This was supposed to happen in 2020… but…

The blog is in reverse chronological order, just FYI!

Part 4: Divergence

Sweet Home Canberra

Some fairly arbitrary amount of time has now passed. It’s Saturday morning for Lauren and I, as we sit in seats 1A and 1B on by far the smallest plane of the trip – a little eggbeater beating its was through the heavy cloud from Sydney to Canberra. As I write, the others are a few hours out of Denver yesterday afternoon, having been hanging out with the wildlife in Yellowstone as we flew over the top of them.

Our time in Calgary was pleasant enough, though in reality all we wanted to do was jump 48 hours into the future, to about 2 hours from now when we will be home, showered, and in clothes we have not seen for a while. We actually had a fantastic dinner at a place called Porch on 17th St, and a more than passable breakfast at IHOP, where I was traumatised by them a) having an over-55s menu, and b) it having exactly the right things for me to order. We also had time to stop by the intersection where I lived for 6 months in 1971, which was oddly fun to do.

Our travels since have been long, but smooth. When we arrived at the Westjet check-in opposite the rental car return we were advised that this was the domestic check in, and international was at the opposite end of the building. A brisk walk got us to an empty counter where they checked our bags all the way through, didn’t charge us for the bags for their leg, and gave us exit row seats. 5 Stars, would recommend.

Most of the 6 hour transit in LA we spent in the lounge, eating things beginning with C and listening to parents try to tire out their kids before long international flights. It wasn’t entirely peaceful, but it was hard to argue with the logic. The 15 hours to Sydney was suitably functional and easy; and despite the very poorly organised mess that was clearing passport control in Sydney, we made it to the domestic terminal with 15 minutes to spare – just enough time for a coffee and breakfast stop at the Qantas club before boarding this little eggbeater.

And that’s just about a wrap, for us anyway. Hopefully there are plenty of photos and updates to come from the others – but let’s see.

The north / south divide

An unusual part of this trip is that, like the fireworks we saw the first night, there is a point on the trip when we explode into different directions – and that moment is now.

Lauren and I pointed the Camry north towards Calgary, as West Glacier is the far point of our orbit this time, and now the gravitational pull of the real world draws us homeward bound. Justine, Aidan and Sonja are far from their apogee, and head south towards Yellowstone in the fully (FULLY) loaded Behemoth II. Hopefully they will arrive not too long after we got to Calgary, but our drive was significantly shorter, and went swimmingly well (if you don’t count the one red light that I didn’t even see in downtown Calgary…).

Our drive started in the edges of the mountains, with low hanging clouds hugging tree-clad mountains, much like yesterday. We set our sights on Browning for breakfast, which was an error.

In the store we found we bought a snickers iced coffee (another error), and a “cranberry juice made from concentrate” (you guessed it). From there the road pushed north parallel to the mountains, but in the plains. It’s a strange but dramatic landscape, and it took us all the way to Calgary.

The funniest parts were: #1: we suddenly came on the US/Canada border unexpectedly. The US side had a note printed and stuck in the window that said, “Go north to Canada”. I’m not sure if that was a geographic hint or they just cover for each other at lunchtime, but Canada was – as advertised – readily apparent to the north. The last border crossing of the trip took us all of 25 seconds, a new record.

#2: At one point we spotted a legit cowboy shop in a town we passed through. Two days after we get back I have to go to a cowboy themed party at an embassy – so it seemed like a good opportunity. Alas, it was a bit too real, and the boots were a little bit too cool / expensive / hard to get home. Would have been cool to grab one of the saddles, but that had all the same issues – and would be less useful for the party.

Anyway, long story short. I’m having a beer on 17th St in Calgary, last night, waiting to L to summon the energy and enthusiasm for us to have dinner somewhere around here. Hoping to hear the southern expedition’s also been successful in the next hour or two.

Part 3: Banff and Beyond

One star national park reviews

The road to the sun

Where we stayed in West Glacier is the main entry point to the Going To The Sun Road, touted as one of the most scenic and spectacular drives in North America. Today’s planned activity was to drive it from west to east, and possibly back again depending on how everyone felt at the other end (the alternative is to loop around the southern end of the park entirely).

The park is a major destination, and we knew it would be busy. The weather forecast turned out to be depressingly accurate, with overcast conditions and at times heavy rain all night and morning. We quietly harboured hopes that that might make the park less bus, as anyone who had a choice would obviously choose to come a different day. Unfortunately, you have to book entry to drive the road 6 months in advance for a specific entry time, and so no one else really had any choice either. Consequently, when we arrived for our 1pm entry, we were in a queue of 50 cars with similar plans for today.

It took half an hour to actually get into the park and start the drive – but once we did, even though it was pretty busy, we could basically drive and stop as we wanted, and the busyness didn’t detract from the experience to any extent. That role was taken by the weather…

Sadly, after years of largely good luck with weather when we travel (notwithstanding the failure to get to the Arctic circle at Christmas), today was grey and rainy with a low cloud base. While it made for a pretty moody first part of the drive, the top section was in dense fog that made driving the Behemoth II on very narrow roads lined with cliffs and stone bollards a real challenge. Luckily Jen and Kurt succeeded in that challenge, but it wasn’t always fun for them.

Nonetheless, it was a dramatic day with cliffs and waterfalls and amazing views from precarious pull-off spots, and unsurprisingly there were still some good images to be had.

When we got to the end, no one really felt like taking on the challenge of the road going back, and many people felt hungry. We made the decision to head south along the eastern rim of the park to East Glacier, where a Mexican restaurant was identified as “probably open”. Luckily it was, and the food and giant Huckleberry Margaritas were all great.

A further hour’s drive in mostly overcast and occasional glimpses of the much promised sun brought us home to West Glacier. It will probably be a bit of an up and down evening I expect. Tomorrow is the day where David and Lauren turn around, and head back to Calgary to fly home; while Justine Aidan and Sonja (aka the Shanchovy) head south to Yellowstone, Denver, and points beyond. Tonight will be packing up, and mentally prepping for what is next.

For Lauren and I, it’s been a great time, but we are both also looking forward to getting home and getting on with things. The blog will move with us tomorrow, and it remains to be seen how much of the rest of the trip is documented in this form. All of it I hope!

Scenic floating

The forecast at Glacier National Park for the next 10 days is excellent, warm and sunny. Except of course for the. Next two days while we are here, when it is remorselessly cold and rainy.

Given day 1’s main planned activity was to go for a scenic float down the Flathead River, which promised for us to get cold and wet anyway, the forecast was far from appealing. Stoically, we showed up with varying levels of enthusiasm, wondering how the combination of shorts, sneakers, and limited gear would go with rain and glacial meltwater.

The answer turned out to be better than expected. The water was super clear, and nowhere near as cold as I was anticipating. Getting wet shoes and feet is never great, but the water was more like 13 degrees than the 3 degrees we’d experienced in the Baltic at Christmas, so that helped with the shock!

The trip itself turned out to be a really fun drift down the river for two hours; sometimes drifting; occasionally paddling; two or three times running category 1 or 2 rapids. Enchilada Ella turned out to be a fun guide, and Aidan and Sonja ended up with new nicknames of Anchovy and Shrimp respectively; and Shanchovy as their couple name. Many one-star reviews to be made!

Glacier National Park

Might be the last semi-scenic update for the trip… today we drove from rainy Canmore (Alberta, Canada) through to warm and partly sunny Columbia Falls (Montana, USA). It’s a glorious warm evening, after a drive through fog covered rainy mountains, a late lunch at a legit western saloon, and arrival at a lovely log cabin near Glacier National Park. Unfortunately, the forecast for the two days we are here is, as Justine put it, ‘deplorable’. I guess we’ve had more than our fair share of luck over this trip and many others, so we can’t complain if this is how it finishes. Much anyway.

Canmore

These little 36 hour vignettes are fun ways to see a place. Just enough time to get a feel for them – though def enjoy enough time to meaningfully engage with the un/packing situation.

Canmore is the next town 20 mins from Banff, twice the size and half the ambiance – which is in no way a criticism of Canmore. The view from the condo is a carpark, a Safeway supermarket, and several spectacular mountains.

The two evenings here have been most notable for the games – increasingly vitriolic versions of Taboo, and then the hilarity of something called Taco Cat Goat Cheese Pizza. Look it up. (How it doesn’t end with 40 dislocated fingers I don’t know.)

Other part of our time here were spent shopping in the town centre (successful), hiking up to Grassi Lakes (successful), catching up with a friend from uni in Brisbane in 1998 who lives in the next down down (successful), and making a trip back to the Banff Hot Spring (very unsuccessful).

Not bad. Check out those photos.

Separate ways

There are always some inevitable moments on these trips, some great, some tinged with sadness. And thus, we get to the morning when the group splits up into our separate groups for whatever we each have planned next.

This time we did that in two steps. The increasingly large Franklin party stayed behind in Vancouver when we took the train three days ago, and we just got word that they are back home in Bunbury a few hours ago.

At breakfast this morning, the train touring party also broke up. The Blebys were in the car by 8am, heading to Calgary to get a flight to Vancouver. We then collected our hire car for the next week, met Jen and Kurt in the Behemoth II, waved goodbye to Margaret and Lindsay, and headed for Lake Louise. After this we head to Canmore for two more nights in a condo. The classic bittersweet moment, as we look forward to what lies ahead, but wish we didn’t yet have to say bye to the others.

17 July

One thing about getting married in July, is that our anniversary often coincides with travel, sometimes planned, sometimes not. Last year’s trip to Cyprus was very purposeful, but this year’s arrival into Banff is almost entirely serendipitous.

Which isn’t to say we didn’t tack on some embellishments once we figured that out!

After two stunning days on the train, the morning dawned cool and damp. It was nice to pull out the jumpers and jackets we’d been lugging around the northern hemisphere summer for the last few weeks! The girls went off for a shopping morning, while I wandered aimlessly, ending up following a trail along the Bow River to a spectacular viewing point below the falls (really more a cascade) at a place called Surprise Corner, where the river does a 90 degree turn to slip between two mountains.

We all regathered for a quick lunch in town, which was to be our last meal all together for the trip. Tonight is our anniversary dinner, and then tomorrow everyone goes their separate ways.

Above the Surprise Corner sits the famous Banff Springs Hotel. I got a glimpse of it on my morning walk, and then again in the afternoon when Justine and I walked along the other side of the river.

It’s famous for a variety of things, not the least is that it was built round the wrong way from what the architect intended, facing the mountain rather than the river. From down at the river it’s impressive to see it pole above the tree line, and though we were short on time in the end, we decided to grab a taxi and race down there for an anniversary drink before dinner back in the Main Street. Glad we did – the building is massive and impressive and solid in ever way, and the view from the back patio across the river and along the line it takes after that surprise corner is remarkable. By this time the weather had also cleared, and the whole scene was delightful.

It’s just a shame they let any old crazy people in here!

From there, the same taxi driver picked us up and took us back to the Maple Leaf for dinner. Jen and Kurt timed their 2-day drive from Denver to be just 10-minutes fashionably late, sparking the next celebration when they arrived.

After dinner, completely stuffed as we were, there was just time for a little silliness and one lousy quiz attempt, and the. That really is the end of part 2.

36 hours in Banff

The first few hours in Banff was fast and functional. The shuttle bus got us from the train to the hotel, where seeing the risk, Lindsay carefully placed himself closest tot the checking desk. Five rooms secured, we raced down the Main Street to a place we had booked ahead for dinner. This is now in Alberta, where the legal drinking age is 18, meaning Lauren was finally able to order a drink.

For me, it was a good meal rather than a long meal though. The previous night in Kamloops Lauren had to log in and try to get all her preferred semester 2 classes. Unfortunately the times the classes came online translated into our time zone as requiring a swathe of unpleasant alarms…

That last one was for the 6am pickup for the train, so she and I were running on minimal sleep for the day, and while we both picked up a little on the train – dinner turned very quickly into bed! We stayed awake just long enough to be sure Sonja had safely arrived by bus from Vancouver, and that was all she wrote.

Part 2: Vancouver to Banff

Kamloops to Banff

It’s hard to believe this is all just one long day.

We’re not done.

Vancouver to Kamloops

Some days are hard to compress the experience into words, and this is one of them. Words are fine, and eloquent words can paint a picture; but a picture is only ever a snapshot of something larger, and today was very very large.

In fact, it was layers of largeness on top of each other. Today stood for a lot; and then it was amazing; and then there was the fact that a day that stood for a lot exceeded what was expected of it. That combination comes few times, and it was something else again to recognise all those layers at the time they were happening. As the Calvin + shoved cartoon goes – halcyonity can be retrospective, and is to be doubly celebrated when you can see and feel it happening in real time.

Putting it into words is slightly churlish, simplifying something infinitely large into moments and snapshots that attempt to convey it, but it’s the tool to hand, so let’s try.

The day started with the pre-booked car showing up early, with a suitable car in immaculate condition with a delightful driver dressed in full suit and tie. He got us to the Rocky Mountaineer Station as one of the first to arrive.

As the dawn light filtered through the eastern windows, and pianist picked out jaunty tunes, while we acquired teas and coffees.

On boarding, we were delighted to find that the carriage we are in for the next two days is only half full, giving us flexibility to move around, have more space, nap, and generally be luxurious in our space. Breakfast and lunch are served in the downstairs dining room, and the food was frankly amazing. With two chefs per carriage maybe that should be expected, but still – it was pretty amazing.

And then of course, there is the actual train trip. Overall it’s about 950km over two long days, with day 2 being slightly longer. The train must average 40-50kmh, but has various speeds and stops to contend with as it shares two parallel and competing rail lines that travel up each side of the river canyons, literally criss-crossing in places so as not to share territory.

The landscape was totally not what we expected today. We started in coastal rainforest, and tomorrow we end of crossing the Rocky Mountains into Banff – but much of today, and Kamloops where we are staying tonight is desert. The bus driver says they get less than 30cm of rain here annually, but it’s a city of more than 100,000 people in what feels like the middle of nowhere. Why it’s here at all I need to go read about, but it is at the junction of two rivers, and I’m guessing that is germane.

The scenery is frankly hard to photograph. Much like Australia, there are few angles where putting a frame around it doesn’t erode the scale and majesty. I got a few frames of the train that kind of get at it, but none of them do it justice. The sense of space is only exacerbated by the full glass cabin, and so the best of these images are nothing more than pale aide memoires at best.

In truth, I will have to go hunting for some aerial and drone shots of the train, because it is impossible to capture the sense of scale from the train itself. It’s one of the few times I’ve been somewhere where the lessons of trying to photograph Australian landscapes apply, but they do here. It’s hard, neigh mostly impossible. I’ll have some pleasing shots, but they will no more capture the grandeur than the snaps out the windscreen capture what the Nullarbor is about.

Getting into Kamloops, we had pre-arranged with a pub across the road to get dinner. We sat out on the deck as the sun set over the hills, enjoying the warmth and late light. As I write this, it’s 10.46pm, and the last of the light is still fading into the distance, the lights of the city and the silhouette of the hills still clearly visible.

Tomorrow promises to be even more remarkable, with the traverse of the Rockies to come, and then Banff awaiting us. Between then and now, Lauren and I have multiple alarms set so she can (hopefully) get the timetable she wants for second semester; and then we reconvene at 5.50am for the transfer to the train. Let’s hope the coffee is going when we get there. Goodnight.

The Rocky Mountaineer

The highlight of the trip, the centrepiece and probably the raison d’tre, is the two-day trip on the Rocky Mountaineer train from Vancouver to Banff. This is Lindsay’s bucket-list item, and something that is kind of hard to believe we are actually going to do. And not only are we going to do it, we are doing it in style – because we are doing the full gold leaf version, with the domed glass roof carriages, fully seated dining room downstairs, and bottomless beverage service… wow.

Hopefully, the next set of photos will be amazing… as the train gets out into the spectacular scenery of British Columbia, and then the Rocky Mountains tomorrow through to Banff.

Hudson House

Every time we do one of these trips, we experience that odd juxtaposition of it feeling like we’ve been here forever, and that it is over so soon. The 6 nights in Hudson House are the only ones where all 18 of us are together on the trip, and suddenly they are over, and just 10 of us are on the train to Banff.

The days in Vancouver have been more low key than anything. Staying in the suburban Hudson House, we tended to go out and do visits to places during the day – with the Granville Island Markets the clear favourite destination for food and souvenirs. For the most part Vancouver felt very much like any other city really. Picturesque for sure, in places, but like most modern cities it doesn’t have the Old Towne parts that European cities commonly do, and which are the fascinating and spectacular parts to wander around.

There are several traditions for the Wolfe Family Holidays (aka WFH). One is the multitudes of quizzes. After a few mediocre mid-60s we hit our straps with a 76 and 74 to finish, just annoyingly shy of our best (which is at least 78 and my be as high as 81, depending on who you ask…).

The other is the group photo, in serious and silly formats. Once again, these delivered!

Two other bits of exciting news. First, Liahna and Ryan got engaged in Scotland! And second, it’s time to get ourselves to the Rocky Mountaineer!

Grouse

Day 3? Maybe day 4 – you always get to this point where the specifics are hard to bring instantly to mind. Anyway, we decided today was a day to go out and see a few things in the region, so we packed up to go to Grouse Mountain and then Cyprus Mountain.

Unfortunately, being a stunning warm Saturday in high summer, so did most of the other people in Vancouver… wasn’t ideal, but it’s still been a fun day.

One thing we found is that there are only two bridges to get from south Vancouver to the north, and so there is a huge traffic jam to get over it each way. As I write this, we are sitting in one of the glacially moving routes to get onto the Lions Gate Bridge. The estimated trip time has just jumped from 31 minutes to 51 minutes, and frankly that seems optimistic. I guess on the upside, it gives me time to write this!

Grouse Mountain involved a gondola ride up to the top of a mountain (I bet you didn’t see that coming!), from where we saw a bird show, a lumberjack show, and grizzly bears. It was all nice and fun, and luckily we seem to have dodged getting a parking ticket for completely having forgotten to pay for parking!

From there, we went one mountain outdoor venue to the west, hoping to ride the toboggan run. Alas, it was sold out for the day, which made the kids mad enough to throw an axe. Or, several axes.

A few days pass

Several days ago we arrived in Vancouver. If you’ve been playing along with the blog, you’ll know that day had a few wrinkles, but mostly worked. Given the way things had been going, when the plane landed we were kind of glad to find out that it was actually in Vancouver…

From there we picked up a car, a nice 7 seater to get us around. We navigated the 4km from the airport to the house, the GPS getting us directly to the address in Justine’s extremely comprehensive itinerary book.

Alas, it turned out not to be the address of the house we had rented for the week, but it was still good work by the GPS. After Aidan rang some random guy’s doorbell, a quick check in with the group chat helped us find the real address. Really not sure how it came to be wrong, but luckily the real address was only 1km up the same road.

The first few days have mostly been low key. Chatting with the family, meeting the new baby, visiting the local Safeway supermarket and the really fabulous Granville Island markets, cooking a five course meal for 22 people. That sort of thing.

The house is a pretty good set up. Not quite as dramatic as the big mansions on semi-rural estates we’ve stayed in before – but it’s impressive to find an 8-bedroom place in suburban Vancouver, and it’s certainly got its own style.

Not a terrible place to hang out with the family for a week.

End of Part 1

Reflections

Getting out of NY proved predictably awkward, for a range of irritating reasons accentuated by being up what feels very early for everyone except Justine.

We had scoped out the subway train we needed to get to the train that gets us to Newark International Airport. In theory, two stops on the E train gets us to 34th St / Penn Station. Simple. Except that:

• Google very specifically took us to the wrong entrance to the subway, from where we couldn’t get a downtown train
• When we arrived, the subway station is only near Penn Station, not a part of it – and so we ended up having to go round about and cross a road and all the rest to finally find our train, with a minute or so to spare (though they run every 12 mins, so not a bullet dodged)
• When you get off the train you get a little shuttle train to the terminal. Our itinerary said the flight left from terminal C, but it was only when Aidan and Sonja were dropping off their bags that we got told it actually goes from Terminal A. Sigh. That involves an extra bus connection that could have been avoided by just staying on the original shuttle, had we known the real gate
• Then of course, it turns out gate A22 is the furthest possible from where the bus comes in.

None of these was especially bad, and we never looked for a moment like not making the flight or anything – in fact it’s a testament to Justine’s planning and time allowances that we never had to feel nervous. It’s just that hungry tired people are not well suited to minor annoyances. In the end we made it to the gate with an hour before boarding, enough time for another crappy scalding hot “coffee”, and other assorted drinks and foods before boarding.

It’s now just over 3 hours into the 5.5 hour flight to Vancouver, the part of a flight where you have to stop yourself getting into countdown mode. So instead, I’ll ponder the “reflections of part 1” post.

Madison and staying with Ed and Nancie was just an amazing place to land, and to spend time. We expected it would be good, but couldn’t have imagined just how great it would be. The house and the area are just gorgeous; the hospitality was so good we would need a new scale if we were to try to rate it; and the friendliness and genuineness of all the people we met (I think) really changed the kids’ perception of Americans away from the sometimes unflattering stereotypes. Tick tick tick, as a place to fly into for the first few days.

New York City was always going to feel a dramatic contrast, but even when you know you are going to feel the sharpness of a juxtaposition like that, it doesn’t stop it hitting you between the eyes anyway. The question isn’t one of difference, or ‘niceness’ though, going to places like that is an experience that has to be had. Like London and Paris and Rome, it’s one of those cities that you do have to visit at some point, to try to understand.

Personally, and maybe in contravention of that last statement, I didn’t feel any interest in going there – which arguably is only possibly justified by the fact that I went there on my own for 6 hours in early 2000 when I was staying with friends in New Jersey. Is that enough? All I can say is that there was not a single thing that I really wanted to see or do while there. That’s not to say that I wasn’t somewhat interested to go and see the place through the eyes of others, but there was not really any specific things I needed to tick off.

In the end, there were many memorable things that I took out. Seeing the Brooklyn Bridge is interesting to me because of its engineering; seeing that main hall of Grand Central Station; going to Brooklyn to see a private jazz show and go thrifting; going to the Bronx to see Yankee Stadium; walking around Greenwich Village; riding the subway; they are all good things to have seen and done. NY has the sobriquet the city that never sleeps. On reflection now, that definitely shapes the experience of visiting, because it really doesn’t much matter what time we were out and about, it’s just dark some of the time.

I think I got out of the visit what I wanted, which wasn’t to go chasing specific tickbox things, but to have a few days in the city just “doing stuff”. In the end I think it’s the wine bars around the hotel, the food tour, and the dumplings in Chinatown that will most sit with me.

Perhaps the thing that sits frustratingly for me is that it seems a ludicrous place for so many people to live. It’s cramped and dirty and smelly, and I am assuming that a high proportion of the people there work menial jobs purely to service the pretty crappy lives of all the other people working menial jobs to service … and so it goes round. People were not unfriendly (but alas, not the fast walkers I was promised), but you hardly ever saw anyone smile other than when their job required it. It doesn’t look like a fun place to live. Busy, well serviced by “things to do”, but not really very pleasant. It feels like many of the people there could go to other cities or places and live at least somewhat better – but these epicentres seem to create their own gravitational pull on people, sucking them into what eventually forms a black hole. I’m not saying NYC or Western Sydney (where the same thing happens) are black holes – but the analogy and visualisation are also not far off the mark I suspect.

Anyway, with luck these reflections will be sitting alongside those of other members of the touring party at some point. For now, I’m delighted we went to Madison, happy enough that we went to see NY, and happier still that we are now on the plane to a place that I really do want to see!

New York, New York

Part 1 of this trip was the first 8 nights in the north east of the US before we head to Canada – five in Madison and then three nights and 2.5 days in New York City. Fair to say that the contrast between the two was pretty stark. Madison was slow and beautiful and calm and personal; and NYC is of course the exact opposite of all those things.

Visually, Sunday started like this:

And after a 2 hour train ride from New Haven to Penn Station, it looked more like this:

Well, that was a kind of ‘pretty’ shot from later in the stay. When we got off the train the first afternoon we had a 2km hike from 34th St up 8th Ave to the Romer Hell’s Kitchen hotel on 51st St. Not much in NY is easy, but figuring out the geography is the one thing that mostly is.

Those legs that require manually lugging the luggage are always tough ones. The train from New Haven was a free-for-all in terms of seats and baggage storage. We got lucky and got 5 of each in the random carriage we got on – but that really was only due to some quick assessment, luck, and willingness to just take what was available wit h little to no consideration of others. Dragging the bags down for a quick exit, and then uptown through Manhattan for half an hour on a hot and humid day left us all sweaty and spent, and very happy to get to the air con in the hotel rooms. Luckily, the hotel was pretty nice and the rooms quiet and comfortable, which made them a bit of a haven for the few days that were to come.

[editors note: I’m writing this entire post on the flight from Newark to Vancouver at the end of the next three days. In part there wasn’t enough spare time to write, but also I wasn’t sure what to think or say about NY for the first few days; and even now it’s going to be a bit of a stream of consciousness to write this. Personally I wasn’t keen to come to NY on this trip, but it was – appropriately – a bucket-list destination for the kids, and so here we are and here we go!]

The first afternoon and evening

…begins with hungry travellers needing to find a quick and satisfying meal, and a drink. Luckily there are no shortage of eating places nearby – yay! But it’s hard to know what they are or if they might suit – boo! Luckily, Aidan had arranged to meet an old friend from high school who now lives in NYC as an aspiring jazz musician, and Xav was able to suggest a pub on 9th Ave that did us an expansive (and expensive) array of food and drinks. Also yay!

From there we bifurcated along the lines of gender, but more importantly along the lines of the haves and have-nots in terms of Broadway tickets. The girls ended up with a massive 250m walk to see the Book Of Mormons; while Aidan and I went with Xav on a 45 minute three-trains-and-walk excursion to Brooklyn, to the ‘low-key dopest jazz club in NYC’ where he works and plays.

He started work at 5.30, so sent us off in the direction of a subway station about a km away, with advice to walk through an interesting park, and the promise of bars when we arrived. The park proved to be a hang out for the Latin American community, with a thousand people playing soccer and volleyball, cooking and selling animals on stoves in shopping trolleys, and just hanging out. The houses and streets offer no respite or personal outdoor space, and so the park is the communal backyard. Could not have felt further away from the gentile green spaciousness of Madison. We found a brewery, a vast thrift shop, and a Venezuelan cocktail bar, and took advantage of all three.

We then found our way back to the Jazz bar a couple of hours later, hanging out in the cafe and then having cocktails in the club part. Was spectacular in all ways – and makes you realise that you have no possible way of knowing what’s hidden inside the camouflaged exteriors of these buildings. Most of NYC looks pretty awful, but it must (presumably) be filled with myriad nice places – if you just have any way of finding them.

The hike back from Brooklyn we made longer than strictly necessary by deciding to walk over the Williamsburg Bridge. Despite being in a cage inside a girder structure, the glimpses of views were spectacular at times.

Returning to Manhattan, we met up with the ladies post-show. Justine and Lauren got dinner at an Applebees near Times Square, Justine re-living her liking for mozzarella sticks!

We then finished up in Times Square for midnight. Before then, it is a crammed space full of people taking photos of themselves in front of 360 degree ads. It’s very curious and dystopian in many ways to me – undeniably colourful and full of flashing lights, but conceptually unsettling was how I found myself reacting. At midnight they actually did a semi-interesting artistic thing with all the screens for a few seconds, but then it was just back to immersive advertising.

Aidan and Sonja also wandered around Times Square, got themselves pizza from across 8th Ave, and we all called it a night. It was a long day, and arguably it was only half a day.

First full day: the Food tour

One thing we’ve figured out is that food tours are a great way to scratch the surface of a new city, to get a toehold on what they are about and how they work and how to interact with them. Figuring that stuff out on your own might be more fun and more ‘real’, but on a three-day flyby it’s just not going to happen.

Justine decided on one with more classical NY foods, and in Greenwich Village. It proved a winner in several ways. The food itself was fun and interesting – falafel, bagels, cupcakes, tacos, pizza and cookies. My fav was the Indian curry chicken tacos, but they were all good in their own way.

Perhaps more meaningfully, as well as the odd titbit of knowledge (eg: there are 41 Broadway theatres, only 3 of which are actually on Broadway the road – the definition is having 500+ seats rather than the location), it showed us a nicer side of NY than we had seen on day 1. I have to admit to having formed a dim opinion of the place on day 1, and while this tour didn’t for a second change my opinion of the sheer ridiculous unlivability of the place, it did at least let me see that it isn’t all a complete s**t-hole. Not if you have quite a few mil up your sleeve anyway.

911 memorial

As the food tour finished up down towards the financial district, we decided to hop the subway down to see the 911 memorial site. It’s an odd feeling place. One of the few things I recall from my half-day visit in early 2000 was going to the observation deck of one of the towers, but I had almost no resonance of that memory. The memorial site is moving, but with the people and lines and stalls and so on, it’s kind of difficult to discern its purpose without knowing its history. Maybe that is the point.

The Campbell

After knowing residents, personal recommendations are the next best way to find predictable venues when visiting unfamiliar cities. The Campbell is a cocktail bar in an old converted ‘tycoons office’ at Grand Central Station. We’d phoned them to make a booking a few weeks ago from bed one morning (as you can only book 21 days in advance, and by phone for groups of 5 or more).

Xav met us again, and at one point Aidan and Sonja had contemplated making their way back to the jazz bar to see him play at 11pm. However, when they mentioned this he politely suggested that getting back after midnight would be a long and slow process, and in the end Sonja wasn’t feeling that great anyway.

We ended up walking most of the way to and from, including making some fantastic discoveries:

After the Campbell, Aidan and Lauren went to the observation deck on the top of the Rockefeller Centre hoping for a birdseye view of the city. Unfortunately it was cloudy, which translates into ‘foggy’ at that height. Was still a spectacular and moody sort of view though, and hopefully a memorable one.

Justine and I walked Sonja back to the hotel with some help from the subway, as we continued to find closer and closer entrances / exits to the 50th St station.

I have to admit that when Aidan decided that he was done and did not want to go back out, I was happy to call it a day.

Last day: Cycling in Central Park

For our last day, we had a few things planned. An unexpected one was that the hotel had complementary passes for an hours e-bike hire near Central Park, which seemed like a great thing to do. In fact, it was a great thing to do, just – like everything in NY – harder and slower than expected.

We found the bike hire place easily enough, but arrived about the same time as organised tours were departing. It meant we had to queue up for 20 mins to check in, and then 10 more to actually get the bikes – which put us on a knife edge to get to the 12.30 ferry tour we wanted to do.

Actually riding the bikes around Central Park was fun, but we were harried by time pressures, and never got a chance to see anything much other than the one-way cycle loop.

Aidan and Lauren did the full loop of the park (aka missing the cut-through turnoff), but made full use of the e-bikes power assist to get back, and we dropped the bikes, got water, and skedaddled at full-pace for the 43rd St pier.

Circle Line ferry tour

There was no way the kids would be satisfied leaving NYC without having seen the Statue of Liberty. The thing about it is, it’s not that big, and it’s on an island well off the inhabited ones – making it impossible to see other than by ferry or by helicopter. There was also interest in seeing the engineering marvel that is the Brooklyn Bridge, and the 12.30 Circle Line ‘Landmarks’ tour takes in both.

With two quick marches either side of a run on the C train from 59th St to 42nd, we bought tickets and walked straight on board, no more than 5 mins. before it pulled out. It was a good thing we did, as it was definitely one of the best parts of the stay here.

Many many many photos were taken…

Getting off the ferry, Justine and Lauren headed to the last minute ticket sales booth – ending up with great tickets to Harry Potter, which Lauren is currently rating as her favourite musical ever (in what is a not insignificant catalogue that she has seen!). David, Aidan and Sonja headed to Chinatown for some excellent noodles and dumplings, followed by a pedestrian visit to the Brooklyn Bridge – a thoroughly imposing structure, in all dimensions.

In keeping with the tenor of our stay, we then had to race on foot and by subway back to the hotel to get ready for our final event of the stay. A 20 minute turnaround later involving a cold shower and new socks, and we were back at the subway, this time heading uptown to the Bronx.

Take me out to the ball game

I’m not sure of the origin of that phrase, but I think it is a saying here. If not, then add a ™️ sign after it and send me the royalties!

We’ve been looking in each of the cities on this trip to see if there were any big sporting events on – but the only one we could find was the NY Yankees baseball team playing at Yankee Stadium tonight. Not a bad choice we thought.

The train took us right there, and the tickets got us in with no issues (as they should, but you always wonder), and our seats looked optimistically under-cover, as the weather forecast was frustratingly expecting rain at exactly game time. Well, all those things proved accurate.

It was visually impressive, though the beers were eye wateringly costly, even by the ludicrous standards of NY.

And pleasingly we were undercover up in the nosebleed section, because at 0-0 after three innings – with the Seattle Mariners in the first potential scoring position of the game – the heavens opened and play had to be suspended.

Optimistically though, none of the crowd left, and after a bit of lightning passed through the rain fizzled out, and ground crew scurried out to reset the pitch.

Soon play resumed, with the home team going on a bender with 5 runs in the 6th inning and another 4 in the 7th, including several home runs that brought the crowd to life.

In the end the Yankees won 10-3, and we headed for the subway to the strains of Frank Sinatra’s New York New York on repeat.

It was just about everything we’d hoped for when booking to go to the game. The only thing that didn’t live up to it was the food. I’d been keen for an obligatory hot dog, but neither the prices nor the queues made that seem like a good idea. When I got the last beers they had some “warm soft pretzels”, which seemed like a good thing. I was wrong, they were probably the worst food I’ve ever paid money for – “like stale inedible cardboard” would be to do a disservice to cardboard.

Maybe I’m not the first person to make that discovery, as the bin could not have been more perfectly labelled!

The worst thing

So, turns out the worst thing about this stay in Madison was that the fried eggs on the last morning were too slippery to flip. I think it’s time to get out of here.

When’s the next train to NYC??

Ah yes. 12.06. No platform yet.

Concert on the green

Our last night in Madison, and a certain sadness sits behind the enjoyment, knowing that something six years in the planning is coming to its inevitable end. It’s the paradox of looking forward to something so much, that it then arrives, but passes much more quickly than the anticipation took to build.

The last of our local 4th of July activities was a concert in the green, with a nearby symphony orchestra. The green was packed by the time we arrived, but we found a comfortable spot in the sun at the back to set ourselves up, and picnicked on the leftover chicken and cheeses and salads, to the strains of a variety of classical pieces and soundtrack montages.

As the sun set and the temperature dropped juuuuuust fractionally below perfect, we packed up and went for a twilight drive along the waterfront, finishing up at a gazebo on the beach looking across Long Island Sound to where the lights of the island could be seen. There is a palpable excitement for our upcoming few short days in NYC, and the sparkle of lights on the horizon were a tantalising reminder of what tomorrow holds.

For the moment though, there was just time for a few photos to remember our time here by, the ones we will share with each other again in the future, whenever we plan our next meet up.

It was a gloriously peaceful place to kind of put a full stop on this first leg of the trip. Tomorrow is a comfortable mid-morning departure, to get a train to New York City. I think the pace will pick up there – there are bookings and activities and general sightseeing tourist aspirations there. For now though, it was great to pause and breathe.

Yale and a Dive Bar

A natural combination! Yale University it turns out isn’t so much a ‘campus’ as a ‘suburb’ of New Haven. We wandered around some parts of the buildings and grounds, as well as going past Ed’s childhood home – evidently considerably gentrified since then!

A variety of souvenirs were acquired, clothes, keytags, books etc.

From there, we headed for what was touted as one of the highlights of the visit – to one of the famous New Haven pizza places. However, when we got to Pepe’s, the queue was estimated at well over an hour, and so we switched seamlessly to Plan B – which turned out to be one of the REALLY memorable moments of the trip.

Nancie had mentioned before that her sister works at a dive bar, and that she would get us a table if we wanted. Plan B was that we did want that. With the promise that salads would also be available, Justine acquiesced, and so a new destination was set. It turns out that it was a Dive Bar more in name than a dive bar in style. Apparently it’s actually one of the top rated bars in the area, and appropriately so in our opinion! Located in a nondescript suburban shopping centre, and looking out onto Long Island Sound, Nancie’s sister Sally had phoned ahead to get a table held, and then came and joined us.

We had a fine array of cocktails and pretzel bites and poke bowls and huge burgers and sashimi tacos and the like, all with the usual American friendly and efficient service. Sally even conspired to get us great deals on a couple of shirts and a beanie – adding great mementos to an unexpected highlight of the trip!

Trash & Treasure

Today was supposed to have commenced with a mid-morning departure to Yale, but there was a slight delay.

The “Behemoth“ is fully capable of transporting all 7 of us in quite good comfort, but like so many cars, you need the keys for it to work. And we did not in fact have the keys.

Or rather. We knew we must have the keys somewhere, as Ed drove us all back from the parade, and so they had to be somewhere. The thing we didn’t have was knowledge of the key’s current location.

As the search became more speculative, Aidan and Sonja even took Beauregard (the dog) over near the car to see if it would start – suggesting that Beau had eaten the keys. It seemed a low probability, but non-zero. Probably for the best, that achieved nothing.

A little while later I thought that the principle wasn’t a bad one, so this time we dragged the trash bin over next to the car – and voila, this time it did start! The joy of success was quickly replaced by the realisation of what that meant – either we loaded the trash bin into the back of the car for the day; or we bit the bullet and searched through it to find the keys…

Nancie found some latex gloves, and few short minutes of searching turned them up!

As they say, one man’s trash is another’s treasure…

Finally a parade (aka July 4th)

One of the exciting realisations we had when planning this trip was that we would be here for the 4th of July; America’s Independence Day celebration. It’s always exciting to be in a place for major commemorations and events, and to be able to be visiting friends and to be invited in to attend was something we were all really looking forward to. For some quirky reason when we travel we have often been greeted by unexpected parades and events – but this is one we could see coming from a long way out!

The day dawned still and blue and crisp. It was one of those mornings when I could have stayed in bed – but why would you? Instead we got up, and after savouring the morning from the deck for a few minutes, we went out to get the fresh bagel order.

I think it was the only time we went out the entire stay that wasn’t in the “Behemoth” Jeep Wagoner. After the pickup Nancie took Lauren and I for a quick tour of the fancy beachfront area – full of amazing houses that hit that balance of historic and lived-in practicality; but some of them are stunning.

After breakfast we took the Behemoth back into Madison for the 4th of July parade. The parade route was lined with chairs when we drove through earlier, and by the time we got there all the people had been added too.

The parade was a combination of bands in historic costume, local community groups and supporters, political organisations, military groups, and some hot cars. It was a lot of fun, and the kids scored more than enough flags to join in!

The rest of the day could only be described as chillaxing. A few drinks in the pool was followed by hotdogs and hamburgers and chicken on the BBQ, and then we all crashed. Again!

Day 2

Day 2 of a holiday is always a slow and disjointed one. Not everyone is yet on the same / right timezone, and usually we are still figuring things out about where we are.

This time the timezone issue was absolutely a thing, but at least we have hosts to help deal with the figuring out part. We started with pancakes and homemade maple syrup, followed by swimming and chucking Linden around in the pool for a few hours, much to everyone’s enjoyment.

This was followed by heading out for burgers from Ed’s preferred place, called Wayback Burgers; and then thrifting; a visit to the oldest operating restaurant in the US (Griswolds); and a quick stop at a local micro brewery.

As I said – we might not have all been simultaneously awake, but we were getting a great local personalised tour of this historic area of North America. This is the area where the war of independence played out, and on the day before Independence Day, it was impossible not to make the connection.

The architecture around the historic towns is beautiful, and the care and attention in the presentation really makes the place come alive. Wandering around, it does that great thing of feeling lived in and genuine and historic all at the same time, which is hard to do, but impactful when a place pulls it off.

The last part of the day was getting pizza from a place where Ed and Nancie know the guy who runs the place – and a quick phone call got us on their order list on a night that others might not have got through. The pizza was fantastic, and as it turns out the closest we managed to get to the famous New Haven pizza.

All in all, a pretty good version of the day 2 challenge!

The difference between most mornings and some mornings

Most mornings start in similar ways, and regardless of how much that is true, lead into more or less similar days.

But they don’t all. And for those of us who love to travel, it’s the ones that are different that we crave. Ordinary days have their place, and there are times you’d kill for one; but alone they’re not enough. If you don’t have the highs and lows of non-ordinary days, why bother?

The last two days (three days now, as this post didn’t get finished yesterday, and since then there has been another full day along the same lines!) have been anything but ordinary. In fact, they’ve been so far from ordinary that I’ve not had a realistic chance to post an update here, and now I’m so far away from being up to date that this is going to either be a long one, or more likely, broken up into quite a few individual moments and recollections. It’s now more than three days since the fireworks, and there’s been a lot going on.

Food

Let’s start with some of life’s basics. It’s fair to say that we have eaten VERY well since we’ve been here, and have been ticking off many of the food treats people had in mind. When we travel places, there are usually things we want – goulash in Prague, cheese and bread in Paris, that sort of thing. The US comes with its own array of foods that we want to try, and we’ve made a cracking start!

Yesterday morning we started off with homemade blueberry pancakes, complete with home made maple syrup. They were spectacularly good. Dare I say “quintessential”.

Justine has been hanging for, as she describes them, “proper bagels” for a decade; and Nancie delivered them in spades, for our first morning and then again for the 4th of July.

Beyond that we’ve had lobster nachos and rolls, pizza from a local place where Armato calls our host “Mrs Brunt” and fitted us in on a busy night, s’mores, cherries, hotdogs, hamburgers, and a variety of lollies / candy and snacks. No one is losing weight at this stage of the trip…!

Today (our last full day here) we are off to New Haven for what is promised to be the best pizza in the world! No pressure, but I’m looking forward to trying that!!

Hummingbirds and fireflies

Ed and Nancie’s place is an amazing setting – the house sits down from the road, cut into the slope so ground level at the front is a raised deck at the back; and then it slopes further down to the pool, which backs directly into the woods. The block is 2 acres, but the whole suburb is unfenced, so the woods just extend into the distance. It’s spectacular on these summer days, and being deciduous, would have all the moods and looks of the seasons.

There are all sorts of creatures here that are unusual to us. They have security footage of a black bear checking out the trash; a local turkey; and we saw a deer the first night.

One of the cuter residents are hummingbirds. They have a feeder hanging off the deck, and these minuscule birds zoom in from the trees, and then hover motionless before landing, humming eponymously. Not super easy to get a photo of, but also not impossible if you stand still and wait a little bit.

We’ve also seen fireflies flashing around the trees and grass at dusk; and scampering critters like chipmunks and squirrels.

Always cool to see local wildlife, but I think I’m glad we haven’t actually seen the bear!

Fireworks

It is something of a tradition that when we arrive in new places that they put on a parade. It’s very lovely of these cities to welcome us tourists like that. In Madison, the parade is not until tomorrow, but for our first full day they did put on a pretty sweet fireworks show for us!

After swims and visits to some factory outlets and things, we had a late lunch of lobster nachos and lobster rolls and things, at a place called Shanks.

After that we headed in to the centre of town to the local July 4th fireworks. The towns all do them on different days to avoid overlap, so there should be a continuous cycle of events over the next few days I guess. We parked as close as you can drive in, and then took yellow school bus shuttles down to the beach. Ed and Nancie’s son Dan and 4 year old daughter Linden had a hotel room there, where we could watch from a private balcony. Fair to say it was pretty nice!

Time dilations

We’ve arrived in Connecticut, and have been here now for 11 hours, but it feels like weeks.

The layover in Dallas was about 8 hours, which we spent having beers and nachos and tenders and fries at the Flying Saucer Bar:

And lying on the ground:

We landed at Hartford just after 11pm, and by the time we were off and through we estimated it was about 47.5 hours since we’d left home. Feels like one of the longest days ever, but successful when there were many ways it could have gone wrong. The flight we decided not to try to make from CBR to Sydney was cancelled, and the flight out of Sydney only just made it out before the weather – so arguably it was one of the luckier / more skilful days of travel as well.

One of the delights of travel is always the meeting of family and friends, that crazy thing you can do to coordinate with people on the other side of the world to meet you in the right place, at the right time, with the right transport. Which in this case is a behemoth Jeep Grand Wagoner – approx the size of the ACT.

A 45 min drive got us to Ed and Nancie’s house in Madison. Arriving at 1am and having a quick snack before crashing, it was hard to really get our bearings. This morning, most of us seem to be on the right Timezone, and a quick dip helped settle in.

Their house we have seen many times as the backdrop of video calls, but is gorgeous IRL. Not a terrible place to have to spend a few days…

So, have to cut this short, as we are off to a place for lobster nachos and lobster tacos and lobster rolls and, well, you get the idea…!

1 July 2025, 11.35am Dallas Time

Well, in some ways it’s only 20 mins later; but in other ways, that was a pretty smooth 15.5 hour flight!

1 July 2025, 11.15am AEST

Spent a few hours settling into the slower cadence of travel, just lurking around the terminal. Had a delightful poke bowl and champagne breakfast, but mostly just the slow and powerless progress of travellers.

Currently sitting not too far (we hope!) from our turn at the top of the runway. There is a ‘weather bomb’ forecast to hit Sydney today and through the week. Looks like they are down to one runway – but hopefully we will juuuuust get out of here before the really bad weather develops. The pilot is promising a rough first hour as we climb out over time. Let’s see!

Hopefully the next update is from the past! Or, at least, a different Timezone!

7.52am

Awoken. Driven (in the heavy rain). Returned hire car. Checked in. Dropped bags. Cleared security. Exited the border.

Time to FLY to America.

Driving to America

Finally, the rest are ready. Let’s go.

Well, at least someone is…

Ready to go on time! 😁

The last night

Well, here we are once again. One night out from leaving and wondering why WordPress have made their blog functionality soooo hard to use – but at least I’ve once again figured out a workaround, and here we are; and here it will all unfold!

Anyway, time to turn our attention to the future! Shortly the acres of clothes will be shoved into suitcases; the myriad cables and adapters crammed into mini-suitcases and shoved into the big ones, and it’ll be time to start driving to North America. What could possibly go wrong??

How it started