16/03/08
Hello again, and welcome to another chapter of InactiveSteve’s adventures. It’s now been a full day since my cycle journey ended, but I’m still trying to fill my days with exciting things to do. Today’s post is all about a day trip that I made out to the beautiful Banks Peninsula, and more specifically, the town of Akaroa, one of the only places in the world where the French and the English lived peacefully side by side in the days gone by. There is a history of settlement there by both nations, and the little town the remains there is a very picturesque and charming area, well worth the visit I reckon. The weather wasn’t perfect for my day trip, but at least it wasn’t pouring rain. I sort of wish I’d been able to spend a night there as well, and see the area in better weather, but at least I got to stroll around for a few hours, have a good meal, and sample some tasty cheeses later in the day. As a result of two days worth of accumulated hangover, it was a very low-key day for me, but you can still check out my map and the pics from the ensuing day. Read on and enjoy, friends.
Well, Jody and I had such a great time visiting New York that we’ve decided to make a return visit in the next few weeks. Andrea is currently working down there representing Canada and the Department of Foreign Affairs on their mission to the United Nations. Or something like that.
At any rate, we’ve booked tickets to head down there from Ottawa on the bus. It’s about 9 hours each way, and we plan to make the trip on the red-eye. So we leave Ottawa at 10pm Thursday, and arrive 7am Friday. Ths shitty part is on the return trip, we get back to Ottawa at 7am on Monday. Oh well, straight to work for us!
Another funny thing that I learned is that on Greyhound, you don’t actually reserve a seat, you just get a ticket, valid for up to 1 year. That’s a bit scary, but the guy assured me if we get in by 30 minutes before the bus leaves, we should get on. Here’s hoping! All that remains is that we get our camera back from the shop by then, We haven’t had out camera since Peru. The lens wouldn’t open anymore. Woes us…
Click here for pictures from Salta. Geez, I totally forgot to mention. So, on the great football game day, not only did our team win, but Air Canada scored a small victory. When we returned to the hotel, the missing bag had shown up! If it could write a blog, I’m sure it would be interesting, but sadly, we can only ever guess at the route it took to get back to us. But it did. Fully intact. Huzzah, vacation angst spared. One more thing to note, if heading to a football match, shirts are 30pesos before the game. Afterwards, you can score the same one for 20 pesos (7 bucks), so I’m now sitting in my ‘away’ jersey for river, a nice adidas tech shirt (well, let’s be honest, Adidas has no idea this shirt exists, hence adidas with the lower case a).
I just realized that this post coincides with Christmas Day for all of us in Africa! As you might guess, we actually didn’t really have a good sense of the dates while we were hiking. However, this was a day that we had to at least be aware of, right? After all, there was the small matter of a Secret Santa to take care of later that day. However, before that, we had to carry out our full assault on Socialist Peak, the highest point on Mount Meru, sitting at 4,562m. As per usual, before you get to the hard work of slogging through all of my banal thoughts of the day, head on over to the map that I made, as well as the folder of pictures up on Flickr. Once you’ve satisfied yourself that I actually made the trek that day, come on back and read the rest of my recollections.
