dame. This island was formed from 15 million tons of earth and rock excavated when the metro was built and is home to the Canadian F1 GP circuit which I wanted to get a look at it. We were pleasantly surprised to find that this circuit is open to the public year round apart from when the race is on of course, and then it will cost you a fortune just to get near it. The track is divided into two lanes with cones, the left hand side being for the use of runners, cyclist and roller skaters. While the right hand side is for cars, mind you there is a strict 30kph speed limit enforced to stop Lewis Hamilton wannibes from trying to set new lap times amongst the skaters!!

We put the explorer through its paces, with the weather conditions playing right into our hands and the 4wd carries us nicely through the puddles and flooded corners of the circuit keeping the speedometer nailed on the 30kph mark, even if it took us the same time to complete a quarter of a lap in which a race car would have completed the lap at least Jan didn’t tell me to slow down. Leaving the circuit we can accelerate off to the French capital of Quebec. I last visited here in 1980 during my days in the RN, this is the berth we used all those years ago amazing how some things don't change!!!!!

although on this trip at least I manage to get beyond the bars to see the sights of the old city & parliament buildings,

with the constant battle re enactments going on outside the old city walls by school children learning about the past and probably the way it’s going to be for the foreseeable future!

We are not impressed with the province of Quebec at all, we felt quite unwelcome throughout the whole province and it’s a nice relief to cross the bridge over into New Brunswick after driving around the Gaspe Peninsular at the head of the St Lawrence Seaway.

A QUIET DAY BY THE ST LAWRENCE SEAWAY

BREAKFAST VIEW OVERLOOKING ROCHER PERC'E

Yes we’re now back in a province where they actually speak English, or should I say “Canadian” no more shrugging or blank looks just good old friendly Canadian hospitality. We head off through New Brunswick following the St John River valley, getting off the trans Canada highway to enjoy the scenic old Hwy 105 passing through small villages & towns. Stumbling across the Mc Cain frozen fries factory at Florenceville, back in 1957 McCain’s frozen fries began life here, now there world leaders in chip production. I never realised that I share the same birth year as the frozen chip, perhaps which accounts for my wafer thin figure!!! The world’s longest covered bridge is in the next town of Hartland and at some 390 metres in length I think there probably right, they also say it’s very photogenic but I’m not so sure!!!

We finish down on the Bay of Fundy coastline where the highest tides in the world take place, the highest tide ever recorded anywhere was 16.6m and that was here in the Minas basin.

It was while we were driving along here that we passed through the hamlets of Economy, Upper, Lower & Middle Economy with their own Economy Fire Hall.

Note the economic opening hours, hopefully this won’t become a sign of the times back in the UK with the harsh public spending cuts that are probably about to happen!

We celebrate yet another birthday for Jan while we are here, her third during our twenty six months of travelling; she certainly knows how to cram them in. While I’m not allowed to say how old Jan is, fifty was the starting figure when we left! To celebrate we book into a motel and enjoy a nice meal and live music in the bar until one o’clock in the morning, which means the following morning has a slightly slower start than usual!! Prince Edward Island emerges in front of our fuzzy heads the next day, crossing the 13km long Confederation Bridge which is the longest bridge across ice covered water in the world.

I’m pleased to say that there was no ice about when we crossed I think that finally the Jell winter tour is slipping into spring, about time. PEI has some lovely scenery and beaches, which at this time of year we can enjoy all by ourselves.

A different story in the short summer season though when thousands of people descend on this place filling the huge car parks that at the moment only have a couple of cars in them. We camp at New Highlands Camping & Cabins, the best camp site we have stayed on in our twenty six months of travelling. This is how all campsites should be, well laid out, with clean facilities, and even a comfy lodge with wood burner, & cooking facilities inside, for those cold evenings (and we’ve certainly had our fair share of them across Canada). Just one more province left on our road trip across Canada, Nova Scotia & Cape Breton Island.

The weather is improving all the time and again we get the National park all to ourselves, so there are some pluses from travelling this early across Canada.

All our wildlife viewing has been done from the car as Jan’s reluctance to do any trail walking has only intensified as our trip has gone on and the bear stories have become more frequent. But whilst checking out the map by the side of the road we looked up to see the hind quarters of a moose, which had just crossed the road in front of us, unfortunately by the time we had dug out the camera he was well gone.

LAST CAMP ON THE TWO YEAR TRIP

Well we have now arrived in Halifax, with two weeks of our trip left & a car & camping gear to sell. We have driven 13,000 km’s across Canada through snow, ice wind rain & some sun. It has been a great experience and we have certainly learned that the Canadian winters last a lot longer than the British ones. In hindsight it would have probably been better to leave later in the year and drive across, although saying that they have just had another winter storm go through Calgary only two days ago, so who knows! This timescale fitted with our plans and we have seen a lot of the country, sampled a lot of the culture, and apart from Quebec enjoyed everywhere that we have visited. Now there’s a car clean & sell to do, and a flight to catch before the final instalment of jellssomewhereontheglobe. Something that twenty six months ago seemed a lifetime away. But as they say time flies when your enjoying yourself, and for us that certainly has been true of these last two years.

SNOW, SUN & SPARKLING SCENERY.

This is it, we are leaving the wetness of the West coast, crossing Canada and seeing what the East coast has to offer. The signs were good as we pull the car out of the garage, the outside air temperature gauge reads 13 degrees, but just five kilometres down the road it has dropped to just five degrees, and the heavens have opened,

they weren’t joking when they said a cold front was passing through. Tonight will be the first night that we sleep in the car and it looks like it might not be as cosy as we thought! We head up the coast road towards Whistler, on the “sea to sky highway” as it is known, but the grey skies hide any images of those mountain tops against the backdrop of blue skies.

We stop at Whistler just to check the place out, but are not impressed, a purpose built village with very little ski in/out and long walks from the accommodation through the village to the chair lifts.

We were originally planning to camp here on our first night, but with the weather still bad we push on further into the mountains, hoping to cross over into Marble Canyon Park where hopefully we will leave the moist coast air behind. Taking the north road through Pemberton we are finally rewarded with some lovely snow capped views,

the elusive blue skies make an appearance and we spend our first night camped in Marble Canyon, complete with camp fire and star filled skies, just like being back in Oz only 20 degrees cooler!!

Well that wasn’t so bad, the next day we head off towards Kamloops stopping by the lake for lunch and what a turnaround in the weather,

I have now just a T shirt on, Jan still has several layers on but at least not her gloves. We spend a couple of days here in Kamloops with my cousin Pat & his wife Bev,

they show us around the local sights including a trip up to Sun Peaks another ski resort nearby, although we still think that the ski in/out at Big White will take a lot of beating. The car has developed a small leak on the top of the radiator which a new washer will fix, but it’s Easter weekend & Ford, the maker of this vehicle do not stock parts for the radiators, strange but true, try a radiator specialist they say, who of course are all shut. So after a couple of hours driving around we finally get a washer from a lawnmower dealer that hopefully will do the trick, oh the joys of overland travel. We leave Pats on the Saturday afternoon crossing from British Columbia into the province of Alberta, staying the night in Jasper in the heart of the Rocky Mountains. We arrive late, about 8.30 at night, due to the change in time zones, we had to advance our watches one hour as we entered Alberta. The temperatures tumbling and we opt to stay in a motel, but only just, after enquiring at a couple who are all fully booked we finally get the last room in the Mountain Park Lodge, which we think is actually the last available room in the village so we think ourselves lucky as the car just didn’t seem that appealing in the freezing night. But the bonus was they have cable TV so I get to watch the Malaysian GP (some people are easily pleased). We leave fully refreshed the next morning on Highway 93, otherwise known as the Icefields Parkway, this road links Jasper to Lake Louise & is the highest and probably the most spectacular in North America, it’s definitely as close as we are going to get to the craggy summits in the Rockies without trekking,

which I don’t think is going to happen!! The weather is perfect and it takes us all day to cover some 190 km with plenty of stops to take in the sights. Halfway along the road is the Columbia Icefield containing some 30 glaciers up to 350m thick. Reaching out from this ice field is the Athabasca Glacier which the last time I visited back in 1971 used to reach right down to the road.

It was difficult to tell this time where the glacier finished because of the snow which did reach down to the road, but the actual glacier had retreated several hundred metres back up the valley. This is the first glacier that we have visited on our world trip that is actually retreating; the others in Pakistan & New Zealand are still increasing in size. After spending a leisurely day on the parkway we opt to camp at Mosquito creek high up in the Rockies, the weather forecast is for an overnight low of -4 and as our sleeping bags are good to -6 we are confident of a sound night’s sleep!! Arriving at the campsite we make ourselves comfortable around a wood burning stove in the shelter, a friendly Canadian, lending us his axe so I could split some logs for the fire.

We spend the evening chatting to a Swedish couple who now live in Canada and have just spent the last two days climbing up the mountains with their skis and then skiing down in the virgin snow, it takes a couple of hours to climb up and then ten minutes to ski down, fit or what, I think we’re stick with the chairlifts!! After a very entertaining evening we settle down for the night, as it turns out the forecast of -4 is a little on the conservative side and waking up in the night wondering why we were so cold, I turn on the ignition to check the outside air temperature, which just happens to be -16. That probably accounts for the sleeping bags that are good to -6 struggling to keep us warm, were we glad to see the sun up at 0630 the next morning and a barmy -9. Not surprisingly we are up early, trying to get the circulation going and counting all our digits to make sure none had fallen off during the night!! Setting off with the car heater on full heat, we arrive at Lake Louise about 45 minutes later, about the same time as my circulation reached back to my toes. Lake Louise is known as the jewel of the Rockies, a stunning emerald green lake that sits in a glacial valley, surrounded by tall snowy peaks. Well that’s what the guide books say, of course that’s in the summer when the crowds flock here and you glimpse the lake amongst the heads of others. On the other hand if you take the alternative Jell winter tour, there are no people about at 0930 in the morning when it’s still -9, unfortunately there are no emerald green waters neither but at least the ice skating rink is empty,

(Judith if only you were here now). Banff is our next stop, a town built as a health spa resort back in the early railroad days we didn’t indulge in the spa as it has been reported that they are now filling it with tap water after the natural spring dried up. We instead thought we might hike to the summit of Sulphur Mountain, a little exercise wouldn’t go amiss after all this driving around. This hike usually takes about two hours to do, and then you can take a free gondola ride back down. Of course this being the Jell winter tour, the track had advisory notices and a gate across, asking you not to use it due to the dangerous slippery conditions. So we paid our $60.00 and rode the gondola to the top (oh yes there’s certainly a charge for going up), spotting on the way one young couple who ignored the signs and were walking to the top, the girl having only flat shoes and no socks on, I hope she still had all her toes if they finally got to the top.

ALMOST THERE

We’ve now been on the road two weeks and are dropping down out of the Rockies onto the prairies & Calgary, the craggy mountains give way to wide open blue skies and open plains for as far as the eye can see. As we enter Calgary we are surprised to see, built onto a small slope by the highway, a ski hill with the 70m & 90m ski jumps still in place

left over from the 1988 winter Olympic Games. We spend a couple of days here checking out the sights and also get the oil change done on the car at one of the many drive thru garages that cater for this very need. You drive up they give you a coffee and a newspaper to read, & then while you sit in your vehicle they change the oil & filter, check all the fluids all for $37 about £24, ten minutes later it’s all done and your away. These would have certainly been a benefit to me in Oz after the numerous oil changes we had to do in the outback. We haven’t had temperatures of -16 anymore, but below freezing at night is becoming the norm out on the prairies, so when we get to Drumheller it’s not the dinosaur museum that’s our first call, but the Salvation Army shop to pick up some warm blankets to counter the cold nights. Now that we are warm again we can enjoy the sights around Drumheller known as the badlands, small humped and craggy hills & steep-walled canyons eroded out of the prairie revealing millions of years of the earth’s geological history. The area is renowned for its dinosaur fossils.

ONE, TWO, THREE, PERHAPS FOUR DINOSAURS !!!!!!!!

More complete dinosaur skeletons of the cretaceous period have been found in this region, than anywhere else on the planet. We visit the Royal Tyrrell Museum of Palaeontology which outlines this early life on earth plus they have 35 complete dinosaur skeletons on display, certainly a must see if you are ever in the area. Camping at Dinosaur Provincial Park that night, the weather forecast is not good, a high of 18 degrees during the day is set to plummet over the next few days with a forecast of snow on the way. When we wake in the morning there is already a covering of snow/ice

and we quickly decide to forego any of the walks in the park in the hope of heading south for warmer weather, the first 100km’s of driving is on roads that are treacherous covered in ice & snow,

luckily they are very straight so no nasty bends to contend with, not that helped with Jan’s nervousness though. This weather is amazing only yesterday it was 18 degrees, today it’s -3 and this is supposed to be spring! “Head Smashed In buffalo Jump” is our next stop, this place is where the Blackfoot Indians stampeded bison over the cliff, then used the meat, hide, bone, horns and nearly everything else for their supplies and materials for the rest of the year, the interactive centre was a real hive of information and more importantly heat, needless to say we spent a good couple of hours in there keeping warm. This whole area has lots of history with local Indian tribes & the North West Mounted Police, now known as the Mounties. They were here to try and control the whiskey trading that went on between the Indians and the traders from the states. We leave Alberta and head into Saskatchewan, as it turns out just in front of a winter storm, “I’m sure summer is supposed to follow spring not winter again!” Keeping tabs on the weather forecast we head right down to the bottom of Canada and drive along highway 18 camping right next to Grasslands National Park. This area which is classed as semi arid desert receives little rainfall each year, apart from our night there where the thunderstorms finally gave way to snow showers by morning,

yes we are certainly getting our money’s worth out of our winter tyres! The storm warning has now been stepped up to alert level with up to 30 cm of snow forecast. We decide to head off to Moose Jaw and hold up in a motel for a couple of days while the worst of this weather passes, it’s no fun scrapping the snow off your teabag when you are trying to make a cup of tea!! We meander our way north through the cities of Regina, Saskatoon & Prince Albert, the prairies giving way to trees and lakes the further north we venture.

THE OFFICE IS GETTING SMALLER BY THE DAY.

As we go north we find it more difficult to find campsites, most don’t open until May some even as late as June. The only one we could find in Saskatoon was half under water after the winter storm went through a few days earlier(we did manage to park in the dry half). At Prince Albert we enquire at the tourist information about any open sites but there are none, after several phone calls they come up with a person who has some cabins up on Candle Lake, some 100km north and was prepared to let us park there using their facilities a real bonus.

JAN GETTING TO GRIPS WITH THE LOCAL WILDLIFE!!!!

As it turns out this person’s name was Lou and she is 84 years old running not only the cabins and small R/V park, but also the local garage and was about to open a brand new 17 bedroom lodge just across the road, there was just no stopping this lady, and we enjoyed a very entertaining evening in her company.

Plus we also got a trip out to view her brand new lodge, and a view of the frozen lake complete with a fox running across it,

its nights like these that will become fond memories when our trip is finished. From here we head north east to the most northerly point of our trip across Canada & Flin Flon, in Manitoba. This copper mining & smelting town is a very important industry for the locals, but a bit of a blot on the landscape after travelling over the hundreds of km’s of lake filled timber land to get there,

ICE FROM THE LAKE

we spend one night in the local miners hotel, before heading south the next day. Manitoba was settled in the late 19th century by a huge population of Ukrainian settlers, there farms and churches are still much in evidence today as we drive down past them on our way to Winnipeg. We spend a leisurely day in the capital of Manitoba, enjoying sunny temperatures of 22 degrees, coupled with a tour of the Canadian Royal Mint, where we handled a gold bar worth $500,000, we could certainly do this trip & more again, if only we could have kept that gold bar!!

From Winnipeg we cross the longitudinal centre of Canada still heading east but now we are going to drop down into the states and cross under Lake Superior, we are told this is much more scenic than the northern Canadian side. It was while we were driving down to Fort Frances where we will cross the border that we spot our first bear walking in the road, but he soon runs off into the trees when he saw us, much to Jan’s relief!

At the border the officers are obviously having a quiet day and so we are pulled over to have an identification check plus have the car searched, they discover that the vehicle has had a new fuel tank fitted recently and were quite surprised that I hadn’t fitted it, I think that all the stamps in the passports including Iran had got them concerned as to what exactly us Brits are doing over here. We drive along Lake Superior’s shoreline and are not disappointed with the scenery,

the upper peninsula in Michigan is truly outstanding, we really like this place, it has such a nice feel to it. In fact we liked it that much that we took a day out to go and have a look at some property while we were in the area, including a small resort complex down on Thunder Lake comprising of one three bed house plus four cabins with lake frontage all for £170,000.

Fishing in the summer and riding snow mobiles in the winter, could this be the retirement place we have been looking for!!!! Although we have been very pleasantly surprised at the U.S especially with it’s much cheaper food, fuel & booze compared to Canada, but there is always the health care cost issue that will need further investigation. Well tomorrow we cross back over into Canada and Niagara falls, so until the next time its goodbye from the Jells in Port Huron just in the states.

P.S SORRY ABOUT THE SIZE OF THIS ONE ANN HOPE THE PRINTER MAKES IT!!