Departure 2 – 15 April 2024

The delay of departure finally dawned. Well it didn’t actually, because at 0500 on a wet Belfast morning in N Ireland, it was still dark; but you get the idea. I was as ready as I was ever going to be, but over the last week in this northern clime, I had become really quite worried that I had underestimated what I had undertaken.

Worried, not in terms of the length or the difficulty of the journey, but more the variety of weather conditions I would have to cope with. Africa was easy; it’s warm, or hot; sometimes too hot. Admittedly it is sometimes wet, occasionally a bit chilly for a day or two, but basically warm.

Canada, and later USA would be a different story. Take Halifax, my first port of call. Tuesday’s weather was forecast to be a warm 14ºC and sunny; Wednesday however was also forecast to be sunny, but at 4ºC! This is a very different proposition, and later in the week, the cold was set to persist, but with some rain added.

Now rain is one thing, but this temperature would limit riding to about an hour or 90 minutes at a time. Anyway, que sera, sera, and I will just have to make a plan.

Apart from documenting my experiences, I thought it would be good to review, things and places I passed on the way. People would be a more difficult thing, in the sense that someone might do me a big favour, but still be a real twat; what to do then? Tell the truth? Keep quiet? Or compromise on my journalistic integrity 🙂 and sugar-coat the experience. On va voir; it’ll probably depend on how objectionable the individual is; or the size of the favour. I’ll probably just follow Thumper’s mother’s rule, “If you can’t say something nice, …”

Anyway, grâce à my wee (haha) brother – thanks Conrad – I got to the bus and arrived eventually at Dublin airport. Here I experienced what must be one of the world’s greatest rip-offs; 4,10 € for a croissant! In France a croissant would cost me +/- 1 €, so a 300% mark-up? Outrageous! Unfortunately I had paid before I realised what had just happened, so I had to swallow the pill; but to give it it’s due, it was a very good croissant J

On to the plane, then. Welcome to RyanAir’s trans-Atlantic cousin! I was flying with WestJet, a Canadian company I believe. They use the same aircraft for the 7¾ hour trans-Atlantic flight, that RyanAir use to ply routes in Europe. The seats are as narrow, just as close together and just as uncomfortable.

On boarding, imagine my delight when the lady behind me in the aisle, carrying her sub-1 year-old turned out to be my next door neighbour in the middle seat. As if the ba wasn’t a bad enough prospect, the lady was, well round! See, I can be kind! Anyways, her husband had identified an empty seat further back in the aircraft – apparently they needed (wanted) a separate seat for the wain to inflate a baby-seat or something – so I altruistically (totally, really!) offered up my seat to Daddy, and expressed my willingness to move back down the plane.

Entertainment is provided in the way of movies, provided you have a suitable screen and ear phones to view them. As far as the food is concerned, it’s hard to be nice – I didn’t think my integrity would be put to the test so soon. The meal consisted of a bit of a salad, enclosed in a cardboard container, sealed with a piece of tape that defied all efforts to pull it off; eventually I attacked it with the wooden knife provided. This fearsome instrument of death wouldn’t have cut through soft butter, never mind this industrial strength tape. The latter finally gave up the ghost, but resulted in the deposition of half the contents of the container over myself and my neighbour. The “main” course was a pasta dish with some glue-like tomato and cheese sauce congealed on top; don’t board the flight hungry! The Pinot Grigio that came about 15 minutes later was drinkable, however, as was the coffee; so not all was bad. So there it is. I’m halfway across the Atlantic, rested – I slept for an hour or so as soon as we took off – fed and on my way.

Flying over Canada now, Labrador and Newfoundland to be more precise, and  the rivers and lakes, from up here, look frozen; in fact the whole land looks frozen! This tundra is like nothing I’ve ever seen before.

It’s endless miles of frozen wilderness, patched by frozen lakes that are joined by frozen rivers. The only way to tell water from land from here, is that lakes are grey with dark patches, while land is dark with grey patches.

There are roads; roads because they are largely straight with the odd curve, as opposed to the jagged irregular course of the rivers. There are, however no settlements visible; the roads appear to come from nowhere in one direction, and return there in another.

Suddenly a great scar appears crossing the landscape; clearly man made as it is a consistent width and straight as a die. According to the flight map, it runs a long way north, where there is nothing. A pipeline, for water or oil are my guesses. Looking at google maps later, it turns out to be the track of electricity cables, running between Churchill Falls and Sept Iles – about 700kms. Oh and according to the same source, there are settlements, or at least named places dotted across the countryside.

Whatever it is, this landscape has impressed upon me the vastness of this country; and Ive only passed over less than ⅓ of it.

The plane now banks south towards Toronto and clouds cover the landscape in a dense unbroken blanket; I go back to sleep.

The next time I look out the landscape has transformed. Instead of nature at its wildest and most rugged, everything is geometric, planned and built based on right angles …

And it looks modern …

This is Toronto; modern and square, it is still big!