Day 4: Long boring drive...

Ok, so this is a few days late but hey, I promise you're not missing much.  Day 4 of our Manitoulin Island trip (Monday) was pretty uneventful.  We had a leisurely breakfast at Green Bay Lodge and started making our long drive home.

On the return leg, we drove the entire way without taking the ferry.  As we left the island we stopped off at Whitefish Falls.  This waterfall was rather small and we couldn't really get a good view of it to take any worthwhile pictures.  The remainder of the day consisted mostly of me driving home while Cess slept in the car.  500+ km later, we were home!

Day 3: Running salmon?!

On Sunday morning we were up early hoping to see the beginnings of a beautiful sunrise.  Unfortunately, when I woke up at 6:30 and looked outside, I could see the sky was completely overcast.  Clearly, there'd be no sunrise photography this morning.

After a pleasant breakfast at the Green Bay Lodge we made our way to Kagawong.  Kagawong had several places we wished to visit: Old Mill, Pioneer Post Office, Lighthouse, Church, and several other historic buildings.  Having said that, by a large margin the highlight of the excursion to Kagawong was Bridal Veil Falls.  This awesome waterfall is situated on the outskirts of the village.  The drop in the waterfall is several meters, so we were able to get some great long exposure shots.  Little did we know that we would also be treated to the tail end of this year's salmon run!  Salmon were still working their way upriver and were congregating and spawning at the base of the falls.  Having never seen a salmon run before, this was certainly a great experience.  It was interesting to see the instinctive drive that salmon have to swim upriver and spawn.  Clearly, survival of the fittest was in the works as there was quite a number of fish that obviously had not made it all the way to the base of the falls.  Their corpses littered the river and surrounding shoreline.

Next up, we drove to Misery Bay and did a 7-8 km hike along the eastern side of the bay.  The hike itself was quite easy and we were treated with many photographic opportunities, including very surreal rock formations called alvar.  The specific type of alvar we got a chance to see is only found in two places in the world; Manitoulin Island and the northern shores of the Baltic Sea (Sweden & Estonia).

We finished the day's travels with a visit to Gore Bay.  For the first time on this trip we were treated to a bit of sunshine.  As such, we decided to stay at Gore Bay to catch the sunset from a lookout point overlooking the bay.

After a quiet dinner back at the lodge (we were cooking ourselves!) we ventured outside with all our gear to do some night time photography.  For a bit of fun, we even did some light painting!

What happens when you leave two Italian bikes unattended?

They clearly give birth to a mutant love child.

Last night I went to see, and ultimately bought, a 2004 Kawasaki ZX-6R track bike.  The bike was previously owned by a regional racer who will be upgrading to a more recent bike.  Knowing the history of this bike, along with it having a handful of track relevant upgrades (suspension, brakes, steering) made this a pretty good deal.

I'm hoping to do 2-3 track days each season, starting next Spring.  Having done Fast Phase 1 several years ago, this should be a nice way to get back into track riding.  I'll just have to figure out how to transport this thing to the track ... but hey, I got all winter for that.

Now for the pictures...

Day 4: Home

Yes, we made it home last night just fine.  More details to come.

Update on Wednesday, September 22, 2010 at 12:23AM by Cess

First of all, a quick update from Day 3.  Matt and I sat ever so patiently in the hotel's dining room until 7pm. At that point, we asked the front desk staff if we could have a room.  We were getting tired and wanted to lie down.  We set ourselves a 7:30pm alarm.  If the rest of the group did not arrive by then, we would go out and get dinner for ourselves.  Lesson learned: restaurants in small towns tend to close fairly early.

Zzz ... bzzt!  7:30pm!  We poked our heads outside of our room.  Lo and behold: no other bikes.  =(  But 5 minutes later, we heard the rumble of bikes and yes, the rest of the group finally arrived.  Thank goodness.  Everyone quickly unloaded their bikes and we all set off to a local steakhouse for dinner. 

Now, back to Day 4.  Once again, the group split up into smaller sub-groups.  4 people left before we did.  We left about 10 minutes after them.  It was going to be a looong ride home.  We rode through New Hampshire and into New York state.  Somehow, the majority of us managed to meet up at lunchtime.  Matt and I stopped when we saw 2 bikes from our group stopped at a little diner in Speculator, NY.  We pulled into the parking spot beside them.  When we walked into the little diner, they were no where to be seen.  Regardless, we were pretty hungry, so we put in our order and stepped back outside to sit at a patio table.  While we were waiting, the rest of the group that had set out from the hotel after us appeared.  When our food arrived, we ate quickly.  Just as we finished lunch, the 2 people who were seemingly missing made their reappearance.  As it turns out, they had lunch at the little café right behind the diner.  I perked up when they told us that they had seen baked goods offered at the counter.  I walked over to the café and purchased a few cookies as snacks for the rest of the ride home.

Once more, we headed out on the road.  This time, we left together with Darlene and Kevin.  We reached the border and crossed back into Canada without incident.  Once back in Canada, we quickly decided to stop in Kingston for dinner.  And then it started raining.  Figures.  "Welcome back to Canada.  Please have some rain."  Ha. =) 

After dinner, we got back on the 401 for the final portion of our ride home.  As much as we hate the boring, straight-as-an-arrow 401, it was going to take us all the way home.  We would tolerate it so that we could sleep in our own bed that night.  The 4 of us said our good-byes at our final gas stop in Oshawa.  We continued on together, but parted ways when we passed through Scarborough. 

Good weather, good roads, good food, and good company.  What more could we have asked for? =) Thanks, everyone!

Day 2: Chasing Hurricane Earl

Day 2's ride would take us from Barre, Vermont all the way to just outside Bar Harbor, Maine - our main destination.  By Saturday morning, our group had grown to 16 people.  Given the size of the group, this meant that throughout Saturday's ride we would most likely break into several smaller independent groups.  Can you imagine a group of 16 bikes pulling into a gas station to fill up...?  It would take forever!

As we were preparing for this trip, we fully expected Saturday to be the "bad day", weather wise.  We would be chasing Hurricane Earl and likely be riding through rain, gusty winds, etc.  Instead, we were greeted to beautiful sunny and warm weather for the entire day's ride, which wound eastward into Maine.  After arriving at the hotel at about 6pm, Cess and I relaxed for a bit, before venturing into Bar Harbor (a 30km ride) for dinner to meet the rest of the group.

We had dinner on Bar Harbor's main stretch, and as can be expected, the local specialties were various types of seafood.  Dinner was pleasant, if not awesome.

Day 2's route:

Hurricane Earl at full strength:

Cess saying hello:

Day 19: Auto museums, the final chapter

We had several things planned for Stuttgart.  However, only one of those was totally safe for the questionable weather we had today: the Mercedes-Benz museum.

Of the three automotive museums we've been to, this one was by far the most exhaustive when it came to the various vehicles on display.  I guess that makes sense given that this is the oldest of the three companies.  Of all the things at the museum, three things in particular stood out for me.

First was the world's first high-speed internal combusion engine developed by Daimler, dubbed the Grandfather Clock due to its shape.  It was fascinating to learn how many different applications were evaluated for this engine from the start.  Anything from a engine powered carriage, motorcycle, train car, and even air ship. 

The next exhibit that stood out was the museum's collection of 1955 Mercedes-Benz 300 SLs and 300 SLRs (aka Gullwing roadsters), arguably the most beautiful cars ever produced.  I've heard and read about these for many years, but this was my first chance to get up close to them.  Very impressive.

The last notable car for me was the 1955 Mercedes-Benz 180.  Many years ago, my Dad used to have the latter revision of this car from the late 50s.  Coincidentally, the car they had on display was also black, just like the one I remember from my childhood.  While at this display, I bored Cess with the various small differences I could identify between the original 1955 version of the car versus the one Dad had.

Our hotel was less than 10km away from the Mercedes-Benz museum but it took us about 30 minutes to get there.  Between tricky Stuttgart roads and Friday afternoon rush hour traffic, getting to the hotel was a challenge.  I'm glad to see that there are other cities with traffic just as bad as Toronto.

Mercedes-Benz "riding car" utilizing the Grandfather Clock engine:

Interior of the Mercedes-Benz museum.  This exhibit shows the various 1955 Mercedes-Benz 300 SLs and 300 SLRs in addition to the 1955 180:

1955 Mercedes-Benz 180:

1955 Mercedes-Benz 300 SL:

Day 18: Royal intrigue, Bavarian style

The plan today was to see the two most important sites in this part of Bavaria; King Ludwig II's two castles near Füssen.  We were up early as the research we'd done indicates that these two castles are fairly popular.  By 8:30am we had driven to the town of Hohenschwangau and purchased tickets for touring both of the castles.  As was the case with some of the other castles we've been too, these two can only be entered as part of a tour.  There is no option of doing a self-guided tour.

We spent the earlier portion of the morning at the Hohenschwangau castle.  The castle is perched on a hillside overlooking the town and has quite a varied history.  the 14th century castle was destroyed in the Napoleonic wars.  Eventually, it was acquired and rebuilt by King Maximillian II (Ludwig II's father) between 1832 and 1837.  We were quite surprised at how small this castle was; it seems to only have about a dozen rooms.

Next up was the most famous castle in Bavaria; Neuschwanstein.  If you've seen Bavarian postcards with a castle nestled in the mountains, this is probably what you saw.  To get to Neuschwanstein you've got to undertake a 40 minute hike, or a bus/horse carriage ride up the mountain.  We opted for the hike.  Neuschwanstein is significantly larger (and newer) as it was being built by King Ludwig II between 1868 and 1892.  Most interesting of all is the fact that the castle was never completely finished as King Ludwig II died at the age of 41, under fairly mysterious circumstances in 1886.  Just prior to his death, he was deemed to be insane and unfit to rule.  Within days, he was found dead in a shallow body of water along with his personal physician.

After visiting the two castles we were going to visit some other castle ruins at the foot of Tegelberg mountain, and possibly also take a cable car up the mountain.  Unfortunately, while hiking to the base of the mountain things got pretty dark and thunder started rumbling in the distance.  We turned around and about halfway through our hike back to the car the skies opened up.  Luckily, we were passing a small chalet when this happened so we were able to find some shelter and waited out the worst of the storm.

Hohenschwangau from afar:

Hohenschwangau inner courtyard, as seen from within the castle:

Neuschwanstein up close:

Neuschwanstein as seen from Marienbrücke bridge:

Waiting out a storm with hail:

Cess, clearly unimpressed by the sudden onset of stormy weather:

Day 16: Engines and sausages

Continuing with the automotive theme of this portion of our trip in Germany, we headed over to the BMW Museum.  To get there, we walked from our hotel through Olympic Park.  This park was the site of a large portion of the 1972 Summer Olympics.  It's a beautiful space and it's clear that Munich dedicates resources to maintain the park.

The architecture of the BMW Museum is extremely impressive as is the design of all the exhibits.  Similarly impressive is the selection of vehicles that are on display; they certainly show off BMW's rich automotive history.  We spent several hours at the museum and while we came away impressed, we also came away thinking that the whole experience was very cold and clinical.  We didn't really get the sense of emotion and passion that we got at the Audi museum.

After our stay at the BMW museum, we hopped on the subway and made our way to Munich's old town district.  We spent another several hours exploring the district, mostly wandering the streets and occasionally popping into a historic building.  We finished up our time there with dinner at the Bratswurstherlz restaurant.  The restaurant is known for its grilled Nuremberg Bratswurst sausages.  I had the Nuremberg Bratswurst with a potato salad while Cess had a lightly cured pork tongue with a wine sauerkraut.  The meal was phenomenal, just what we imagined a simple and tasty Bavarian meal would be.

This pretty much wraps up our time in Munich.  Tomorrow morning we are heading back north to Ingolstadt for our Audi factory tour and then heading southwest to Fussen.

BMW museum interior:

BMW's over the years:

Multimedia projection touch exhibit.  This exhibit provided as much information as you wished on most of the vehicles ever produced by BMW.  You interacted with the display by touching the projected images and text.  Very, very innovative and cool:

Cess' dinner of lightly cured pork tongue at Bratswurstherzl.  I of course had Bratwurst sausages from Nuremberg:

Day 14: Race Day!

We woke up to some consistent rain this morning, which was a bit of a concern given that we would be spending the entire day at the Sachsenring race track.  Thankfully, by the time we were leaving for the track, the weather had cleared up and stayed rain free for the entire day.

By the time we got to the track, the 125cc race was underway, and nearly all the seats were completely filled (as were most of the decent standing spots!).  This was quite impressive as the Indianapolis race we went to last year got filled up much later in the day.  Obviously Europeans take their motorcycle racing far more seriously, just as we'd thought.  Despite each race lasting nearly an hour, the 125cc and the Moto2 races went by in the blink of an eye.  Before long, we were getting ready for the premier race:  the MotoGP class.

Our seats provided us with a view of approximately 3 different turns which was great for following the action.  Boy, there was a lot of action, too.  This was Valentino Rossi's first race back after a displaced tibia fracture less than 6 weeks ago.  It was unbelievable to see that while he still needs a cane to walk, he was still extremely competitive during the race.  He and Casey Stoner were having a battle for 3rd place for about 20 laps.  Finally, in the last turn, Casey Stoner made the final pass and finished in 3rd place.

Unfortunately, the race wasn't without incident as an accident involving 3 riders occurred right in front of us.  Most were uninjured, except for Randy DuPuniet who fractured his leg, and naturally, was unable to continue.  The crowd in the stands is definitely far more involved in the race than in North America.  There was much more applause and cheering as well as collective concern for any riders involved in a crash, big or small.

As was the case yesterday, leaving the track was a bit of a challenge.  Today we left the stands as soon as the race ended, and were probably one of the earlier folks to arrive at the parking lot.  However, we found that we still sat around in our car for about an hour before we even started moving to leave the parking lot itself.  2 hours later, we had made it back to the hotel!  Talking to one of the locals, he mentioned that the parking and traffic situation regarding leaving the track was the worst he had seen in 10 years.

All in all, this was a fantastic experience and we will certainly look to doing this again.  Perhaps next time in Spain or Italy, the meccas of motorcycle racing.

Entering the Sachsenring GP:

Us in our seats:

Start of the MotoGP race through the first 2 corners:

Re-start of the MotoGP race through the first 2 corners.  That is Mikka Kallio crashing in the back of the pack:

Day 11: Checking out Kraków

After spending most of the previous day at Auschwitz and the Wieliczka Salt Mine we had one day left to finish exploring Kraków.  Since we had a pretty disappointing breakfast experience at the hotel the day before, Cess suggested we find something different.  We had scouted some potential options before so this wasn't going to be a problem.

We ended up having breakfast at "Cafe Magia", a rather interesting spot.  The cafe is housed in an inner courtyard amongst 3 adjoining buildings.  This creates a rather intimate quiet atmosphere.  The food was good and quite inexpensive considering we were in the middle of Kraków's Old Town.

The major sightseeing attraction planned for this day was visiting the Royal Castle at Wawel Hill.  Since Kraków used to be Poland's capital city, the Royal Castle was of utmost importance.  We opted to visit the Royal Treasure and Armoury, the various Audience Chambers, as well as the Dragon's Den.  There are another 4 or so sections of the castle we didn't see, the biggest of those being the Private Apartments and the Cathedral.  However, with the raging heat and crowds, we opted to keep our trip to a pleasant duration and not overdo it.

We had a late lunch at "Zapiecek Pierogarnia" where surprisingly we munched on... apple and sweet cottage cheese pierogi.  We spent the remainder of the afternoon and evening meandering around the various streets in Old Kraków.  Our final dinner in Kraków was at "Pod Baranem". It certainly lived up to the positive reviews that we had read.  All in all, a good day. And good food!

Cafe Magia:

Wawel Hill Royal Castle:

Me, doing what I'm often doing during the trip...

Kraków at night time: