Friday, September 14, 2007
Names
Canada has some great names for its towns and places. We are currently in Medicine Hat and yesterday we visited Fort Whoop Up in Lethbridge. We drove close to Head Smashed In Buffalo Jump near Calgary but did not detour to see it - we wish we had, just to say we had been there! Head Smashed In Buffalo Jump is, as we understand it, a place where buffalo were herded and driven off a cliff - so the name makes perfect sense. Fort Whoop Up is a trading fort that also served as a NW Mounted Police outpost and the place where a battle was fought with the local Blackfoot Indians. It was originally called Hamilton, but when describing the place, apparently some traders said it was a place were people really "whooped it up" - and the name stuck! This was a really interesting place to visit to gain some local history and we spent some time talking to some local Blackkfoot Indians and to the forts curator.
So What About That Traffic!!
A few words about riding a motorcycle on the roads of Canada to date. We mentioned earlier that riding in British Columbia was great. While the roads in the mountain were often under construction and, like mountain roads everywhere, were pretty windy (as in full of bends, not full of wind), the speeds were generally quite low. Besides, the scenery was usually nothing less than stunning. Riding in Alberta has been a bit different. For a start, the major highways have a 110 kph speed limit which means if you are traveling at that speed, you are holding up traffic. Riding into Edmonton, we were overtaken by a Mountie (in a car, not on a horse) who must have been trying to make the donut shop before closing because he could not have been doing less than 130! And no, he wasn’t chasing anyone nor did he have lights flashing.
There is something uncomfortable about riding a Wing, two up, at 110 kph and being passed by a semi about a metre and a half from your left elbow. It is even more uncomfortable being the Goldwing filling for a two-truck sandwich. Perhaps we will get used to it, but we doubt it.
We bought and fitted a Navman GPS unit before we left NZ – complete with USA and Canada maps and we are glad we did. Today, we programmed the unit to stay off the major highways and it guided us through some really excellent secondary roads to Lethbridge, Alberta (south of Calgary). We programmed it for multiple destinations to retain some control over where we went and we learned that we had to follow the instructions of Nagging Nellie (as some have dubbed the Navman) exactly. We thought we knew better once and rather than go to the centre of the town we had programmed as one of the stops, we stayed on the main road and kept going. For the next 50km, Nagging Nellie constantly told us to make a U-turn where possible, until we stopped and told her to skip that destination.
While the road from Edmonton to Lethbridge was more interesting than the Jasper – Edmonton Road, it was still about 500km of not much. There is something mesmerizing about having a road that is dead straight for 50-75 km. This is grain and oil country and we saw lots of grain harvesting and quite a few oil well heads. One of the finds was the Reynolds Alberta Museum in Wetaskiwin. This is not on the main drag but is a big, modern museum dedicated to cars and planes and it houses Canada’s Aviation Hall of Fame. It is great, as you’ll see from the selection of photos.
There is something uncomfortable about riding a Wing, two up, at 110 kph and being passed by a semi about a metre and a half from your left elbow. It is even more uncomfortable being the Goldwing filling for a two-truck sandwich. Perhaps we will get used to it, but we doubt it.
We bought and fitted a Navman GPS unit before we left NZ – complete with USA and Canada maps and we are glad we did. Today, we programmed the unit to stay off the major highways and it guided us through some really excellent secondary roads to Lethbridge, Alberta (south of Calgary). We programmed it for multiple destinations to retain some control over where we went and we learned that we had to follow the instructions of Nagging Nellie (as some have dubbed the Navman) exactly. We thought we knew better once and rather than go to the centre of the town we had programmed as one of the stops, we stayed on the main road and kept going. For the next 50km, Nagging Nellie constantly told us to make a U-turn where possible, until we stopped and told her to skip that destination.
While the road from Edmonton to Lethbridge was more interesting than the Jasper – Edmonton Road, it was still about 500km of not much. There is something mesmerizing about having a road that is dead straight for 50-75 km. This is grain and oil country and we saw lots of grain harvesting and quite a few oil well heads. One of the finds was the Reynolds Alberta Museum in Wetaskiwin. This is not on the main drag but is a big, modern museum dedicated to cars and planes and it houses Canada’s Aviation Hall of Fame. It is great, as you’ll see from the selection of photos.
West Edmonton Mall
The reason we traveled all the way to Edmonton was for Jenny to see West Edmonton Mall. They don’t label it as the biggest mall in the world any more, but it is huge. Apart from more than 800 shops and more than 100 eating places, it has a big water park with a wave machine, an aquarium with a sea lion show, a kids theme park complete with roller coaster, an ice rink, a bowling alley, an Imax theatre, glow in the dark mini golf, two hotels, and more. And Ric got to ride a Segway! We spent a whole day there without getting bored – and we are not shoppers.
Tuesday, September 11, 2007
Kamloops to Edmonton
Sunday 9th September was our biggest day to date. We headed off early from Kamloops following Highway 5 - The Yellowhead Highway. This route took us over the Rockies via Jasper National Park. Just out of Kamloops, Jenny spotted a black bear running down the road toward us. It dropped into a culvert and disappeared before we reached it. Ric did not see it. He was either looking the other way or having a quiet snooze at the front of the bike where Jenny cannot see his eyes. She can, however, see the speedo but that is another story.
The ride to Jasper is just amazing with even more beautiful scenary as you can see from the small selection of photos. The mountains change with the perspective so you are always treated to something new. In contrast, the road to Edmonton from Jasper was about 5 hours of, well, nothing at all. It was really boring but the speed limit was 110kph. We arrived at Edmonton at about 7.00 and spent about an hour looking for somewhere to stay. We had expected motels and hotels to be fairly prominent, but we were wrong. We finally checked in to the Continental Inn 11 hours after leaving Kamloops though an hour of that was time zone change. Today we are exploring West Edmonton Mall - the reason we have come to Edmonton.
The ride to Jasper is just amazing with even more beautiful scenary as you can see from the small selection of photos. The mountains change with the perspective so you are always treated to something new. In contrast, the road to Edmonton from Jasper was about 5 hours of, well, nothing at all. It was really boring but the speed limit was 110kph. We arrived at Edmonton at about 7.00 and spent about an hour looking for somewhere to stay. We had expected motels and hotels to be fairly prominent, but we were wrong. We finally checked in to the Continental Inn 11 hours after leaving Kamloops though an hour of that was time zone change. Today we are exploring West Edmonton Mall - the reason we have come to Edmonton.
British Columbia
Getting on the internet is proving a little more difficult than we thought. After Victoria, we caught the ferry at Nanaimo on Vancouver Island to Horseshoe Bay just outside Vancouver. We rode along the Sea to Sky Highway passingh though Whistler and stopping for the night in Pemberton, BC. This part of British Columbia is stunning. While the road to Whistler weas under construction pretty much all the way (the Winter Olympics 2010 will be in the region), the scenery was absolutely superb. Jenny had the best view as Ric concentrated on keeping the bike on the road. We stopped for the night in Pemberton, partly because we thought it would be less expensive than Whistler. I think we were wrong as accommodation choices in Pemberton were limited. In fact, we have found accommodation in Canada to be pretty expensive everywhere - not helped by the big taxes they add on to every bill!
We rode from Pemberton to Kamloops on Saturday 8th. Again, the ride was really scenic and there was not too much traffic. We stopped for a drink at a little town called Lytton and tried chatting with three elderly native American (Canadian?) indians who were sitting on a park bench. One stayed asleep, one was speaking something that was probably english but we could not understand a word and Roy, the talkative one, was almost as incomprehensible. Having thus done our bit to improve NZ/Canadian relations we rode on to Kamloops. Kamloops is a place that did not seem to have much going for it, though it is a sizable city so we headed off early the next morning.
We rode from Pemberton to Kamloops on Saturday 8th. Again, the ride was really scenic and there was not too much traffic. We stopped for a drink at a little town called Lytton and tried chatting with three elderly native American (Canadian?) indians who were sitting on a park bench. One stayed asleep, one was speaking something that was probably english but we could not understand a word and Roy, the talkative one, was almost as incomprehensible. Having thus done our bit to improve NZ/Canadian relations we rode on to Kamloops. Kamloops is a place that did not seem to have much going for it, though it is a sizable city so we headed off early the next morning.
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