Back on The Road

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Let me take you back to 2 months ago when I last posted this blog. So I was on a week long road trip with my folks from Vancouver, across to the Rockies. After 2 nights in BC we crossed the border into Alberta, and Banff National Park. The first stop was Lake Louise, Lake Louise is a small resort town set by a lake of the same name, with an amazing view of the Victoria glacier at the opposite end of the lake. Unfortunately when we got there it was raining, so we could only see mist across the Lake. Me and my dad, took a short hike along the lake and up to near the glacier in the pouring rain, whilst my mum waited in the car, reading. By the time we got back, the mist had cleared a little and you could see the glacier from the town end of the Lake, which was pretty impressive.

Also whilst in Lake Louise we all had to find accomadation for the following night. For some reason we had both booked a selection of accomodation most nights, but a couple of nights were left empty. This was supposed to give us freedom to make a decision on the day as to what we wanted to do, but in actuality, it just caused us stress looking for somewhere that wasnt booked up. In the end we got some suggestions from the tourist office, and decided to make a final decision the next day.

That night they stayed in a motel in Lake Louise, and I was in a wilderness hostel, about 30 KMs away. This was due to the fact that even the hostel in Lake Luoise was more than 40 dollars, and the wilderness one was about 23 bucks. The hostel was in a place called Mosquito Creek, which was just a hostel and a campground on the side of the Icefields Parkway. I took the car and drove up there by myself, getting a glimpse of this amazing road, which we would drive the full length of two days later.

The next day we visited Morraine Lake which is near Lake Louise, and although not as famous, I think actually prettier. After that we found accomodation in a motel on the road to Banff town, and visited the town for a few hours in the afternoon.

The following day we had to drive the Icefields Parkway to Jasper. The Icefields Parkway is a pretty amazing road, that follows what can only be described as an avenue of huge jagged mountains. The road is about 200KMs long, but took all day as there are so many scenic spots to stop at. The highlights being, Peyote Lake, the Athabasca Glacier and Athabasca Falls. Of course all of these stops were teaming with people. Peyote Lake was particularly beautiful, as you climbed up to a view point above the lake, and looked out along the chain of mountains that followed the road. And the glacier was probably the most popular stop with various tour options, such as getting a ice bus onto the glacier, or taking a guided trek onto it. We just walked up to the face, read inumerable signs about how dangerous walking on the glacier was, and how children had been killed falling through the ice, got to the top to find, whole families wandering around on the ice past the fenced off area.

It was strange, they seemed to be saying, NEVER go on the ice, but everyone just thought, oh well who cares lets go anyway. One father got told to not walk any further by a guide, as the ice was very loose ahead of him, and his son, but the guide kind of told him matter of factly like it wasnt a very big deal.

Also whilst on the Icefields Parkway, we ran into several of these great Canadian phenomenoms.... Animal jams! These jams arent caused by Animals blocking the routes of cars, but drivers spotting animals on the side of roads and stopping to take pictures. Its quite funny, because although mum and dad, were like, I dont think we're supposed to stop to take pictures of the animals (as all the park literature tells you), they quickly would find themselves fascinated by said animals and dad then leaning out the car trying to get a good snap of a bear, or an elk or something.

By late afternoon, we'd reached the end of the road and were in Jasper Town. I was staying at the hostel, a little out of town, and mum and dad were in a B and B, ran by a strange woman, who when we arrived, saw 3 of us in a car, and thought there'd been a mix up with the booking for two people, so hid from us!! Finally after a lot of looking all over the garden, we found her and explained only two were staying and I was staying somewhere else.

I spent 2 more days in jasper with my parents, then they left to head back to Calgary and fly home. The road trip we had was good, it was my first family holiday since I was 15, but everything went pretty well, and we hardly argued between the 3 of us at all. Just maybe 65 or 75 times! No, seriously the arguments were pretty limited so it was a pretty good part of my trip and the first time I've ever travelled with them in this way.

On the day my folks left, I started a 3 day hike called, the Skyline Trail, which is one of the most popular multiday hikes in Jasper national park. The hike was so popular that you have to pre-book the camping spots up to a month in advance. Also I took advice from the parks office as to which camp grounds to stay at but on the first day reached the first campground by 2pm and then had all afternoon and evening there. That night it rained and thundered of course, because I was camping, and my $17 tent leaked a little, but by the morning the sun was up, and it dried out easily. This was gonna be repeated a month later in Newfoundland, but that time it never stopped raining for a whole day, and my sleeping bag acted like a sponge saving the rest of my belongings from the wet but making it impossible to sleep as by the morning, my legs were in my chest trying to escape from the drenched sleeping bag!!

The best part of the hike was the second day, which was the longest, and took me up onto this amazing ridge which it followed for several hours with views across the mountains in both directions. That night I camped and managed to keep dry before on the third day heading back to the road and hitchhiking back to Jasper Town. On the hike I'd hoped to see loads of animals, but all I really saw was some Hoary Marmots which are big kind of rodent things. I missed out on Bears, Caribou, and moose, well I'm glad about missing the bears, but would've liked to see the others. A couple of times I've seen black bears from cars, pretty close up, and thats as close as I wanted to see them really.

Also on my hike I had to learn this new north American twist to the world of camping, which is bear proofing your tent. Because bears are attracted by the food that you've probably got packed in your bag if plan to eat on your trip that is. You have to take your food out of your tent and suspend it from a tree about 2 metres above the ground in a bag. This is so that A, hopefully the bear cant reach the bag and get your food, and so that B, if a bear does come looking for food, he doesnt see your tent as a potential food source, and heads to the suspended bag instead. Over the several hikes I did in Canada, I got so used to this technique by the end I was doing it automatically, tying up bags of food overnight in trees!!

After my hike I stayed one more night at the HI Hostel in Jasper, and then had to hitch hike to Banff, 300KMs further south. I had to hitch hike as when I got up there I found out that there were no buses between Jasper and Banff, the only option was a tour which did all the stops along the icefields parkway that I'd already done, took all day, and cost about $120. The other option was a 14 hour Greyhound trip via, Edmonton and Calgary, and as I'd booked the next night at a hostel in Banff, that wasnt really an option either.

The hitchhiking went really well. I walked down to the main road about 10am, was picked up by an older couple from northern BC before 10:30, and they dropped me on the trans Canada Highway near Lake Louise. I waited there less than an hour and was picked up by an Ontarian guy travelling around Canada in his jeep, who dropped me off not just in Banff but outside my Hostel. I was there before 3:00PM not bad for a 300KM journey.

I was to stay in banff for 5 days at the Samesun Hostel, which was one of a chain of hostels around BC and Alberta, it was the only time I stayed in one of those hostels, but it was OK, always had activites going on and was full with an unexplainable amount of Australians. I was in Banff to both check out the town and surrounds, and see one of my friends from Vancouver, Ayase, the japanese girl who had been at my hostel there for several months. She was there working in a japanese resteraunt for the summer.

She'd managed to get some time off work whilst I was there so we managed to do various different activities. Including hiking up some of the local mountains, Canoing for free along the river to some local lakes, which a friend of hers organised for the 3 of us, and even going to the famous Banff Hot Springs. Which were actually a bit of a let down, as the place was very small, and had the bizzare situation of the roadway over looking the busy pool, and tourists taking pictures of all the people in them.

Banff was a nice town, but FULL of tourists, and as a result a lot of stuff was over priced. Also whilst I was there we went out a few times, including to a local nightclub once, and a few bars. I was also shown a little bit of Japanese culture whilst there, as Ayase fed me several times with various Japanese meals and one afternoon, we even watched some Anime, as her selection of DVDs in English was limited. In fact, at the time, her main english DVD was I Robot, with Will Smith which she had been watching with subtitles to try and help her English. She'd already got to the point where she seemed to know the script backwards, and said it was good because she found Will Smith's accent particularly hard to understand?!

So after 5 days in Banff, I got a greyhound bus east to Calgary, my last stop in Western Canada. Calgary was not much of a place compared to my two weeks in the rockies, or even my 6 months in vancouver. Calgary very much reminded me of a generic north American city, lots of big skyscrapers in the downtown, but not too many shops or life really on the streets. There were some nice areas of the city, and its definately not a complete write off, but as a tourist a lot of the things you can do seem contrived, as in the hiddious looking, Calgary Tower which gives you a great view of.... well Calgary, OK so on most days you can see the Rockies in the distance, but still, they are quite far away, so its not the most exciting of observation towers in the world.

The hostel in calgary was unfortunately another HI Hostel, which ive had to rely on a bit in western Canada. HI hostels, as always are souless, over priced, and charge you for everything extra. How can a one off independant hostel charge you 23 dollars a night, and have free internet, or even free breakfast, whilst HIs part of a large group charge nearly 30 bucks a night, and charge you extra for everything... breakfast, Net, etc. The Calgary HI was the only hostel in Calgary, and was in a particularly rough area of the city, with loads of junkies and homeless people hanging around outside. In fact in many ways it was just like Vancouver, well that aspect was anyway.

Another funny thing that happened in Calgary was this older Canadian guy. You do sometimes meet some characters in hostels. This guy was in my room, and obsessed by how hot it was in the hostel to such an extent that it was all he could talk about, and to make it worse he was quite a chatty sort. First he moved into the room, saying he'd moved from downstairs, because it was too hot down there, then he couldn't beileve our window was closed, so he asked if we minded it being opened. No one did so then he opened it, and continued complaining about how hot it was. Two days later, I saw him and his first sentence was, 'It's still really hot in here isnt it, oh the windows been closed oh dear we better open it to try and cool the place down' I think some of the other room mates were annoyed by him a bit, but i thought he was hilarious, with his heat obsession. Then quoting tempertaures at us, 'I think it must be over 32 today, cor I just cant deal with this kind of heat.' The worst thing was, it was a bit hot, but not that bad at all, I dont think it even was past 30, maybe 28 at the most!

After 3 nights in Calgary, I headed to the greyhound station to start my excercise in patience and torture, that would be a 2 and a half day bus journey across, the middle section of Canada, to Ottawa. Flying was always an option, but bus journeys like that always give you an idea of how huge some of these countries are and it feels like you've accomplished something at the end, plus it was only 130 bucks, the flight would've been more.

We left Calagry about midnight, and were delayed a bit because we had to get a second bus, as there were two many passengers. I never realised this before, but greyhound dont fill bus routes up, if there are too many people they simply order another one. So I got on the second bus driven by a guy who it appears didnt know the drive too well. Having followed the other bus for twelve hours, he finally lost the first bus just before we arrived at Regina, Sascatchewan. This lead to him annoncing over the microphone, 'Excuse me, does anyone know where the bus station is in Regina?' We found it pretty quickly though, so someone did.

The first day of the journey was across the praries to Winnipeg, Manitoba. The praires are an amazing place, 24 hours of solid driving across flat featureless farmland. For those that know The Fens, in East Anglia, think the drive from Newmarket to Peterborough taking 24 hours not 1. After that first day we arrived in Winnipeg in the evening where we had to change buses and had a 2 hour break. When I got back on the bus, suddenly there was a security check, which we hadnt had in Calgary, and my camping cutlery, knife and fork were taken off me as they were in my hand luggage, and I didnt have access to my main bag, so I couldnt put them in it. The security guard let me keep the spoon though!

The next 24 hours was spent crossing Ontario, for much of the day time, we skirted along the northern shore of Lake Superior, the largest of the great lakes. This view was much more preferable than the flat farmland of the day before.

Late that second night, we arrived in a town called Sudbury, where we had to change buses. The bus station was very small, but it seemed to be the main transfer point for buses, going South to Toronto, or East to Ottawa, montreal, and Quebec. The whole place was in chaos, and it took several attempts for me to find out which bus was going to Ottawa.

The next morning, early, I arrived in Ottawa, I stumbled off the bus and even found my luggage, which had been at the mercy of Greyhound employees, since Calgary, so I was unsure whether I was gonna find it. In Ottawa, I'd organised to stay at someones house, through this web based organisation, Couchsurfing. It was my first experience of it, and things went pretty well.

I arrived at Derek's house about 9ish, and had to phone him from a payphone because there was no answer at the door. He said the door was unlocked and to go in, but just be quiet as there were two people asleep inside, and he was on his way. I assumed that I would just be using his place as somewhere to crash, but as soon as he turned up, he said he was off work that day, and could show me round town. He drove in and parked at his work in downtown Ottawa, and we had a quick look at some of the sights, parliment, etc.

Then, he asked me if I was hungrey, cos he knew a great place where we could have some lunch, and it was cheap. I said OK, little did I know, this place was a strip club. Amazingly enough, this strip club, to get customers in, in the daytime, offered a free roast beef lunch when you buy a cheap 4 dollar beer, every lunchtime. So within about 2 hours of being in Ottawa, I was in a strip club drinking cheap beer, and eating a pretty good roast dinner!

This kind of thing was gonna characterise my few days in Ottawa, Derek, had loads of ideas of things to do, and it seemed to be a case of just go with the flow, which was cool. The next day he had to drive his brother to Niagara, as he was moving there for university, so he asked me if I wanted to come along. We would stay at his brothers house the one night, and on the second day he could drop me off at the falls, for a few hours. Now bear in mind Niagara isnt exactly close to Ottawa, about 6 hours drive in the car, but we rushed over there saturday night, nevertheless.

On the saturday afternoon before we went to Niagara, I had my only major walk around Ottawa, took some pictures of the parliment, and even managed to fit in a couple of tim horton's donuts as I walked in front of the main building. Now you cant get a more Canadian themed afternoon, than that, wandering around the parliment eating Tim Horton's, perhaps if I played some Ice Hockey as well, it would've been more Canadian.

So we drove to Niagara late saturday, arriving there about midnight, after dropping some stuff at Derek's brothers place we headed to a local town, called St Catherines, which had plenty of nightlife. we had a couple of drinks, and then went back. I slept that night, on the sofa, which was leather, but due to the humidity, had to move to the floor, as my entire body seemed to be stuck to it with sweat during the night. In fact the humidity around Niagara seemed pretty bad, the whole of eastern Canada was much more humid than the west but Niagara seemed particularly bad.

The next day Derek dropped me at the falls, and I spent about 5 hours doing all the typical tourist things, like taking photos, walking around, going up the big tower thing, and wandering through one of the casinos. To be honest the place was a bit of a letdown, as all the tacky tourist crap seems to have really devalued what was originally quite spectacular falls. It reminded me a little of Vegas, except a lot smaller, and with some waterfalls. The waterfalls don't even run at their full capacity, about 50% of them is re-directed to a hydro-electric power station in the day time, and at night 75% is sent to the power station.

After Niagara, Derek picked me up and we drove the long drive back to Ottawa. That night we attempted to go out after we got back, but the nightclub he'd suggested was closed, and so the two of us and one of his mates just went to a small pub over on the Quebec side of the Ottawa river. The benefits being that in Quebec the beer is cheaper, and the pubs are open later than on the Ontario side.

The next day I got a 2 hour, yes that's right, just 2 hour, bus to Montreal. Montreal is definately different, compared to other North American cities, and its not just the french culture, but more the confusing mixture of french and english cultures. When I first arrived all I heard from the locals, was french, but I soon realised I was staying in the french side of the city, and over west of downtown the locals will speak english more, although almost all the locals speak both languages to such an extent that they switch back and forth between the two, or have a conversation where one person is speaking english and the other is speaking french.

Despite this bilingualism, all official signs are in french, as Montreal is in Quebec and the only official language is french here. One day I went to the cinema, and all the signs were in french so I asked the guy at the counter, what showings are in english? All of them he replied, which certainly confused me, why were all the signs in french, if all your patrons speak english?

When I arrived in Montreal it was mid summer, so the city was alive with festivals. That week in particular was a music festival called, Francofolie, which roughly translated means french crazy. There were loads of outdoor stages around the arts quarter, and music on every night for about 10 days. Whilst I was there I visited this festival a lot, as it was the only music festival I'd seen all year.

It was pretty french orientated though, at one point, a french metal band were on stage, and proclaimed in French, I had it translated for me later by one of the other guys, "This festival is not about being french..... It's about NOT being English!" Really nice sentiment, I think you'll agree, although I think they meant English speaking, more than actual english, but you never know.

Another time whilst at this festival with a couple of french travellers, we managed to confuse even a Montrealer, by me ordering beer in english, and one of them in french. The guy asked us why? and we told him because he's french and I'm english, which confused him even more. Why on earth would we be drinking beer together?

I ended up staying a week in Montreal, due to various problems, such as me not being able to make a commitment to A. when I was leaving, and B. How I was leaving. From Montreal I wanted to go east to Halifax, Nova Scotia, but the bus was expensive, so then I toyed with the idea of finding a ride share, or even hitch hiking, but I wasnt sure how you hitch hike out of a large city as the best roads will be multi lane highways. And, no one seemed to be going to Halifax on the various ride share websites. When someone did suddenly post a ride, they put it on late sunday evening and were leaving at 10 the next morning so by the time I saw the advert they'd have already left. In the end I settled for a bus, a week after I left, but because of my several last minute decessions to stay I had to move room twice whilst at the hostel in Montreal, and the last night, I was asking for a bed at 9PM because I'd basicly missed the bus to Halifax. The night I did successfully leave, some of the other travellers found it funny to try and encourage me to stay another night.

Apart from the festival I did a few other things whilst in Montreal. One night we had a barbeque organised by one of the guys that worked at the hostel. Except his organisation was, lets have a barbeque, then he took money to the supermarket, bought some food, and cooked rice and sweet corn downstairs in the kitchen, leaving everything else up to everyone else. It was quite funny, I only realised it wasnt gas after an hour talking in the kitchen. I said to him, if its charcoal shouldnt we have started it by now? He just said I dunno, what do you think? So we started the barbeque eventually and even cooked some meat on it. Then when it came to eating, someone was trying to set the outside table as if it was a dinner party, and had all the plates set-up in front of each person. When it came to taking the meat off, all the plates and cutlery were being used already! It was an interesting take on a barbeque.

Just to let you know a few weeks later he was still having barbeques at the hostel, and still leaving the whole, lighting, cooking, situation up to other people, and just cooking sweet corn in the kitchen downstairs, as if that's the most important aspect of any Barbie.

Also whilst in Montreal I actually managed to get out in the day time and see some of the city, one day a group of four of us hired bikes for the day and biked around, looking at the old port, and the Olympic stadium. Another day two lads from Vancouver had a car and drove us over to Parc Jean Drapeau, which are a pair of islands out in the St Lawrence River, with various entertainment things on them, like a theme park, a couple of museums, a BioSphere (not to be confused with montreal’s Biodome, which is near the Olympic stadium), a casino, and the grand prix race track.

On the Sunday, a big group of us went to the Mont Royal Park, to see Tam Tam (not Tim Tam, the aussie biscuits, as I thought it was) Sunday, which is an organized event each summer sunday where loads of people turn up and play bongos and music in the park. It attracts a lot of people and even has a side event where people play medieval wars and have battles with homemade fake swords and the like.

After there we went to a pub on the far side of downtown, called the Winston Churchill, which has cheap beer early evening, and it turns out is very famous in Montreal. Then on the walk back, we stopped in the Latin Quarter, where they had some people breakdancing and that. The best dancer was actually a 10 year old kid, but it didn’t stop the few adults around from trying, and one guy instead of breakdancing, ballroom danced with an old woman who was watching, right in the middle where the break dancing was normally happening.

After that we popped by the hostel, and two of us decided to go to the pub up the street. We sat down, ordered some drinks, and then once they came, looked around the pub. Suddenly we realized it was a gay pub, because every other table had pairs of men having candlelit dinners. To make it worse there was just two of us there as well, so it looked as if we were a couple. After realizing this we quickly drank up and headed back to the hostel.

Later there ended up being a few of us around and we decided we should get some beer to drink at the hostel, as it would be cheaper than going out to a pub. Unfortunately we left for the shop just before 11 and were cutting it fine to get beer. We got to the shop to find it closed and a guy with a Freddy Mercury moustache, eating a baggutte, coming out of the shop. We asked him if it was open, he asked the shop, they said, no. He said no, you cant buy beer anymore, but, how about a condo!

Seriously this guy then told us he owned some condos in the area, and took us out onto the street. He was pointing at one place saying how nice it was, and that he could do us a good deal on it. All the time he continued to munch on his bagette. Several of us kind of laughed at this weird situation, so he got defensive and said, what you don’t like my Condo? One of the guys said yes but he wasn’t really able to buy a condo in Montreal at 11 at night on a Sunday. So the guys response was, OK I’ve got a better one come here let me show you. At this point we made our excuses and left to find an open pub, of which being Montreal there are many, even on a Sunday!

The other thing about Montreal, is because Quebec has a low drinking age, well for North America anyway, at 18. There were loads of groups of young American lads coming up from the states to party for a weekend. Lots of them were like stereotypical frat boy types, who wanted to down as much beer as possible, and then be sick somewhere. There were even some young guys coming from over in Ontario, where the age is 19, and they ID everyone, in Montreal I never saw anyone get ID’d, there was one French guy staying at the hostel, and he was only 17, but he was never asked for ID once!

So after an enjoyable week in Montreal, I finally got a 20 hour bus to Halifax Nova Scotia, out on the Atlantic coast. In Halifax I was meeting an old friend I knew from Australia, Kim. She was there finishing off her masters in Environmental Science, in fact she finshed her thesis two days after I arrived there.

Halifax is a nice city, its a reasonable size and a big student town, the whole donwtown is built on a steep hill sloping towards the harbour, and because of the big student population there are loads of pubs. The first few days I had to find my own amusement, as Kim was busy putting the final touches to her Thesis. One night 3 of us did go to a free screening of a documentary film, it was about a thing called, SAPP, the security and prosperity partnership. It is basicly an unofficial agreement between the US, Canada, and Mexico to help trade between the three countries. But, unlike the EU what it amounts to is a dumbing down of rules and regulations to make everything match the United States. Basicly, it all seemed very one sided, the US says "jump!" and the other two say "how high?" The reason being that Canadian corperations make so much money from US consumers, they want to keep on the countries good side and thus are encouraging the Canadian goverment to do the same.

Also whilst in town I went to the immigration museam in Halifax, for a large part of the 20th century Halifax was one of the main entrance points for new immigrants coming to Canada. And, on the day Kim finished her thesis I went to her presentation, about the work she had done, which was interesting, but after a few hours my final conclusion was I'm glad I'm outside full time education these days, especially at the masters level. The tutors seem to question for questions sake, its as if the question itself isnt important, it can be irrelevent, but they just have to keep asking questions, to get the student to defend anything, no matter how stupid.

After the best part of a week in Halifax I got a bus to Cape Breton Island, to catch the 6 hour ferry to one of the most unique places in North America.... Newfoundland. Pronounced as many Canadians have corrected me, "New-Fin-land" The ferry across was very much the size and style of a cross channel ferry, and it was overnight, so I slept for most of the crossing, then early in the morning as the sun was coming up, I went out on deck, and watched the weird errie rocky coast appearing out of the mist in the distance.

As we got closer a little town with a lighthouse appeared, and the ship made its way into dock. When planning to come here I hit a number of problems, there is almost no public transport on the island, apart from one 13 hour bus that connects this port town, Port Aux Basques, with St Johns on the far side of the island. So the only way I was going to get to see other parts of the island was to hitch hike. Many people told me it should be easy, as Newfies, as the locals are affectionately called, are some of the friendliest people on earth. I soon found this to be true, but for me this didnt extend to giving me a lift.

As the ferry pulled in, to my amazement, foot passengers were not allowed off the same time as car passengers, and when we were, we were taken in a shuttle bus to the terminal which was a little way from the highway where all the cars were going. So by the time I got out to the main road all of the passengers had already left and were long on their way. After about 20 minutes of walking, a local guy picked me up. He could only take me a couple of hours along the road, but it was a start. This guy was my first taste of the strange newfoundland accent, a kind of Irish and somerset mix, and definately nothing like any other accent in north America.

The guy dropped me off at a road junction in the middle of nowhere. There were mountains to one side and forest spreading out in every direction. I waited in this next place for 2 and a half hours to get a lift, things were not going well. After coming off the overnight ferry I was so tired at one point I lay on my backpack at the side of the road with my thumb out, almost asleep. Finally an older couple picked me up and said they could take me to Corner Brook.

At Corner Brook, as it had took me so long to get here and I wanted to get much further that day, I decided I would see if I could do sme hiking near Corner Brook rather than in Gros Morne National Park which was my original plan. In the tourist office the guy said there was a good hike up a local mountain called, the man in the mountain, and a brilliant spot to camp by a lake up near the top. I got directions and headed off. The trail I took, which toook about 3 hours was a part of the international Appliachan trail, which for most of its course is in the USA, but technically these mountains in western Newfoundland are part of the same mountain system that makes up the Appliachans on the mainland.

On my walk the friendlyness of the locals continued to amaze me, instead of the normal hikers procedure of saying hi to every hiker you pass, every hiker stopped for a 5 minute chat with me. It was amazing i must've spoke to 5 or 6 groups of people over a 3 hour period when I'm suppossedly hiking alone on a wild mountain. Once I found the lake I was supposed to camp at I set-up my tent. The setting was pretty cool, a big lake surrounded by forest, and once it was past about 8 no one else there.

I went to sleep pretty happy with how the day had turned out despite the lack of progress hitch hiking. That was until about midnight, at midnight it started to rain!

And then it kept raining for pretty much the next day. Through the night my 17 dollar tent didnt hold up to the relentless rain, and it started leaking onto my sleeping bag which in turn soaked up all the water in the tent, which in some ways was good, as it kept everything else dry, but by 6 am I was sleeping with my knees by my chin just to avoid the wet sleeping bag. At that point I decided I had to get up, so realising the rain wasnt stopping I packed up everything had some breakfast, and decided to hike the 3 - 4 hours back to the tourist office in Corner Brook. As I walked I realised I would have to get the bus to St johns as everything was wet, so camping the next night wasnt an option. Plus who is going to pick up a wet and muddy hitch hiker in their nice clean car?

As I walked back I somehow found an extra lake, this led me to lose my bearings, as I thought it was a different lake where I had to head up over a section of hill, after a while I couldnt find the path I was following anymore, so I became completely lost, I had to push my way through thick bush with my big pack on, and finally after a good hour of fumbling about I spied one of the other lakes and headed down to it. At this point I realised this was the lake I thought the other one was, and I managed to find the path again. That of course wasnt the best news when the path got to its steep section, as the rain had turned it into a complete quagmire, and I continually slipped over in the mud, or almost fell down into bushes. After 4 hours of rainy, muddy hiking I got myself down to the bus station with 40 minutes left to catch the bus to St John's.

The bus was a long journey, about 10 hours, and the weather outside, the whole way was rainy all the time. By the time I got to St John's it was about 10, and I still hadnt phoned the hostel to make sure there was somewhere for me to stay there, as everywhere else on the island, the phone call cost about 4.80 for 30 seconds, and I never had enough change to make that call. So I phoned the hostel the minute I arrived, and they had space. Then I got a taxi with a Canadian guy who was on my bus and needed to find somewhere to stay also.

The hostel was on a little terrace residential street, and with no sign outside, looked just like a house. Inside it basicly was a house where they'd just squeezed in about 10 beds in various sized rooms. In fact it was possibly the smallest hostel I've ever stayed in, and it was pretty much just like a house.

After we arrived, the Canadian guy I'd met on the bus and me went down to the famous George Street for a beer. I especially needed one after all the rain earlier that morning. George street was very much like an English high street, except it only had pubs on it. The shops were reserved for ajoining streets in the city centre. In fact St johns was very english in many ways, the streets were narrow and crooked and old. They also went up and down numerous hills, they city was so hilly in fact you couldnt go anywhere without going steeply up, or down a hill at some point. The hostel itself was on top of a particularly steep hill.

I stayed in St John's up until my 30th birthday which was at the end of the week. I went to Signal Hill one day, St John's most famous landmark. It is one of the most eastern points in North America, looking over st John's harbour, and out into the Atlantic. On my walk back, I walked through an old area of town called the battery which is loads of wooden fishing houses built right into the steep cliff side, with the fronts going out to moorings and the harbour.

Everything about St John's is unique to north America, and has many more similarities with Britain or Ireland instead. It's pretty much the oldest settlement in North America, at over 500 years old. Newfoundland didnt join Canada until as late as 1949, until then it was a British colony. And, its even on its own special timezone, at only 3 and a half hours behind home, its the closest timezone I've been to home in all my trip.

Also whilst I was in St John's the news started to be full, of an approaching hurricane which was on its way. Its was first scheduled to hit Nova Scotia, then cross the water to Newfoundland. The first day I heard of this it was supposed to be crossing when my ferry back to the mainland was due, but in the end it moved back a day and was due to hit Nova Scotia the evening following my arrival back there.

On my birthday, which was my last full day there, I went to the beach for a few hours, and then headed back to St John's to drink some beer, and go out to George street in the evening. In fact I ended up going out to the pub with an Irish guy that had just arrived at the hostel, and seemed to be an expert hitch hiker. This guy was on a 2 month trip around the USA and Canada only hitch hiking and had done it quite successfully. In the past he even had had a hitch hiking race across Europe from Spain to Latvia.

The next day myself, a french girl, and the Irish hitch hiker were all off to get the longer 14 hour ferry back to Nova Scotia. Me and the french girl got the shuttle bus to the ferry, but as expected the hitch hiker, well stuck his thumb out for the lift instead.

The shuttle bus was quite amuzing the driver seemed to drive us round the city in circles for hours looking for people he had to pick up, then once as he started to leave had a phone call and had to go back because he'd forgot to pick someone up. He answered the phone a lot on his journey and everytime, the Answer would be, "HELLO!" slightly irritated and shouted at the top of his voice.

Whilst we were on the bus we got talking to another pair of travellers, an italian guy, and a Croatian/Dutch guy. They'd also been hitch hiking around the island and seemed to have seen a lot of the place. In fact for backpackers hitch hiking seemed the only way around the place.

After 2 hours on the bus we got to the ferry terminal and quickly met up with the Irish guy. He had been at the terminal for an hour, as he had found a lift easily. At the terminal the ferry was delayed by a few hours due to its late arrival coming in from Nova Scotia.

As the ferry arrived and we neared the time to get on, the weather started to get worse, the sky darkened, and it became really quite windy. Was this the start of the impending hurricane?

Well no, it turned out it was going to be a bit of a rough crossing, but this wasnt part of the huricane as it eased off by the next morning when we arrived into the dock at North Sydney.

From North Sydney we all planned different routes out of the place, all by HItchhiking though. I was heading to sydney, to couchsurf at a guys place so I could make the trip down to Fortress Louisberg, a famous old french fort. 3 of them were going to try to make it to Halifax, and the Irish lad was heading to, well, Boston, eventually. So he needed a lift towards the New Brunswick direction. We all made signs and after much waiting for all the cars to leave, AGAIN! We got on the little shuttle bus to take us to the terminal, only to find two more hitch hikers waiting for a lift.

7 of us left the terminal and headed out onto the road, and before we'd even got to the road properly, the Irish guy managed to stop the first car and he was off.... Then the rest of us were left waiting, we split up into 3 groups and after nearly an hour I was picked up by of all people a guy who collected all the laundry from the ferry and took it to sydney to be washed. In the car I found out the Hurricane was fast approaching now, and that the fort I wanted to visit was closed for the day, due to the hurricane.

The guy dropped me off in sydney and after much walking up and down I found the guys house i was supposed to be staying it. He'd left a note to phone him, I did and i was soon being picked up by himself and one of his friends. They drove me back to his friends house, where there were a couple of other people. They said, due to the hurricane, they were planning on spending the day playing board games and drinking beer and waiting for the storm to pass. This seemed good as my plans had been changed now, anyway.

After an hour we headed out to the liquor store, and supermarket to stock up on supplies. But almost everywhere was closed, and the power was out in a lot of the town, in fact the only place that was open, was Walmart. We parked up there, and the place was a mad house, it was full of people panic shopping. People buying huge quantities of stuff like tinned food, and giant drums of water. After our quick trip there, we went back to the house and played games waiting for the hurricane to come...

And, it never arrived, by the evening we realised that it wasnt coming, the storm had turned east slightly and was heading across the north Atlantic missing every major piece of land.

The next day I got a bus back to Halifax for the night, where I met up with the french girl, italian guy, and dutch/Croatian guy. They'd made it the previous day but had real trouble getting a lift, as the hurricane was coming and hardly anyone was out on the roads. Once they'd got to Halifax all the hostels were full, so they ended up having to get a motel room, for the 3 of them plus one other girl they'd met.

From Halifax, it was the start of my journey towards Montreal to look for work. After one night there, I got a 15 hour bus to Quebec City. Quebec was really pretty and very unique within North America, it has an old walled town and is a 100% french speaking city, as opposed to bi-lingaul Montreal. Within the touristy old town many people did speak English, but this is merely for the benefit of the millions of tourists that come each year.

I spent two full days in Quebec, but they were pretty quiet, just looking at the old town and trying to spend as little money as possible. One night, there was a free performance of Cirque Du soleil in some of the city streets which a small group of us went to. The one thing that amazed me was how many french tourists were there, I mean the place pretty much reminded me of france, so why they fly all this way to see another place like france, I dont know. If Quebec was in europe it would be less famous, but within north america it is pretty much unique. Being the only walled city north of Mexico, and being one of the oldest cities too.

Following 2 days in Quebec I got a bus back to Montreal to start job hunting. And, that didnt go too well at all, as I thought in advance, not speaking french would prove a problem, which it did. I tried to register with lots of agencies, but only two would take my details down. Everyone else wasnt interested if i didnt speak french. Montreal has a large English speaking community, but in work they expect everyone to be bilingual.

After a week I got offered one days work stuffing envelopes. By the time I was due to start my days work, I'd decided that although I wanted to stay in montreal, I was fast running out of money, and so I needed work more, so I decided to get the night bus to Toronto. I went to this job, which was in the bottom of one of Montreal's famous museams, and found that several of the people, including the guy I was working directly under, spoke almost no english so communication was broken down to simple english or french and sign langauge. As the day wore on the two girls that were bilingaul went back and forth between 20 minutes of an english conversation with me, followed by back into french, and 20 minutes of me not understanding anything.

That evening I left Montreal and got the bus to Toronto, arriving at 6 am. I went and dumped my stuff at the hostel, and then almost immediately started to look for work.

So for the first 3 days I was looking for work, right up until the weekend. In the evenings I met up with a few friends from elsewhere who were also in Toronto. On the friday I found a two week job cleaning, starting the following tuesday. It would've started on the monday but I had to move hostel on the monday morning, so couldnt make that first day.

I'm now set to stay here until january working, and saving up for a trip to South America next year. Also I'm gonna have to brave the notorious winters they get here, with minus 20 a regular temperature. I have to admit, I'm a little aprehensive of that level of cold, but we shall see how it all goes. If millions of Canadians manage it every year I can manage half of one winter in the cold. Besides which Toronto's winter is mild compared to Montreal, or Quebec, or Winnipeg.

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Comments

[Margaret]

I'm sooooo jealous
It sounds like Canada was a BIG adventure. I thank-you for your blog as it reminds me how much I want to be out there seeing the world. As for South America.... Mexico, Chitzen Itza and the Yucatan peninsular are all big tourist sites. I loved them, but don't know how well they'd be set up for back packers. Peru however is ideal. Loads of different options, lots of cheap travel and the occasional backpack thief. Mira Flores, Lima, Cuzco, Ica, Oliantaytambo, Machu Pichu, Nasca. Ask me if you're interested in any of the above. (not sure about spelling) Enjoy the winter as many warm thoughts are with you.