Wednesday 7th October 2010 – THE ONE THING THAT I’VE …

… learnt about Americans, especially in upstate New York is that they provide more entertainment for the tourists than Disney ever did

I’d stopped at this hydro-electric generator to look at the waterfall over the barrier and I have to say that I have never ever seen so many fishermen there. That astonished me because the speed that the water was coming over was incredible and I didn’t expect any fish to be hanging around there at all.

I talked to a couple of the fishermen to ask what they were fishing for. Salmon is the answer, but neither of them had caught anything that day (and it was now early evening). But just then this guy was dragged off downriver with something – and whatever it was must have been impressive) on the end of his line.

He was there for quite a while struggling with this fish (I assumed it was a fish and not a submarine or something) and after a while he was clearly getting the upper hand. But the fish put up one hell of a fight and it was by no means certain.

By now there were few people fishing and the crowd of spectators in the background were all transfixed on this little scene. Someone produced a fishing net and joined in the fun and as the fish started to tire, the fisherman began to reel it in.

It still wasn’t all over as the guy with the net needed a few grabs – the first time he missed it completely, to the accompaniment of loud guffaws from the crowd – but eventually he managed to get it into his net.

It’s quite a big fish too. Someone reckons that it was 30 pounds and someone else said about 25. But of course they both could be right. It might have been 30 pounds at the start and during the struggle it could have burnt off pounds of flesh that would have cut it down to size a little.

And so there’s one proud fisherman on his way back home. His wife can put the chicken back in the freezer and it’s fresh fish with the chips tonight.

But the funny thing about it all was that the fish had the last laugh. As the fisherman was taking the hook out of its mouth the fish bit him.

And serve him right!

Now I’m sure that you are all wondering where it took place. And as a matter of fact, so am I. And that’s because today we have had a calamity. My old hand-held tape dictaphone that I have had since 1993 and which has accompanied me on my travels everywhere has finally given up the ghost. I think that the drive belt has snapped.

I’m having to use the digital one that I bought to replace it and which I don’t like at all as it’s nothing like as spontaneous as the old one. I dunno what I’ll have to do now but I bet it won’t be cheap

After last night’s excitement, I’m pleased to report that I had a really good night’s sleep and I was ready for anything (except the dictaphone) this morning.

Even sweeping off a huge pile of leaves off the bonnet and roof of Casey (autumn is definitely here and no mistake) didn’t cause me any problems, and I was on the road pretty quickly.

While I was on my travels last night looking for food, I’d seen a sign for “Bear Creek”.

Carry on Cowboy is definitely one of the top three Carry On films ever made and the scene where Big Heap alias Charles Hawtrey dashes into the saloon and shouts “Gold Strike at Bear Creek” still has me in stitches even now.

Of course, that was a long time ago but no harm in going to see if there is anyone here.

Pultneyville is an interesting little town down along the shore of Lake Ontario.

First settled at the end of the 18th Century, it was the scene of a confrontation between local militia and a small British naval force in 1814. It was also a quite important port on the lake and even had its own railway line, but the opening of the Erie Canal led to its decline. Now, it’s mainly a seasonal resort town.

After spending an hour or so watching the antics at the dam, I took another deviation down to Cape Vincent.

Lake Ontario narrows spectacularly here and we are at the entrance to the St Lawrence Seaway. There’s obviously a need for the narrow to be illuminated and thus we have Tibbetts Point Lighthouse.

There have been several here since Captain Tibbetts donated the land for the lighthouse. This version dates from 1854 and, rarely, still has its original Fresnel lens.

Now how about this? After the SDI yesterday (was it yesterday?) I’ve now found myself a P6 Rover. And it’s a TC as well which means that it will most likely be a 2000 or a 2.2, not a V8 3.5-litre. Now how about that in the USA?

It’s been ages since I’ve seen an old car (SD1s excluded of course) and I was certainly not expecting o see a P6 anywhere like around here.

That’s Canada that, just over there. You can see how close I am to it here.

That’s the Thousand Islands Bridge going over the St Lawrence Seaway. It was built in 1937 and finished 10 weeks ahead of schedule, which goes to show that it wasn’t a Local Government project, and modernised in 1959.

It’s actually a series of bridges, not just one, that bridge the St Lawrence by using the islands as stepping stones. Its total length, including access roads, is about eight and a half miles.

And now it’s getting dark, and I’ve found a motel and a Walmart. I spent ages in Walmart copying my next batch of photos onto CD. It said “it will be done in minutes” – and fair enough, a hundred minutes is minutes so no dispute there.

I also found a Lowe’s where I stocked up on electrical items – plugs and sockets and the like,including some colour-coded ones which will be useful.

And now I’m just a stone’s throw from the Canadian border and I’ll be there tomorrow.

-5

Wednesday 6th October 2010 – I RECKON THAT I MIGHT JUST STAY IN THE USA FOR GOOD ..

… if I could keep on finding business opportunities such as this one. What a way to earn a living, hey?

But seriously – I can’t live here. Driving through Buffalo earlier today and already in a really bad humour (I’ve had a run-in with another security guard) I came across a woman in tears on the edge of the street, with a baby, and with all her possessions scattered around her. And it was in the driving, streaming rain too.

Apparently the bailiffs had just been.

But Buffalo is a city that is already in my bad books, and has been for quite some time. In 1860-something a steamer launched in 1846 – one of the earliest lakers – sank in Lake Erie in a storm.

A few years ago a couple of divers located it and it was raised from the sea bed and taken to Buffalo for restoration. However the mayor declared it an “eyesore” and called in the scrapmen, who promptly cut up this rare, if not unique historical artefact.

In 1813 the British burnt Buffalo to the ground during one of the American wars, and believe me, I was sorely tempted to make my own re-enaction of that historic event.

There can’t be any greater eyesore in any city anywhere in the whole world than the sight of a crying woman and her child out in the street in the middle of a rainstorm with nowhere to go and no-one offering any help. 10% of the American working population is out of work, there are thousands of jobs going every day, and there’s no state aid for anyone.

And talking of that, just a short while later, I stopped to take a photo of an absolutely ancient Dodge Power Wagon plant mover used as a haulage truck in a boatyard. Fishing from the quay was an old guy. I got talking to him about things.

“Well”, he said “I worked for 29 years as a shopping centre manager and I was laid off in the spring. I don’t suppose I’ll ever work again and I don’t know what I’ll do now. And in my spare time I was a bailiff for the sheriff’s office but I had to give that up too. It was just so distressing turfing all of these people out into the street.

It’s the rich who are causing all of these problems in the USA – it’s high time a few of them were turned out into the street and made to suffer”.

I once heard someone say that the USA is a great place in which to succeed. Indeed it is, but it’s a dreadful place to fail. If the USA has the highest standard of living in the world, then there must be some awfully rich people somewhere well-hidden, because all I ever seem to encounter are the poor. And there are plenty of them!

r>After all of that, there isn’t an awful lot to say about my journey. I wasn’t really in the mood for much.

I left my rather expensive motel on the edge of Erie, Pennsylvania, in the rain and the further along the road that I travelled, the more the weather. Just like my humour did, I suppose. It was going to be one of those days.

But it’s astonishing, the things that you encounter along the road. At Westfield, near the quaintly-named Barcelona Harbour, I came across the Sea Lion.

It’s a replica of a British 3-masted sailing barque of the late 16th Century and it gives you an idea of the size of the ships that they used to cross the Atlantic in the early days of exploration.

But I can’t think what was going through their minds when they decided to build it, and why they have let ths ship degenerate subsequently into such a poor condition. Seeing that the bay in which the ship is situated is so depressing, perhaps they wanted their barque to be worse than their bight.

Strawberry Moose had a good photo opportunity today as well.

I’d stopped at a local Moose Lodge to see if there were any friends and family of His Nibs in the vicinity, but a local copper stopped to find out what was happening. So having given my explanation, he very kindly (and much to my surprise) allowed His Nibs to have his moment of glory.

So let’s hear it for the New York Police!

I also stumbled upon Graycliff – one of the houses that was designed by the famous architect Frank Lloyd Wright.It dates from the late 1920s and was built for the Martin family.

The were wealthy entrepreneurs in Buffalo and in fact sponsored Wright in his early days, but were wiped out in the Depression and the house was sold to a Monastic Order who used it as a school.

When the school was closed in the 1990s, there were plans to demolish the place and build a huge housing estate here, but the property was saved by a preservation group (a rare event in the USA)

And famous architect as Frank Lloyd Wright might have been, he designed his house without guttering as it would spoil the aesthetic effect. I suppose that that was much more important than spoiling the foundations and the clothes of the people entering and leaving the property.

It wasn’t actually open when I arrived but I managed to blag my way in for a look around the garden

No-one can pass by Buffalo without going for a look at Niagara Falls and once more, Strawberry Moose was in luck as a Tourist Guide/Security Guard agreed to pose in the same photograph as His Nibs.

It’s all quite astonishing, this. All of these officials and dignitaries and so on agreeing to be seen with him. Maybe there is an underlying sense of humour in the USA after all and I have been missing it for all of these years.

The view from the Canada Side of the falls is even more impressive – well-worth the walk across the bridge to the other side of the river.

What was even more impressive was that parking for the whole day (had I decided to stay that long) was just $5:00, entry to the park was free, and the border crossing in and out of the USA was relatively painless. I wasn’t expecting anything like that.

If you have been following my adventures from previous voyages you will be well-aware that I have been extracting the urine from the United States over its self proclaimed status as “Land of the Free”, because everywhere I have ever been to that has any kind of importance, it has been “Please Prepare Your Admission Money”

It’s only right and proper that I record the events surrounding my visit to Niagara Falls.

At the head of the river, on Lake Ontario, is Fort Niagara. There’s a British fort on the other side of the river directly opposite and during the various revolutionary wars and so on, there have been a good few battles between the two sides.

There was also a major battle between the British and the French in 1759, and in the grounds was a German Prisoner-of-War camp from World War II

Something right across the lake caught my eye but I couldn’t make out what it was, so I photographed it at the fullest extension of the zoom lens in order to have a play with the image later.

And this is what I saw – it’s the city of Toronto – probably 30 miles or so across the lake and it’s astonishing what a really good camera and lens can capture in the right kind of weather conditions.

You can see that the weather has brightened up – and so have I by now.

Tonight, I’m now in a small town called Ontario, in Upper New York State. Tomorrow I’m going to stay on the south side of the St Lawrence as far as I can until the last bridge across (round about Quebec I reckon) and then head north to Labrador.

-7

Tuesday 5th October 2010 – SOUTHERN SHORE OF LAKE ERIE

This is my motel from last night.

It was rather out of my budget but

it was here
it was open
it had a room
it was nice and comfortable
it had a good situation right on the waterfront

and you can’t say fairer than that.

And remember years ago when we saw that lorry driving up the railway line and I thought that it was an optical illusion?

So here’s another one and you can see by the fittings underneath it that it’s not an optical illusuon and these lorries do actually exist. I had a chat to the workers – apparently they are rail welders and check the rails for cracks, which they weld up if they can, or signal for replacement if they can’t.

Lake Erie has a reputation of being the filthiest lake in the world, with all kind of industrial discharges into the water.

But that’s not all that is discharged into the lake, judging by this sign. And to think that there’s a beach resort just a couple of miles up the road. Not that the USA would care too much about that, I suppose.

This is the Vermillion Inland Waterways Museum, or some such name. It goes without saying that it was closed when Casey, Strawberry Moose and I visited. But then again, I wasn’t expecting anything else.

And Vermillion is the birthplace of Lester Allen Pelton who invested the “Pelton Wheel” type of water turbine. I had a quick look around but couldn’t see anything in the town to commemorate him.

The Vermillion Museum is situated in Ferry Road, which tells you such a lot about the history of the town, and it its fortune has always been based around the water.

Today, it’s famous for its marina and attracts thousands of water-borne tourists each year (who I bet haven’t read the notice in the harbour down the road at Sandusky). Nevertheless, it’s a nice pretty little place even in this kind of weather.

That’s Cleveland, Ohio, just down there. I was planning to park up and go for a little wander around but just after this photo I was engulfed in this most astonishing rainstorm the like of which I haven’t seen in ages.

That put paid to all of my plans – I wasn’t going to set foot out of the car in this kind of weather. I stayed put and carried on driving.

But one thing astonished me about Cleveland is that not only did it have buses, it had dedicated bus lanes too. Imagine that in the USA!

And that wasn’t all that surprised me about Cleveland either. Here on the corner of Lakeside Boulevard and East 315th Street is an Aldi. I had to go in for a look around.

And my conclusion? Well, the only resemblance that it bears to the European version of the shop is the sign on the shop front. For a start, the Bargain Section is total rubbish, something that would never be the case in a European Aldi, and no-one from Europe would ever recognise any of the products on sale here. The “German” potato salad bore no resemblance to any potato salad that any German Aldi has ever sold.

Oooohhhhh! Now take a look at this.

I’ve been musing to myself as I’ve been driving through Ohio that I haven’t seen any old cars around and that’s been something of a surprise. But here on the way out of Cleveland near Madison, I’ve encountered an old Rover SD1.

You don’t see any of these in the UK these days – they’ve all been broken for the V8 engines that people have fitted into Land Rovers, so no-one was more surprised than me to see this one looking comparatively fit and healthy in the USA. However did it manage to come here?

This is Ashtabula – one of the very few working harbours remaining on Lake Erie these days. All kinds of stuff – coal, gravel are shipped from here and it has the reputation of being one of the most polluted places on the lake – and that’s saying something!

Bob Dylan sang about it, Jack Kerouac wrote about it, it’s also been the site of one of the USA’s worst railway disasters, and the rail ferry that sailed from here across the lake to Canada sank just off-shore following a collision. It was 52 years old at the time.

From here, I cross into Pennsylvania having missed out on the fate that befell Allison Krause, Jeffrey Miller, William Schroeder and Sandra Scheuer (and, incidentally, Joseph Lewis, John Cleary, Thomas Grace, Alan Canfora, Dean Kahler, Douglas Wrentmore, James Russell, Robert Stamps and Donald MacKenzie, the suffering of whom is largely ignored by the media).

In fact, you can tell that we are elsewhere other than Ohio by the amount of rubbish and old cars lying around. And I don’t mean that pejoratively either, because I’d been making little notes to myself all along today’s journey about how unusually (and unacceptably) tidy everywhere in Ohio is – it’s no place for me.

I’m running on fumes looking for a petrol station (which I eventually find, manned … "personned" – ed … by someone from Swindon, Wiltshire) and looking for a motel, as the night is upon me. Eventually, the town of Erie comes up with something and so I settle myself in.

It’s heaving down with rain and I’m not going out.

Monday 4th October 2010 – ENTER THE DRAG … UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

Monday today. everyone is back at work or back at University, and so it’s time for me to be moving on. I rescued Strawberry and prepared to enter the drag … errr … the Untied States.

And another 3-hour grilling too – it really annoyed me. It reminded me exactly of when I used to go to the Soviet Union – exactly the same grilling and exactly the same reason – “the interests of National Security”.

The USA spent 50 years trying to destroy Communism and then went to install exactly the same system of controlr there. I’m waiting for some high-powered American politician to admit that maybe the Soviets had a point. But I’m going to have to wait a long time. When was the last time that you met a frank and honest politician?

Firststop for any transport fan has to be the Michigan Central Railway Station in Detroit.

Built in 1913-14 a long way away from the city centre as a deliberate attempt to pull the development of the city down to that end, at its peak it handled over 200,000 people per day, by far the greater majority of whom came by the tram network.

But the Depression dealt the expansion of the city and also the tram network a fatal blow and passenger use melted away. On 6th January 1988 the last Amtrak train pulled out of the station and that was that.

When I arrived here, there was a copper standing outside talking to some people and so I asked him if it was ok to photograph it. After all, you never know. This is the paranoid nation called the United States of America.

I asked him what they were planning to do with the station, and he replied
nothing
So now we know.

But the Depression hasn’t yet finished with Detroit.

Frankly, with all of the industry collapsing or moving away, the city is dying. And it looks like it too. Everywhere that you go, buildings that aren’t demolished lie abandoned and looted and the place looks something like Fallujah after an American offensive (and nowhere have the Americans been more offensive than in Fallujah).

This is the view across Roosevelt Park from the station. And it was this photograph, as well as several others, exhibited elsewhere, that let to the epithet “ruins photography” being hurled at my work. Still, I’m not here to please everyone – I’m only intending to please myself.

But some of the citizens in Detroit have managed to maintain their sense of humour despite everything that the world has thrown at them.

Here’s a walking advert for an auto insurance company, and he was pleased to make the acquaintance of a fellow-traveller. The scene certainly brought a smile to the faces of many people going past and makes a change from ruins photography, doesn’t it?

I wasn’t long in Michigan. Just a little further down the road is the Ohio State Line and I stop to take a souvenir photoin order to celebrate our crossing.

This is now much more like rural USA, where I am hoping to be. I find urban areas so depressing, even affluent ones. But I’m not too sure about the 45mph speed limit. I hope that that is only a local arrangement.

All around the southern shore of Lake Erie I’ve seen loads of signs “say no to wind turbines” – all identical and all supplied by an organisation financed by the coal owners of the USA.

But I haven’t seen a single sign against the nuclear reactor just here at Oak Harbor.

And that’s so surprising too seeing as in 2002 a large corrosion hole was discovered in the reactor head. The plant was closed down for two years “for maintenance” and the owners were fined a total of $33 million.

I think that that would worry me much more than a couple of windfarms. I just don’t understand the mentality of Americans who are so “suckered in” by corporate business-speak.

This is the County Court House in Port Clinton, a beautiful little lakeside town on the shore of Lake Erie (or it would be beautiful if there weren’t a suspect nuclear reactor just down the road)

What impressed me about the Court House is that it’s been extended (the USA being what it is, it’s hardly surprising) and although you can see the join, they’ve built it in stone, and matching stone at that.

They’ve clearly done their best, which is more than you can say for the UK. had this been on the other side of the Atlantic, a classic building such as this would have been totally disfigured by a glass-and-concrete monstrosity.

But while I was taking this photo a lorry clattered over the railway line behind me. I couldn’t believe it at first – thought that I was seeing things. I’ll have to look into that.

This is Marblehead lighthouse, with a beautiful view of the amusement park at Cedar Point which I have managed to avoid.

It also has a beautiful view of the city of Sandusky, which I have also managed to avoid, and they say that from the top of the lighthouse on a good day, you can see the tall buildings of the city of Cleveland 75 miles away, although why they think that that might be a selling point for tourists I really have no idea.

My road in the gathering gloom brings me into the town of Marblehead and its famous quarry, and overhead conveyor that takes the crushed limestone all the way down to the harbour, where it’s loaded into lakers and shipped off to wherever.

There’s only one motel around here and it’s quite pricey, but it’s too late to go to look for anywhere else that might be more suitable to my budget.

Mind you, it’s well-appointed and comfortable, and good value for money if I could afford it, and the view out of my front door is probably worth a couple of extra quid anyway.

In order to bring my buget a little under control, I had bean burritos for tea. It’s a long time since I had them – New Bern, North Carolina, in 2005 as it happens. And they were just as nice and tasty as I remember them too and filling.

I ordered two and with some chips and a salad from Arby’s and a huge mug of raspberry iced tea it was delicious. And it filled me up.

-2

Sunday 3rd October 2010 – SOUTHERN POINT

Pelee Point is the southernmost part of Canada, and that is right here. if you look closely at the water, you’ll see the current flowing from right to left, on the right-hand side of the photo, and the wind blowing the water from left to right on the left-hand side of the photo, because the cind just here was wicked.

And when I’d finished taking the photo, I dipped my hand into the water just as a little celebration.

That’s where I’ve been today with Katherine and her friend Adam. I’m moving off tomorrow and I did promise that today I would take Katherine to wherever she would like to go, and she has chosen well.

It’s not particularly a student-type of place so I don’t imagine that there will be any tours out from the University to a place such as this. Nevertheless, it has to be an essential item on any tourist agenda.

I was puzzled by this sign though. I know that it isn’t all that far from Halloween but I couldn’t understand the reason why anyone would want to be selling goose outfits.

There was a Round The Horne sketch that featured Julian and Sandy and a goose outfit with a trapdoor for laying a golden egg, but I’m sure that it can’t be anything to do with that.

From the south end of Pelee Point there’s a view right across the bay to what I think might be Kingsville, where I was the other day and saw that Ford Cortina Mark II.

There wasn’t anywhere to take a decent photo of the town when I passed through, so this will have to do, although it’s come out rather blurred. But never mind.

On the way back, in the driving rain, because it was, we had to stop at a level crossing to let a train go by. It’s presumably on its way to Windsor and then under the tunnel from there under the river and into the USA

I’ve never seen a Canadian Pacific locomotive before so I had to take a photo, even if the raindrops didn’t do me any favours.

Having been woken up by a flight of geese passing over my motel (it’s “that” time of the year already) I made my excuses and left, in order to have a nice quiet evening to prepare myself for the road.

This last few days hasn’t ‘arf passed quickly.

Saturday 2nd October 2010 – THE WEATHER CHANGED …

As you can tell from the photo here. You can also tell that I’ve found my spiritual home part II – a Home Depot. It didn’t take me long, did it?

You can see Casey over there on the left, reversed into a parking space. And here I had an unusual encounter – someone actually came over to me and asked me why I had reversed in. I replied “because I can – I’m a European”. But the real answer, as everyone knows, is so that I can make a quick getaway if I spot any of my creditors approaching.

I’ve stocked up with a pile of electrical fittings – you ought to know by now that I use North American fittings (the plugs and sockets) for my 12-volt DC domestic circuit – and a few other bits and pieces that will come in handy back home in France.

I’ve also bought a SatNav. If I’m going to be here for a lengthy period wandering around in all kinds of obscure places, I’m going to be struggling for accommodation. I’ll have a few addresses gleaned from tourist information places, but I’ll need to know how to find them. I don’t want to be driving half-way around Labrador in a snowstorm late at night. And I’d have a mobile phone too if I could – but that’s far too complicated to arrange just like that.

I’ve also had a strange but interesting encounter in a Zellers shop. Grandma, Mother and daughter aged about 18, if that, dressed in headscarves and … errr … traditional dress. remembering my unfortunate encounter back in 2002 and how it set me back a little in 2005, I went to seize the initiative and interrogate them.

Apparently they are Mennonites, and believe that man is snbordinate to God, and Woman is subordinate to Man

So now I know.

Old cars a-plenty too, far too many to post here. But this one is exciting.

If you came with me when we drove through the Utah Desert in 2002, you’ll recognise this as a Nash Rambler American. But this one isn’t as good and has no running gear. But being an estate version, this is an extremely rare version.

I went off down to the waterfront this afternoon and found my steam locomotive. It’s an old Canadian National 4-6-2 “Pacific” called “Spirit of Windsor” and being “restored” by the Southern Ontario Locomotive Restoration Society.

But restoration here, as in the USA, consists of nothing more than slapping thick coats of gungy black paint all over the rust.

From the waterfront, there is, as you might expect, a really good view of the city of Detroit. That’s the USA across the river of course.

And I discovered all kinds of things along here too, including the remains of the old car ferry that used to cross here before the tunnel was built, although how it managed it I really don’t know given the volume of marine traffic along here.

And so back to my motel to pretty myself up ready for my meal with Katherine.

And you can see why I feel quite at home here too. It reminds me very much of Liverpool, or my garden anywhere that I have ever lived. There have always been a few cars parked up on bricks in my drive of course.

Katherine and I found an Indian restaurant where there was a running buffet – all you can eat for … errrr …$6.99 a head. And it was the best Indian meal that I have ever eaten outside Stoke on Trent. After that it was to Tim Horton’s for coffee along with dozens of other people – what a way to spend a Saturday night!

Friday 1st October 2010 – I HAD A DAY OUT TODAY

The aim was to go to see Lake St Clair, the “forgotten lake” of the Great Lakes network. But I didn’t get far

I mentioned yesterday that the whole of this area seems to be littered with interesting cars from a bygone era, most of them awaiting some care and attention. This car, dating from the early 1930s I reckon (not that I would know) that I found in Deerbrook was in surprisingly good condition for an unrestored model.

I saw dozens like this – spoilt for choice.

On the shores of the Lake, making maximum use of the telephoto lens, I can give you all a good view of the city of Detroit, probably 15 miles away across the water.

And you can tell the kind of weather that we were having, just by looking at the waves. There was quite a vicious wind blowing around here. No wonder that wind turbines are so popular in Ontario, although I bet that there won’t be so many in the USA. No businessman there can control the supply of wind.

I’ve found the River Thames – but not the one in London (UK, not Ontario) but the one that flows into Lake St Clair. and much to my excitement (I’m funny that way) it has a lighthouse too.

The Thames River lighthouse here in the town of Lakeshore dates from about 1838 (that’s the date that the first keeper was appointed) with a grant of £1000 from the Government of Upper Canada.

Its claim to fame was that the family that supplied the keepers of the lighthouse from its inception until as recently as 1950 claimed direct descent from Jacques Cartier.

The whole area is now classed as a Conservation Area, and you can see why from this photo because it really was a pleasant place to be, especially in the sun.

And while I was walking around, admiring the view of the lighthouse and the lake, I fell in with a fisherman. He told me that this is one of the best places in the world to catch muskies, which apparently are fish that bear a close resemblance to pike.

He (the fisherman, not the fish) comes from Hamilton – that’s Hamilton, Lanarkshire, Scotland, not Hamilton Ontario, although you never would have guessed judging by his accent.

My journey took me to the small town of Wallaceburg. I can’t go any further than this unfortunately as the Great Satan is just up the road and I shall be visiting here in a couple of days time.

Wallaceburg was formerly a major industrial centre, renowned for its glass, and was also the birthplace of what became more famous as the Lee-Enfield rifle.

The story goes that the industry here in the town and the agriculture of the neighbouring rural area were so important that lakers struggled all the way up the Sydenham River to here in order to load up.

Beautiful as views of the town might be, it’s only skin-deep because the southern shore of the river is nothing like the previous photo. It’s not always a railway line that divides the poor from the rich, despite whatever Tracy Chapman might have to say on the subject.

But then Wallaceburg is no longer master of its own budget, having been absorbed into the the municipality of Chatham-Dover.

I mentioned the agricultural produce of the area. Heading back to Windsor down the main highway, I drove through the Southern Ontario prairie.

It’s flat, as flat as the eye can see for miles around in all directions with not a single hill to relieve the monotony. The roads are totally straight and run for miles, and you are just surrounded by corn.

But while I was busy doing something else, I actually saw a diesel train and even more surprising, it was pulling four or five passenger carriages. Now as I was busy I didn’t get the chance to photograph it but the fact of it being a passenger train was totally surprising.

There are two railway lines into Windsor by the way, one from the Canadian Pacific and the other from the Canadian National. Now I could understand that if they served different townships on their way but they run parallel to each other just a mile or two apart which seems a strange thing to me – it’s just duplicating resources and bringing no benefits to anyone.

I also encountered the Taj Mahal – in actual fact the Gurdwara Khalsa Prakash Sikh temple somewhere between Tecumseh and Windsor.

There’s quite a large Sikh community in Canada, about 1.5% of the population, and like most non-white populations in North America they have suffered considerable discrimination, particularly in the early years of their arrival 100 or so years ago.

Immigration received a further impetus in the 1980s as Canada welcomed Sikhs fleeing from persecution in India, but this has led to a number of “incidents” taking place between the Asian communities in Canada, culminating in the attack on Air India Flight 182, widely credited to Sikh extremists.

But now I’m back in Windsor, in a really delightful evening. The weather is beautiful, very windy but hardly a cloud in the sky. I’ve been lucky with the weather so far but the locals think that it might break in a few days.

Tomorrow, depending on what time I wake up, I’ll go for another wander around. I’ve seen a steam locomotive on a plinth and that must be worth a photo. Tomorrow night Katherine and I are out a-dining. Doubtless Strawberry Moose will want to come too.

-2

Thursday 30th September 2010 – 2nd DAY IN CANADA …

… and I’ve had my first run-in with the farces of Law and Order.

Here I was, taking a photo of the Ambassador Bridge – the big bridge that goes over between Windsor and Detroit in the USA, and a copper pulled up. He told me to stop taking photos of the bridge
“Why?” I asked
“Because the Department of Home Security doesn’t like it” he replied
“But isn’t the Department of Home Security an organisation from the USA?”
“Yes it is” he replied
“Right” I said. “Tell the Department of Home Security to f$@µ off!” and I carried on taking photos.

Yes, the United States of America getting the Canadian Police to do American police work on Canadian soil – that’s a weird situation isn’t it? Whose country is it anyway?

But then as someone once said to me, when you are living next door to a well-known paranoiac who is armed to the teeth and has no intention of obeying the law, then you’d be a little wary too.

But I’ve been in Canada less than 24 hours and all my illusions about the country have been shattered.

I set off this morning quite early and drove down to the shores of Lake Erie, which was swathed in fog and mist.

First thing that I encountered was an abandoned railway line. Apparently the Beeching Cuts in the UK were nothing compared to what happened to the Canadian rail network in the 1980s and a huge proportion of Canada’s rail network was lost.

Admittedly much of it was unnecessary duplication, with three railway companies building transcontinental railway lines within 20 miles of each other, but an awful lot of it wasn’t.

My road down to Lake Erie took me to the little harbour of Port Glasgow. This is a huge pleasure marina with all kinds of leisure activities going on.

There were several people around here and I had a couple of quite interesting chats – a fine way to pass the time. And the weather was now quickly improving – the sun was out and the heat had burnt away the fog.

This brings a whole new meaning to the phrase “Dutch barn”, doesn’t it?

Just as in France, there has been a wave of Dutch farmers coming over to Canada. Land in the Netherlands is difficult to find and is frightfully expensive. Many young farmers have crossed the Atlantic in the search for a place of their own.

And this place is up for sale, with an estate agent named Verbrugghe – just as in France, the Dutch have started to capture the Estate Agency market.

The whole of the shore of Lake Erie are covered in wind turbines, and I must have had to dodge about three or four lorries coming down these narrow roads carrying assorted bits.

But there’s also a small oilfield here. I counted about 20 small pumps and I’m sure that there must have been others that I didn’t see. I’ll have to look into this oilfield and see what’s going on.

And old cars too – there are plenty of those around here in southern Ontario.

A casual observer might not find a Mark II Ford Cortina to be the most exciting of the cars that I could have depicted as an example, even if it is a 1600GT, but I have a very strong affinity with British Fords, going back to my childhood. And when I had my taxis, I had nothing but Ford Cortinas, but the later Mark III and IV versions.

I was intrigued by this photo. I wonder what this “Do Not Push” on the back of this lorry is all about.

It does make me wonder what it is that Canadians have for breakfast, if people are worried about them being able to push lorries around. But whatever it is, I’d like to have a plate of it. It could come in handy with what I need to do back home.

In Windsor I found a cheap motel, parked up Casey and went for a walk along the riverfront where there is an impressive view of Detroit, ships passing by, and fishermen trying to find something worth catching.

The weather had turned out nice in the end.

So while I was waiting for Katherine to finish her classes (I’d arrived a little early) I wandered off to take a photo of the Ambassador Bridge and for my confrontation with the farces of Law and Order.

-3

Wednesday 29th September 2010 part II – WELL, HERE I AM.

In a motel on the edge of the town of Kitchener in Ontario. $62 plus taxes and you don’t get much for your money.

But having been into the city, tried unsuccessfully to withdraw cash at three banks with three different bank cards and missing my way back to the motorway, I was ready for a good sleep. Mainly because I hadn’t had one on the plane.

Some blasted infant started to scream the moment the plane took off from Zurich and didn’t stop until we landed at Toronto. And at one time it was screaming so much that it gave itself a nosebleed. I was thoroughly fed up with that.

It’s been a long time since I’ve been up, showered, dressed and breakfasted before 08:00 – I’ll tell you that. And up before the alarm as well. Well, breakfasted after a fashion with the rest of the biscuits from my bag – and no coffee either. With the prices that they were charging I’d need a mortgage for that.

And on the airport shuttle bus some American got on board with two of the biggest suitcases I had ever seen, even bigger than mine – while his wife stood and watched him. I couldn’t resist it –
“Wouldn’t it have been easier just to buy the kids a ticket?” I asked him.

And as the bus pulled in to Charles de Gaulle Terminal 2 his wife stood and watched as he struggled one of the suitcases off. And he had to hurry to take the second one off before the bus pulled off to the next terminal. If she had been my wife she would have had a smack in the mouth by now. It wasn’t so much the standing and watching that did it for me – she may well have been disabled or something, you can never tell, but it was the way that she was harassing him while he was trying to do it.

Once inside the airport we are subjected to what can only be called "Skyway Robbery". I’d already lost some dosh in a vending machine at the entrance and it took me ages of wandering around the concourse before I found some nice friendly woman with a coffee trolley who sold me a nice cup of hot steaming strong coffee for a very respectable €1:70. Yes, it can be done, but you need to persevere.

The final words that I gave to Strawberry Moose
before we parted were
“Are you going to be all right, stowed away in the suitcase?”
“Just bung me a bottle of whisky” he said “and I’ll be absolutely fine”
“Badger off!” I exclaimed. “I know you! We won’t be halfway across the Atlantic before you start singing bawdy songs”
“Once we’are halfway over the Atlantic it won’t really matter. They aren’t going to stop in mid-air to search the baggage now, are they?”

He did ask me though if we were flying by Lear Jet but I did explain that it’s spelt L-E-A-R.And in any case, it was a nice, comfortable Airbus 320 that took us over to Zurich.

My only complaint was that there was nothing for me to eat. somehow my request for a vegan meal doesn’t apply to snacks served on short-haul flights.

They said that out plane from Zurich to Toronto was a Boeing 777. Mnd you, it looked more like a 767 to me but I suppose that they ought to know.

And as we flew over Greenland I had my vegan meal. Couscous and roasted vegetables. Not as nice as Liz’s but then again, nothing is.

But you missed all of the excitement. When we were at about 20,000 feet we had the safety announcement. And one of the things that they said was “if you are sitting by an emergency door you must be able to open it”. And I didn’t see the point of that – they didn’t half yell at me when I tried.

As well as that, we had another exciting incident. I always understood that there had to be a good vertical and horizontal clearance between two planes on the same course ever since those two airliners collided over the Grand Canyon years ago.

But there’s not much in the way of separation between us and this Thomas Cook flight that we overtook in mid-Atlantic.

But that’s enough of that. I remained inconspicuous for the rest of the flight with my head down. And at least the skriking infant drowned out the bawdy songs coming from the hold.

We made it in one piece as far as Toronto where the screaming brat finally shut up. I’d made the most of the journey by watching a couple of Hopalong Cassidy films and the new Robin Hood. At least the headphones kept out the screaming.

And the queue into the country was miles long. Half a dozen flights from Europe had come in at the same time as, as usual, the airport wasn’t prepared for them

But good fortune followed me to the car hire place.

They didn’t have a compact car so they offered me an upgrade. After much negotiation we settled on a Chrysler PT Cruiser. Ive always loved these vehicles, ever since they first came out. They reminded me very much of the Ford Anglias and Prefects that my father had when we were kids. And it’s been a lifetime ambition to drive on. So I was more-than-happy with this.

And so in my Chrysler PT Cruiser which I have named Casey (check his numberplate) Strawberry Moose and I head off into the sunset – going west you might well say, along the motorway in the general direction of Windsor, Ontario.

I’m looking for a cash point and then I’ll be looking for a motel. I won’t be doing all of the trip tonight. I’m thoroughly exhausted after the events of today.

-1

Wednesday 29th September 2010 – IN BRIEF

I’m at Paris Charles de Gaulle airport, in the departure lounge and I’ve discovered a free wi-fi connection. I’m not sure how long it will work and so I’m posting a brief message before anyone discovers me and cuts …..

-4

Tuesday 28th September 2010 – WOULD YOU BELIEVE …

… that this is the first time that I’ve been on a French train since all of 1978? That was when I had a brief excursion from Rouen to Paris to escape from a party of schoolkids that I was accompanying.

The trip itself was quite uneventful except that I had to share a table with three other people and a large black dog. Everywhere you put your feet it seemed to be on top of the dog. Probably something to do with me going to Labrador, I reckon.

everything went according to plan at Gerzat and Liz dropped me off at the railway station in really good time for my train. I even managed to have time for a coffee and was on the platform in good time for my train.

The British King Richard I was, as every schoolboy will tell you, nicknamed Richard Gare de Lyon because he was always travelling south with his pal Philip of France. I was here in the Gare de Lyon and I was going west. I didn’t like the analogy.

To seek directions to the RER I enquired of a member of the station security staff. He replied in an English which was absolutely impeccable. When I congratulated him on it he replied
"and so it ought to be. I was born in Atlanta, Georgia".
Ahh well.

So down into the basement, off to Something Halles du Something Else on the RER line A, and then change onto the RER line B for Charles de Gaulle airport Terminal 1. And it wasn’t half a struggle fighting through tides of people with a big heavy suitcase. This was the worst part of the journey without a doubt.

When I finally arrived at the airport I waited outside in the wind and rain in the company of a hundred other people for the Hotel navettes. My hotel was the Comfort Inn and I have no idea why they call it Comfort because the light in my room doesn’t work, the shower is only lukewarm and leaks all over the bathroom floor, the meals and drinks are like the internet service – flaming expensive!

But then it’s the cheapest hotel I could find that had a direct connection to the airport and still had a room vacant. I could have paid a lot more for my room elsewhere. And I’m only going to be sleeping in it anyway. It’s better than a draughty railway station concourse.

And I have my humus butties and a packet of biscuits – what more could any man desire?

Monday 27th September 2010 – IN 24 HOURS TIME …

… if all goes according to plan, I’ll be in a hotel at Paris Charles de Gaulle Airport.

Browsing around this evening on the web and looking for some kind of accommodation, I noticed that the airport has a hotel booking service. So on a whim I typed in a request for the cheapest hotel possible within the airport limits.

And the price that came up was €106. So forget that!

But there was one of these Google advert things on the side of the page for some kind of wholesale hotel booking agency. And they offered me a price in the same hotel for … errrr ….€66. So with shuttle to and from the flight terminal included in the price I’m not going to mess around wandering around the city at weird hours of the night – I’ll get a good night’s sleep instead.

But the main reason for not wanting to hang around in Paris is the weather. Winter has come with a vengeance and it fell to 2.9°C last night. And it’s been grey and miserable all day too. I shan’t be sorry to see the back of this weather. Canada won’t be any warmer but at least the cold is different over there.

I was going to spend the day packing and tidying up but I’ve run aground again. It’s a tip up here at the moment with papers and all kinds of things lying around here. But that’s how it’s going to stay until I come back. I’ll just be glad when I’m on the train.

I’ve a lot to organise tomorrow morning, then I need to give Rob and Nicolette the instructions about checking up on the place, and then going round to Liz and Terry’s to park up Caliburn, and then recording 2 months’ worth of radio programmes. I’ll need a rest after all that.

But it’s been 5 years since I last went on a major adventure, and it’s 7 years since I went to Canada last. It’s about time I had a holiday!

-4

Sunday 26th September 2010 – I’m exhausted …

… and that’s just from watching the football this afternoon. If I had been playing in it I would have been absolutely worn out long before half-time.

We were out at a wind-swept Herment today for the 2nd XI’s match, and I can safely say without fear of contradiction that I have never seen FC Pionsat St Hilaire’s defence play as badly as they played today.

Slow off the mark for the ball, not quick enough going back, failing to clear the ball when they had possession – you name it, the Pionsat defence did (or didn’t) do it.

And it was only a heroic performance by Matthieu in goal – easily the best I have ever seen him play – performing acrobatic like this that kept the score down to a 3-2 defeat.

But today got off to something of a bad start. I was up early for a change and just as well for at 10:04 precisely Bill came round. He needed some help setting up an e-mail account so I sorted him out. But at 10:04 on a Sunday??

And so after that I worked on my notes for the radio programme and spoke to Desiree the local estate agent who gave me some useful info for a radio programme that I have in mind for the future.

On the way back from the football I went round to Terry and Liz’s to talk radio. Simon was there and so we had a chat about a project I have in mind.

I also found the time this morning to book my train out. I’m on the 17:39 from Riom to Paris as I’ve decided to hang around there through the night. There may well be a left-luggage at the Gare du Nord and I might even find a cheap hotel nearby. And if not I can always go for a wander around the city through the night. There will be plenty to do there rather than sitting curled up on a draughty railway station in the middle of nowhere.

-5

Saturday 25th September 2010 – Well, I’m back home.

And hasn’t this been an exciting few days?

The journey back was just as exciting though – it was raining when I left Brussels, (which was actually at about 21:00 in the evening Friday) and it gradually came down heavier and heavier.

At Troyes it was starting to become difficult to see with the rain and my eyelids were becoming heavier and heavier, so I parked up at St Florentin at 01:30 for a few hours for a sleep.

A torrential downpour woke me up at about 08:00 and that set the seal on the whole day. It rained non-stop after that and I brought the whole lot back home with me.

But the exciting events of the last couple of days have worn me out and I crashed out this afternoon. In fact I was hard-pushed to make it to the footy tonight.

And don’t ask me what happened there because I really can’t remember. I came back here and was out like a light.

I’ll be dead for a week, I reckon.

Friday 24th September 2010 – PHEW! I’M EXHAUSTED!

And it’s hardly surprising too after what I’ve been doing today!

In order of appearance –
1) I went in person to the Connections office and I’ve booked my flights and car hire. I leave Paris Charles de Gaulle at 11:00 on Wednesday and fly to Zurich where I pick up another flight to Toronto.

Then I have my car for 6 weeks, and then fly back. Total cost, all included, was €2100 which, all things considered, isn’t too bad at all.

Flying from Paris Charles de Gaulle means that I pay maybe €60 more, but I don’t have to go to Brussels, which would probably cost me that much on the train.

The downside is though that I have to hang around through the night on a railway station somewhere in provincial France.

At the moment, Nevers looks a good bet. I can get a train from Riom at 19:36 that gets me there at about 21:00 and there’s a train from there to Paris at 05:00.

Nevers is a draughty railway station but there are cafes and restaurants just over the road where I can loiter for a while and the train starts from there so it is usually backed into the station by the night shift at about 03:30 so I can curl up in a corner.

It arrives in Paris at about 07:30 so there’s plenty of time to get over to Charles de Gaulle.

I was tempted by flying to Charles de Gaulle from Clermont Ferrand on the 07:00 flight but the price €280 has put me off. I could travel there the night before and stay in the Hilton and still have change from that.

2) I visited the IKEA and had some luck too. As you know, with the composting toilet I’m using an aluminium plant pot but it really needs to be something in stainless steel.

And I found some superb waste-bin cum plant-pots there – 25 litre capacity and in stainless steel, for just €14.95. Exactly what I want and so I bought two of those.

3) But the most important thing concerned my property empire.

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that when I first moved to Brussels in 1993 I bought a little studio apartment about 20 minutes walk from work.

A few years later I met Laurence and as she had a little daughter (Roxanne) my studio was too small for us so I rented it out and we rented a larger apartment. When Laurence and I split up and she moved away, I bought the big apartment at Jette.

The little studio remained rented out – the old couple who rented it moved out and they passed it on to their grandson. When he moved away he passed it on to a girl he knew.

And to cut a long story short … "hooray" – ed … a few months ago, she sent me a mail to say that she reckoned that she ought to move out and find a place of her own to buy instead of renting.

But as she was happy in my place, she wondered on the off-chance whether I had ever thought of selling it.

The property market isn’t as good as it used to be and finding willing buyers is not all that easy. You need estate agents, plenty of time and patience, a good deal of hassle.

And of course there are all these laws now that you need homeowners files, surveys, thermal inspections and everything else and so on.

So someone ready willing and able to proceed is something that should not be discarded lightly, especially as the price that was offered was – well – I could have got more for it, but then I would have had to pay estate agents, etc etc.

And so I am now 1 property lighter in my portfolio.

But what I have lost in rental income has been more than made up by the fact that I have now reimbursed the outstanding mortgage on the apartment at Jette and the difference between the two figures means that I have more than doubled my disposable income.

There’s also a lump sum left over of an amount not to be sniffed at, and Terry, Simon and I are going to be having a little chat about how this lump sum can be made to work.

I know that if I just leave it lying around it will slowly melt away into nothing.

EPIC HALL

The Poisoned Pen (or Poisoned Chalice, more like) – or my relentless struggle against reality