2011-09-06 Tuesday: North Berwick

Joan and I went out for our morning walk at 7am, while Tim enjoyed taking pictures from Colton Hill where we walked last night. When we had our first coffee of the day, we found out we were on the most expensive street in Edinburgh – even though it looked quite ordinary compared to the surrounding neighbourhood.

Later, we all took a train out to North Berwick (pronounced ‘Berrick’, as we have learned to drop the ‘w’) and walked for three hours – a short walk for us now - on a beach along the ‘Firth of Forth’, through a glen and also through the very picturesque town.

Joan and I have had many laughs ‘helping’ Tim remain ‘consistent’ at two beers per day, usually in two different pubs. It’s medicinal of course!

2011-09-05 Monday: Edinburgh

Today we had a train trip to Edinburgh so we started early. This is the first time we have faced commuter traffic in London. We squeezed into the train with our luggage and pretended we were sardines. The trip to Victoria Station was quick, but getting to the underground was hectic. Thousands of passengers squeeze through 10 gates to get into the underground. When the tube came we couldn’t get on the first one, we were too far from the door. We got on the second train but we had no seats and at every stop we juggled suitcases and backpacks to let fellow commuters off and on. We made it to King’s Cross Station safe and sound.

The six-hour train ride was picturesque throughout particularly when we went by the coast in the north. We walked around Edinburgh in the afternoon since the sun was out. The Architecture in Edinburgh is impressive: the Royal Mile and Princes Street especially.

2011-09-04 Sunday:

Just like the Tour-de-France everyone needs a rest day. Today was a quiet day around the apartment and we did our laundry and shopping. In the evening we went to the pub for a drink. After that the girls power walked home while I did some more night photography.

2011-09-03 Saturday

The girls wanted to shop and I wanted to see the Victoria and Albert museum so off we went our separate ways. The museum is impressive for it's theme presentations. I was surprised to see so many young children running about - until I went into the courtyard for lunch. After visiting the museum I went off to take pictures of the Battersea Power Station. The Battersea Power station was commissioned in 1929 and decommissioned in the 70’s. It is so big and ugly it’s a landmark.

After supper I decided to try London at night photography.

2011-09-03 Friday Great Tew

We decided to go to a quiet country hamlet to see another side of British life. I found a write up about Great Tew ( pop. 250 ) which said the village had many lovely thatched cottages. We phoned the one and only eating establishment (The 16th century Falkland Arms) to find out the nearest train station. The pub owner said to go to Charlbury and take a taxi to Tew. This almost worked perfectly except that Charlbury is also small. It took us almost an hour to get a taxi. However, the driver was great, took us on a little side trip to Little Tew and arranged for a taxi to pick us up after we had spent a few hours in Great Tew.
Great Tew was indeed very, very picturesque and we enjoyed our visit.

On the way back, we stopped at Oxford for a few hours. We were absolutely amazed by the old but incredibly beautiful university buildings in the city centre. Everywhere you looked, there was beauty.
Today was another fantastic day which we finished off at the local pub, The Falcon, which has become Tim’s favourite!

2009-09-01 Thursday: Kew Gardens

We took the train to the Kew Royal Botanical Gardens and spent the whole day there. We all considered it our best day so far.

2009-08-31 Wednesday: London

We saw more top ten sights of London today. We went to St Paul’s Cathedral first. Somehow we ended up taking a tour with Christopher Wren himself (he built St. Paul’s after the great fire of London). We thoroughly enjoyed his presentation and after 2 hours we wanted more, but we had a date at Buckingham palace so off we went. The queen had invited us for a palace tour and we went through her state-rooms and enjoyed her garden. We were quite busy so we didn’t stay for supper.

2009-08-30 Tuesday: London

We did London today. We toured Westminster Abbey in the morning. We had packed a lunch which we ate in St. James Park. In the afternoon we visited the National Gallery and then went shopping on Regent Street. I got tired first and needed a beer to revive me, and then the girls hit the wall. We made it to Oxford Street and then took the bus home. The London transit system is good – we can go from anywhere to anywhere and it doesn’t cost much with an Oyster Card.

2008-08-29 Monday: England Clapham Junction

The plane took-off on time and we landed early because of tail winds from Hurricane Irene. By noon we were in Caroline’s flat. We didn’t want to sleep so we did a tour of Clapham Junction. We spent a lot of time looking for a bicycle rental place that doesn’t seem to exist, visited 2 pubs, and did a tour of Battersea Park. The beer in the Falcon was the best.

First Day - Hurricane Irene

Our daughter Caroline is in working in London until July 2012. We had planned on visiting her in May along with Joan’s sister Barb. Unfortunately the trip was cancelled due to medical problems. Since May, Joan has had a throat operation and I had a hip replacement. Now that we’re healthy we rebooked the trip for September. We leave Aug 28th and return September 25. We will spend a week in London and then 4 days in Edinburgh. We return to London for a few days. Barb will fly home on Sept 13 and we fly to Germany for a week. We will stay with friends in Kronberg and Wulfrath before returning to London.

2008-08-28 Sunday: Tonight we fly to London to begin our trip to Europe. We are watching the weather forecast as Hurricane Irene is scheduled to hit Montreal at the same time our flight is due to take off. So far it is windy, but not raining in Montreal.
Barb drove into Montreal last night and is looking forward to an early morning walk in a different place every morning. Tim is looking forward to biking in the London traffic.

Sept 21st to 23rd Drive from Livingston to Montreal

The car was fixed and we were on our way by 11am. We kept an eye on the temperature gauge as we drove through Montana, North Dakota (Tuesday night in Bismarck), Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan (Wednesday night in Marquette), Sault Ste Marie, Ontario and arrived home at midnight Thursday. So, that’s it, 2653km and 21596m of hill climbing in fantastic countryside. Thank you all for following us and we hope you enjoyed the ride. We will produce a book of the blog and use more of the pictures we have and all being well you should get a chance to see it some time in the next few months. Until the next tour………. TG & TB

Sept 20th: Mammoth Hot Springs to Livingston 96km 251m

Gardiner, Montana

Today is our last day.  With just a coffee and a granola bar for breakfast we were on the road by 7:15.  We exited Yellowstone Park after 5 km and passed through Gardiner, a real western looking town.  Our route followed the Yellowstone River to Livingston, so it was downhill all the way.  With the wind at our backs we flew down the highway at an average speed of 30kph.  It was 55km before we stopped for breakfast.  After breakfast we continued non-stop to Livingston and back to our car.   We arrived in Livingston shortly after noon.

We disassembled the bikes, packed them into the car and headed back to Montreal.  Within 15 miles we had a broken-down car and we flagged down some locals.  The local tow truck recommended Larry’s Foreign Car Service and there we went.  Larry looked at our car and diagnosed a seized alternator.  The parts had to be shipped overnight, so his wife Cornice arranged a ride to a hotel and we over-nighted in Livingston.  

Delivery to Larry's Foreign Auto Service

Sept. 19th: Canyon Village to Mammoth Hot springs 59km 499m

Norris Geyser  Basin

Tim G’s shoulder injury seems to have recovered after last night’s cure. On our last day in the park we rode to Mammoth Hot Springs via Norris. We stopped to look at the Norris Geyser Basin, but it paled in comparison to the Old Faithful area. When we resumed the journey we were heading north beside the Gardiner River, with a tailwind. It was the gentlest 30km we rode all week. Unfortunately we were going so fast we broke the speed limit and when we stopped at Mammoth Hot Springs we received a lecture from a ranger about obeying the traffic rules. We agreed to comply.

Steam Vent - Norris Geyser Basin

Mammoth Hot Springs Upper Basin

Mammoth Hot Springs -Upper Basin

 

Sept. 18th: Grant Village to Canyon Village 79km 730m

Natural Bridge

The price for everything in Yellowstone park has been high so we were pleased to find an all you can eat buffet breakfast to start the day.  It had all our favourite breakfast items and included a bottomless cup of coffee.  We hit the road rather late. 

Our first stop was a natural stone bridge followed by the mud volcano area.  The mud volcano area was impressive, but the pictures of mud looked just like mud.  When we arrived near Canyon we rode to the viewing points along the south and north rims of the canyon.  The Yellowstone river flows through a canyon of high rock walls.  The colouration in the rock was a surprise – bright yellows and reds.   It was an impressive sight.

Yellowstone Canyon

    

When we planned the trip I had read that cycling in the park was difficult.  This has proved true.  The traffic is heavy, the roads are poor quality and the shoulders are narrow.  I have ridden off the road twice so far due to narrow shoulders, but until today we have had no serious mishaps.  Our luck ended today.  As we were crossing a bridge we were overtaken by a camper van.  I was startled by the blast of air as the van just missed me.  TimG was 10 meters ahead of me and the van hit him in the shoulder.  TimG was lucky to maintain his balance and neither of us fell.  The driver pulled over about 200 meters up the road and was checking his mirror (which was broken) when we arrived.  He said he wasn’t used to such a big vehicle, pointed out the mirrors were really wide, and blamed us for being on the road.  I took his picture, with the van’s licence number, and we carried on.   We waved down the first ranger we saw and he wrote up a report.  Then we had lunch.  TimG is suffering from a bruised shoulder, so as a preventive measure I made sure he drank lots of alcohol to deaden the pain and improve the blood flow to the injured shoulder.

Sept 17th: Yellowstone Old Faithful Inn to Grant Village 45km, 691m

Bison

Elk

‘twas a cosy night in our one bed. This was the first time we had not been able to get a twin bedded room. It is hard work sleeping on the edge of a mattress and trying not to move so we were up early. TimB went off to take pictures as the sun came up and I set off to do the laundry. Our Inn was too old to have a laundry so I had to walk to the more modern Snow Lodge on the other side of a humungous car park at the back of our Inn.    

Castle Geyser

TimB was finished before I was but we were still able to get packed and out before 10 o’clock. We watched Old Faithful erupt again at 10 and then went into the Visitor Education Centre to learn about fumaroles, mud pots, hot springs and, of course, geysers. Fully mentally equipped we set off to explore the Upper Geyser Basin, the Biscuit Basin and the Black Sand Basin. After seeing these three areas we were suffering from geyser overload and TimB had 200 pictures of steam and hot water so we did not ride up to see the Midway and Lower Geyser Basins. In any case, it was getting towards mid afternoon and we had to ride the 30km back over two passes to get to Grant Village. Two miles before G.V. we visited the West Thumb Geyser Basin (just to get some more pictures) and were treated to our first close up of some park wildlife.

Sapphire Pool

TimG after a big lunch

Sept 16th: Hatchet Resort to Yellowstone Old Faithful Inn 127km, 1470m

Today was a day of passes. We had to travel from well outside the east gate of Teton NP through the east gate, bend round to exit the park through the north gate, traverse the national forest region to the Yellowstone south entrance, travel north over the Continental Divide (2435m), run down trough Grant Village and West Thumb, turn west and climb over the Divide back to the Pacific side (2558m), run down past Shoshone Point, then climb back over the Divide through Craig Pass (2518m) to get to Old Faithful Inn. This happened because there was no accommodation available in Grant Village for tonight. We have got a room there tomorrow night so we get to retrace our path over those last two passes and then we have finished crossing the Divide for the rest of this trip.

  

The Old Faithful Inn is, as one might guess, very close to the Old Faithful Geyser and we were able to sit down, along with several hundred other tourists, to watch the 18:20 eruption. The whole area here is full of steaming hot springs and geysers but that is something to explore tomorrow. The Inn is something we had to look at this evening. It is a very large structure, not only horizontally, but vertically. When you walk in to the entrance you can look up 74ft to the top of the roof and the lobby is surrounded by two mezzanine floors. Now this might not sound remarkable but considering that it was built over 100 years ago entirely out of tree trunks and branches I think it is an impressive building.

Old Faithful Lodge

Sept 15: Togwotee pass 54 km 889m 2944m high

Top of Togwotee Pass

We had 1 goal today - to climb Togwotee pass and come back down. Togwotee (at 2944m) is the highest pass we have climbed so far. From our current location (Hatchet Resort) we are at the foot of the pass and within 100 meters we started to climb. It was a steady 6% climb and after 3 hours we were approaching the top when we were stopped by construction. We had been stopped about 1 km from the top. They wanted to load our bikes into a pickup truck and drive us through the construction to the other side of the pass. All the cars were going through in a convoy. When we explained we wanted to go only to the top they got a truck for us, and a volunteer on break, to drive us to the top. The top was under heavy construction so we took our picture with our driver (Dayle) and she drove us back to the start of the construction. It was a quick descent.

Pinnacle Buttes on Togwotee Pass

Sept 14th: Jackson Hole to Hatchet Lodge (Moran) 89km 648m

Morning Storm

It’s a good job nobody could film us trying to get moving this morning. It takes about 3 minutes to get my calf muscles moving pain free. TimB looks like he needs a Zimmer frame (walker). It was a slow start to the day and after some shopping for breakfast and supplies at the supermarket we rode around the middle of JH to take some photos. It was after 12pm when we finally set off north to pass where we were yesterday and continue on past Jenny Lake to Signal Mountain Lodge where we stopped for lunch. The weather forecast was for possible showers and thunderstorms and it was spot on.  We watched the weather over Jackson deteriorate in our mirrors and a thunderstorm pass across ahead of us.

Storm approaching

All we got was rough winds and a few rain spots from the edge of the storm behind us. After lunch we rolled on through the forest until we came to the Jackson Lake dam, which formed the road. We stopped to take pictures but suddenly the mountains to the left, on the other side of the lake, had disappeared in black cloud and the winds dropping off the mountains accelerated across the lake and nearly flattened us.

After the storm

My bike was blown over twice so I stopped trying to stand it up and TimB took shelter behind a pickup. After one picture we decided to adopt TimB’s suggestion and “get the hell outta here”. The road turned to the right after the dam and the wind pushed us on at 45kmh and we thought we would be at the Hatchet Lodge in next to no time but it turned out to be 10km further east than we had been told. It was with some relief that we arrived because about a mile ahead there was a full-scale thunderstorm in progress even though we were riding in sunshine.

Arrival at Hatchet Ladge

Sept. 13th Ride & Climb to Amphitheatre Lake; Ride 54km 260m, Walk 16km 400m

Our plan for today was a hike into the mountains to Amphitheatre Lake. We rode 30km from Jackson Hole to the trail-head and started our hike. Tim G is an ex-Alpine club member and has conquered 100’s of peaks in the Alps so a 12km walk will be a snap. We bought a map at the trail-head and started the climb. One kilometre down the trail we asked each other for the map and neither of us had it so TimG hiked back to get it. After 3 kms of easy hiking we stopped for a food and photo break at Bradley Lake. We continued up until we hit the next trail junction. The climb turned into a steep uphill hairpin climb. We started up, but we set a time limit to turn around and after 2kms we had reached our time limit. We were both feeling great so we continued a bit farther. When a group of hikers coming downhill said we were at the best part of the climb, we made the decision to turn around without reaching our goal. Downhill is always easier than uphill – so they say. That wasn’t the case for us. My toes started to cramp, my feet hurt, my hips got stiff and, strangely, the trail back was longer than the trail out. At the bottom TimG was walking funny and I was walking funnier. We learned two things: cycling shoes are not the best for hiking and cycling muscles are not made for hiking. It was absolute bliss to get back on our bikes and the 30km ride back to Jackson was a doddle. Back in Jackson we celebrated our survival with a double scoop ice cream. (Cold is good for aching joints.) Tomorrow will be a slow day.

Bradley Lake from above

Bradley Lake

Sept. 12th: Driggs - Jackson 54km 735m

10% grade - Teton Pass

World record downhill with luggage

The fine weather continued (and is forecast to do so until Fri) and it was so pleasant and warm we stopped in Victor, after only 13km and sat in the sun outside a café drinking coffee. We would have stayed longer but there was Teton pass to climb. We set off climbing steadily and before long a sign warned (trucks) of a 10% gradient for the next few miles and that is exactly what we got. We were in a narrow valley forested on both sides but at the summit, 2568m, there was a clear view for miles across the Snake River valley with Jackson in the distance. When we rode in the rain last Thursday 10 inches of snow fell on this pass but fortunately there was very little left today and the road was clear and dry. Moreover, the road dropped 650m with a 10% gradient so a downhill speed record was on the cards and sure enough I clocked 90.5kph, a personal record. Now that was fun and I’d love to have another go without the luggage on the bike but we have other plans.

Sept. 11th: Driggs - Targhee pass 46km 607m

House for sale near Driggs

We had a tourist day in Driggs. The clouds had disappeared overnight and we had cloudless skies and crystal clear views of the mountains so we rode up to the Grand Targhee ski resort in the afternoon. The weather was great and as we passed through Alta, Wyoming, the views opened up giving us many opportunities to take pictures of the Teton Mountains.

The Tetons from Grand Targhee road