Tag Archives: upper knoxford

Friday 9th September 2011 – HALL TOWERS

dodge grand caravan mars hill road upper knoxford new brunswick canadaI had a bad night last night – I couldn’t get off to sleep at all for ages and it was most uncomfortable.

I had the feeling that I wasn’t the right way round in bed and I’ve no idea why. The astonishing thing though was that after this had preyed on my mind for ages I turned round and put my head to the tailgate of the Dodge – and I went out like a light and that was that until the alarm went off, except for having to go for a gypsy’s at 04:00.

mars hill road upper knoxford new brunswick canadaToday it’s a beautiful day, brilliant bright sunlight and the solar panel on the roof of the Dodge is doing its stuff.

It’s charged up the laptop and it’s charged up the phone (which I’m now using as a mp3 player and why not? that was a good plan to buy a micro SD card) and it’ll charge up the spare battery before I’ve finished.

mars hill road upper knoxford new brunswick canadaThis morning I spent in measuring up. I have a few plans as to what I intend to do but for that I need some measurements. My measurements differ slightly from those of the surveyor so I reckon that it’s my measurements that are out, not his.

And then we had a mega-two-hour performance of playing “hunt the keys” that involved emptying right out the Dodge and eventually I found them stuck inside the map.

florenceville bridge saint john river new brunswick canadaThat makes me too late for the lawyer unfortunately, but instead I can go for a wander round.

There’s a big bridge over the river here at Florenceville – part of it is covered but the rest is a more-modern open girder bridge. It’s the covered bit that receives most attention from photographers, and so I’ll take a photo from less well-known western side of the river

wind turbine florenceville department of national resources new brunswick canadaAnd here’s something that I’ve been wanting to see.

This is the Florenceville District Office of the New Brunswick District Office of Natural Resources. They have a wind turbine at the back here and that’s what made me stop and go for a chat.

Apparently it’s nothing to do with them but a pilot study installed by the people at the University of New Brunswick about 5 years ago. They are having these pilot studies in a few places so it seems, and the energy is all fed into the National Grid directly. They here know nothing about it, but he will have someone from Fredericton call me back.

Of course I’m going to be in Fredericton later on this week for this Blues Festival so that’s fine. I shall have to go to the University of New Brunswick, shan’t I?

I found that garage that Darren told me to go to see, and I wasn’t all that impressed with what was on offer. I’ll have to pass on this for now and think again.

At the tyre place everyone was still there working until long after 18:00. We then went back to the house but we couldn’t go “over across” for a meal as arranged because Amber had a friend Abbi over for a sleepover and she had no passport with her.

But I was fed and watered and stayed the night, for which I am grateful as always. Darren and I were watching these documentaries about the unexplained – what is this Aurora flying saucer accident all about?

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Thursday 8th September 2011 – WATERFALL

mars hill wind farm turbine maine usaI had another excellent night’s sleep and yet another really vivid dream. As a result I wake up fully refreshed at … errr … 08:30, which, after going to bed at 10:00, is something of a record for North America.

We’re still in wet and clammy weather after yesterday of course but slowly the morning brightens up, and not before time either.

I eventually go round to the garage and have a good long chin-wag with everyone there, and even help Darren MoT a car. Once I’ve done that I head off to Woodstock to try my luck at the council again.

mars hill wind farm new brunswick canada maine usaI’m at a place that’s probably 9 kilometres south of a place called Lakeville on the brow of a high ridge. I’ve no idea how far that is away from where the wind turbines are but you can see them for miles.

It’s a magnificent view though isn’t it? You can see exactly why they installed the wind turbines up there. There’s nothing around for miles to interrupt the flow of wind.

By the time I got to Woodstock I was half a … &#34yawn;" – ed … and much to my surprise the council offices are open.

The girl there is very helpful – tells me some of what I can and can’t do.

There’s a good place to eat my butty down on the river bank and then wander off to do some shopping (well, not much because apart from gas there isn’t anything much else that I need right now) and then back home (and isn’t it nice to be able to say that here in Canada?)

jacksons falls new brunswick canadaI’ve taken a little deviation to the North Branch Meduxnekeag River (and I hope that I’ve spelt that correctly).

The reason why I’ve come here is that I saw a sign down the road pointing this way that said “Jackson’s Falls” and the name looked interesting.

As for the falls – well, I have to admit that I’ve seen better but they do look quite attractive.

dominion bridge company lachine bridge jacksons falls new brunswick canadaThe bridge might not look like very much but what caught my eye was that it carried a maker’s plate, and that’s not something that you see every day.

It was built by the Dominion Bridge Company in Lachine, which is where the rapids are, just outside Montreal, in 1928. And so it made me wonder how people crossed the river back before then. Did we have a ramshackle timber bridge, or did people have to ford the river as best as they could?

And on that note, I could go back home.

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Wednesday 7th September 2011 – WHAT A DAY!

I thought that I suffered from claustrophobia but having spent almost 24 hours inside the Dodge and only going outside once, it’s clearly not the case.

I didn’t move a muscle – hardly an inch away from the side of the vehicle. Mind you, with the weather that we are having it’s hardly any surprise.

It p155ed down all day long and the most I managed to do was to go out and fit the solar panel on the roof of the car. And that was when I had my only interaction with anyone. The dog from over the road came across the road barking at me.

Eventually the lady owner came out and called it back in. “It’s not a problem” I shouted to her but for all the notice that she took of me I might as well have just held my breath. They are a weird lot around here, that’s for sure.

sunset over mars hill wind farm maine usaThe sun finally made some kind of brief appearance late in the evening, peering out from underneath the cloud right over the wind turbines on Mars Hill.

I suppose that it’s symbolic in a certain sense, but I dunno.

But on the positive side, I’m nice and comfortable in the Dodge and I’ve had a nice relaxing day not doing much. But it was a good decision so far to hire a vehicle like this and kit it out as a camper. How it all pans out of course remains to be seen.

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Monday 5th September 2011 – I AM NOT ALONE

usa security camera radio transmitter mars hill road upper knoxford new brunswick canadaThere’s a security camera and radio transmitter now sprung up on the USA side of the border and it’s part-pointing onto the crossing just here and part-pointing onto my property.

It looks as if I’m going to have to have an accident while cleaning my crossbow or dismantling a spring-loaded container. But I’m sure that I can think of some other ways of distracting the attention of the people who stare at these security screens all day

But it’s nice to think that I’m so popular, isn’t it?

dodge grand caravan fitted out as camper mars hill road upper knoxford new brunswick canadaThis is a good opportunity to show you exactly how I have arranged the Dodge so that I can live in it.

Firstly, why I chose a Dodge Grand Caravan was because the seats fold flat into the floor and there’s enough room to dance in here when you do that, without any obstructions at all to get in the way.

There’s the bed, and the double mattress that stops me rolling down the side and keeps me warm and out of contact with the cold window. The suitcase cooking stove is under the bed and the little table for cooking is right there to hand.

And if you don’t know what the flower pot is for, then you’ve clearly not been keeping up with things.

dodge grand caravan fitted out as camper mars hill road upper knoxford new brunswick canadaFrom the side, you’ll see the tarpaulin that has been cut in two halves and string run through the holes to make curtains.

The suitcase fits under the bed if I were to remove the Ryobi plus one drill that’s in the way. And there’s a brolly in the cup holder in the door.

We have two big storage boxes (there’s a third too between the head of the bed and the back of the passenger seat) and that’s where the food, the cooking items and the tools are stored. We have a Ryobi charger, a small mains inverter and also a power pack with jump leads, an internal battery and a small built-in inverter for powering the laptop and charging up the mobile phone.

I’m all set up for everything with this little set-up.

As for my neighbours, they aren’t very sociable so far. I was expecting them to come over for a chat – after all, I introduced myself to them yesterday, but so far, no such luck. So, in view of the miserable weather, I’ve had a quiet day “at home”.

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Friday 29th October 2010 – THOSE OF YOU WHO HAVE BEEN AROUND HERE FOR A WHILE …

avro lancaster bomber KB882 edmundston new brunswick canada… will know all about this aeroplane as you have seen it all before.

It’s KB882, a Lancaster from World War II and it is one of only three “combat veterans” still in existence. It flew to Edmundston airport under its own steam in 1964 and ever since then it’s been stuck outside in all kinds of weather gradually deteriorating.

I spotted it in 2001 and ever since then I’ve been fighting single-handedly (I do other things with my other hand) to persuade the clowns in whose hands this historic machine has fallen to surrender it up to the Imperial War Museum or some other worthy organisation who can put a stop to this disgraceful neglect and get it back into the air before it falls apart.

avro lancaster bomber KB882 edmundston new brunswick canadaIn 2006 I was told that things might be happening and so being only 150 miles away from it I drove out this afternoon to see what they have done.

And the answer is

  1. they’ve put a better fence around it
  2. they’ve raised it off the ground
  3. … errrr …..
  4. that’s it

What is happening to this machine is nothing short of a national scandal, a total disgrace and the city of Edmundston should be thoroughly ashamed of itself. In the 9 years since I last saw it it has simply rotted away even further.

So having expected that, my blood has been boiling all day and it’ll continue to boil for a while I suppose.


and that’s not all I’ve done. In order to cool off, I retraced my steps from 2001 and retook a few pics of the falls at Grand Sault.

When I was here back then, the falls were all frozen up (mind you, it was midwinter at the time) and so I wanted a few with the water actually unfrozen, as well as a few other photos of interest that I missed when I was up here.

mars hill wind farm maine usaBut I did get sidetracked a little … "no surprises there" – ed.

From Rachel and Darren’s house I could see a pile of wind turbines away in the distance to the north of Centreville and so I wandered off for a closer look. And at one stage I was so close to them that I could almost touch them, and my route towards them led off down a little country lane called Mars Hill Road.

international frontier usa canada maine new brunswick mars hill road upper knoxfordAnd here I came to a dead stop as here on this hill the road also comes to a dead stop.

This is a frontier between the USA and Canada, and an unguarded frontier at that, although I do suspect that the barbed wire, searchlights, man-traps and machine guns are in that forest somewhere and that the purpose of the wind turbines is not to power up the local villages but to power the spy machines lurking in the woods.

abandoned building for sale mars hill road upper knoxford new brunswick canadaThe actual border is that orange fence to the left and this building here, Darren seems to think, might possibly be the old Canadian customs post from when this was a manned … "personned" – ed … crossing back in the distant past.

>And it’s for sale, even though it’s totally derelict. And I have a cunning plan.

Now just suppose I buy it and demolish the property that’s on it. I could erect a huge billboard and use it to display Anti-American slogans and then set up some loudspeakers to broadcast propaganda messages into the USA from here.

If it works for the North Koreans who habitually do this to the South, no reason why I can’t do it from here into the USA.

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