Back into Canada

---

Day 146……25/08/2012

So here we are again sat next to the border patrol officer in her little booth, trying to answer 101 questions as to why we should be allowed access back into Canada. “When and where did you last enter Canada, and why”, “well it was into the Yukon last month, for pleasure”, “on that thing” she said, “that’s 5000 miles away, can’t see any pleasure in that, what is it” “a Triumph” I said “never heard of that make” she said, eh?. Your turn Lynne.

We stopped for breakfast on the northern shore of Lake Huron, in the little town of Bruce Mines, we were able to change little more money from US to Canadian dollars that should see us pass through OK. The ride today will take us East to Sudbury, along the Trans Canadian Highway, lots of trees, and lots of farms. Sudbury was nothing to write home about, so I won’t.

Day 147……26/08/2012

We will ride the 200 odd miles today south from Sudbury, to stay with Lynne’s long time friends Kathy and Bruce, who had emigrated to Canada from England around seven years ago. The route was very pretty, the road blasted through the rocks for miles and miles, and passing hundreds of lakes large and small. We arrived in Markdale at around 4pm and spent the evening with Lynne catching up with her old friends

Day 148……27/08/2012

Today will be another chill out day, relaxing and taking things easy. One thing that I had to do was to ring the people at the shipping firm to see about getting our bikes booked on the ship to take them home. This had been an easy process the last time I shipped the bike back, but now it seemed to be a little more involved. Firstly I was going to need a freight forwarder to deal with the paperwork that had to be generated. OK we had to do it so let’s ring one that they had suggested. The nice lady at the freight forwarders said there would be no problem and to just send her all the paperwork that I had come in with, and not to forget the original copies of the log book for each bike………what, I do not have them with me I said, you will not get the vehicles out of the US without them she said. Now this was serious they were packed into a box somewhere in the garage back home, this was not good.

Day 149……28/08/2012

We spent the day racking our brains to arrive at a solution to our problem, and decided that a phone call to the Customs office in Newark would resolve the issue, after all it was them that had allowed the bikes in without the damn log books in the first place, well that was easier said than done to get hold of them, so we gave up for now, and went back to chilling.

Day 150……29/08/2012

We said goodbye to Kathy and Bruce and David their son, and made our way South to their friends Nick and Sheila, who had graciously offered to put us up for the night, they lived in St Catherine’s a City close to Niagara. The route took us through the busy city of Hamilton, that had a crazy road system that gave the Sat Nav a bit of a fit, but we finally made it to the destination. We had not been there more than half an hour, when a lady in a car next door backed out of her driveway and knocked my bike over, I did not need this right now. Luckily there was only minor damage, a broken foot peg, and scratches to the lower fairing, all of which could be easily sorted, she agreed to pay for the damage rather than claim through her insurance which suited me fine. We had a nice meal which was beer can chicken, and involved using a full can of beer which was stuffed into the chicken’s backside then the whole thing stood up and then barbequed for an hour, absolutely delicious.

That evening Nick and Sheila took us to see the falls all lit up at night, which was something that we did not expect, and was really amazing to see along with Niagara skyline.

Day 151……30/08/2012

We have decided that we may not be able to make the night stop that we had planned to if we spent any length of time at the falls, so Nick and Sheila kindly offer to put up with us for another night, and the plan is for us to be able to spend longer at the falls today and then we will all go to a nice Chinese restaurant that they know later this evening. So we took ourselves off into Niagara, found a spot to park the bike and head to where we could catch the boat to take us out and up close and personal with the falls, the boat was the world famous “Maid in the Mist”. With our tickets in hand we queued for just a short while before being presented with our complimentary “Maid in the Mist” rain coat, and then being ushered onto the little boat. It was all very impressive, and we only got ever so slightly wet. The City of Niagara was a little commercialised, and we likened it to a Blackpool with a waterfall. The latter part of the afternoon was spent trying to sort out the mess that was our lack of log books for the bikes. The customs office said no log books no bikes, a great help.The options were to hopefully find them on our return to England, and get them sent to the US in time to catch the next sailing, leave the bikes at Reg’s in Connecticut then fly back later and sort the mess out, or to have my friend Mark go searching through the many boxes in our garage to find them, and lastly to get duplicates from the DVLA, what a head ache. The evening meal was great and took our minds off the quite serious problem. To get to the restaurant we had to pass some pretty impressive waterfront homes that must have had some equally impressive price tags.

31/08/2012

With all the documents printed, signed, re-scanned and emailed to the nice lady at the shipping agents, calls made to home, and even the lady turning up with 200 dollars for the damage to the bike, today things were looking a lot better than yesterday. Oh the DVLA in Swansea were on strike today so no way to order replacement log books, typical Welsh.

We said goodbye to Nick and Sheila, our fantastic hosts who had made our stay at Niagara Falls very special, we had seen things that we would not have been able to without them. With the Sat Nav set we headed off to the bridge, in fact we had a choice off three which we could cross to take us back into the USA. The choice was pretty much made for us when we had looked up the wait times to get through customs at each bridge, the longest wait being 90 minutes and the Rainbow Bridge 25 minutes, no contest, and we got fabulous views of the falls while we waited. The US customs officer at our kiosk was good compared to some of the gorillas that I had encountered in the past, he joked and laughed, most unsettling, he even asked me what the code was that he needed to enter for a British citizen travelling on my own bike, eh?, he had to go and get that, at least it did not take Lynne so long to get through. We headed East along the Southern shores of Lake Ontario in New York State, which we have already done at the beginning of the trip, so we cannot count it twice. Being back in the US was very evident by the masses of Stars and Stripes flying from nearly every house we passed. We rode through many small villages each with pretty little houses and gardens, the day was becoming very warm and humid which we had not had for some weeks, so we were quite glad to get to the town of Oswego, and through its road works, ten thousand traffic lights, and onto a little roadside lodgings that I had stumbled on the last time I was here six years ago. I had been tempted in then by the promise of, according to the sign outside, “Tuesday is Bikini nite”, and do you know the sign is still there to tempt the weary biker from the straight and narrow. Just one slight problem, today is Friday, oh well I probably would not have enjoyed it anyway, well according to Lynne that is.

---

Photos

Niagara Falls
A little commercial