Day 107 Ottawa
Ottawa,
Ontario,
Canada
Friday, August 22, 2008
Day 107 Ottawa - Ontario Canada
Hey today was set down as a sight seeing day around the capital of Canada; Ottawa.
No big deal we are only about 40-50 mins drive, and we have planned to take the "red Bus" tour to show us the sights in the city, as well as ensure we found the Rideau Canal and the locks that was built, as mentioned yesterday, in 1832, to allow the British to link supply ships from the Ottawa River to the St Lawrence river, in case the Americans managed to blockade the St Lawrence.
Well things were going well until Rick was doing a pre-take off check, and found a flat tyre! On the inner tyre of the rear of the drivers side.
Great Thanks Rob! (Rick was talking to Rob last night on the phone and Rob said "Don't get a flat tyre" He thought we were driving at the time we were talking!) but did he put the jinx on us or just reminded his father to do a check? Mmm question too hard!
Well this created a delay as Earnie and Rick went through the practiced motions, of removing the wheel and placing the spare on to allow us to roll. No big deal it only delayed us about 50 mins and we have no time schedule. We were pleased we had spotted it before it had completely shredded itself, as happened last time.
Off we go full of confidence and estimating we can drop this off at a Wal Mart on our way, they have a tyre & lube service, and it is only a flat after all.
Well we head in the freeway and take the scenic road into the city, it was a nice drive along the Ottawa River and Mandy directed us to the town centre no problem, EXCEPT of course there is no RV parking in a city is there? Taking our chances we kept heading towards the information centre, but this proved a little challenging, we ended up in inner city suburbs and no where to park. Oh well head back into the centre portion and find ourselves in the "historic Mile" area that has been maintained and renovated to old town front shops with; would you believe it?, Markets! GREAT except the street is crowded and narrows a little, BUT hey two parking metres are free, just what the Castle requires, Brake, Earnie hops out to back us up just as a car chooses to dive into the first parking space. Oh boy! Thankfully the guy observed our challenge before Earnie managed to get to the rear of the Castle and he pulled back out again, this allowed us to back in safely and take the double space. We mention here the guy did come back and had a chat with us, he had visited Australia and hadn't realized we required the two spaces at first.
We then proceeded to "FIND a Coffee shop" we did the coffee thing and then took a quick walk around. Found ourselves in the middle of the city and some wonderful old buildings as well as right at the beginning of the Rideau canal and lock system, how cool is that?
We watched a pleasure craft of around 35 ft proceed through two locks as it made its way towards the Ottawa River. Fascinating considering this was built in 1932 and still works today.
Well we found the information centre and asked about the closest RV parking to the city, (the parking meters only give us an hour per time and "supposed" to be an hour max.
Earnie ducked back to feed the meter while Karon & rick attempted to sort the problem, we found the best bet was a Wal Mart, this was a good idea we thought to have the tyre repaired at the same time. Mandy proceeded to get us to the closest Wal mart, and there the challenge grew.
We head in to check if they can fix the flat, before they took the booking the guy looked at the tyre and rim and said no they cannot do that size, he gave us directions to a place "just around the corner" that could handle it.
Oh dear maybe we better make the "fix the tyre a priority" so we head off to "the guy around the corner" Yes he was "just around the corner" but he took one look at the Castle and said "no I cant handle that" upon inquiries about who may be able to handle it, a vague response as well as "look them up in the Yellow pages" was NOT helpful. Oh boy this is proving another journey challenge!
So Earnie came up with the great idea, " Why don't we ask Mandy to tell us where to get the tyre fixed?"
We do, and yes we are directed to the nearest tyre repair place, two side by side, head in and ask the first guy, he says very helpfully no he cannot handle that size wheel, but let me ask my friend next door, off we go next door with the tyre fix it guy to the opposition next door, he hears our problem and says no he is short staffed so couldn't handle it, but at least he was prepared to give us the address of a truck tyre place. As we were setting the address in Mandy, he came back out and ascertained we had already removed the tyre from the Castle and it was on the back as the spare, he decided it could be done, we then had it fixed (Another faulty valve!) and the time taken to fix it was less time the two owners of the tyre repair shops spent talking to The Aussie travellers and listening to our journey stories. It is amazing how many people we come across that are interested in our journey and listen with envy or amazement, as we give a shortened version of our tale. Yes we are living the dream of so many others no matter what country we come from, we know this is true, and appreciate our journey all the more, as well as enjoy sharing it with all that may be interested. It may inspire others to take the plunge, who knows?
Well we relaxed a little now the tyre was fixed and headed back to the Wal Mart to park and catch a bus into the city.
Well again a new experience, the bus came along (a long concertina type) we pile in and pay the fare and away we go. The trip in took nearly an hour, it was hot and the bus stopped at every stop we estimated.
We hopped off the bus to check out the Red bus tour to find they finish at 3:30pm, it is presently 3:20pm. OH BOY!
Oh well let us look around the parliament building and just have a wander, gee even this became a challenge, a tour inside was leaving at 4pm. Nope lets just walk around and walk through the city back to the markets.
We did this and had some great views of the city and the river, as well as wandered back to the market area for a cuppa and a cream cake (hey we deserved it!).We might have missed the tour ,but the heat had sapped our energy and enthusiasm enough it is 4:45 lets head back. Even the thought of the bus trip out in peak hour through the 'burbs was to much so we grabbed a cab and headed back to the Castle.
Found our way back to the same KOA as last night and settled in to cook dinner and catch up on the washing. All done by around 9pm, tired but full of good food and happy to have the Castle with spare boots and comfortable we have viewed the City as best we could under the circumstances, are we returning tomorrow? Nope enough is enough we will head to Montreal with the experience behind us and we have booked ahead for two nights to ensure we can get the "tour around town" into our schedule!
Hope you are all well and getting a few smiles from the way we overcome the fun bits of our travels, we are still relaxed and nope we are not "losing our cool" just taking every day as it comes along.
