Road Trip Canda: Banff to Whistler (1162km)

I took up the driving seat again and began on the next leg of the journey from Banff to Jasper, via the Banff national park, and past all the ice fields, this was truely amazing scenery, the glaciers were so good, and the frozen lake in the middle of May was surreal! Words can't express the wonderful scenery and beautiful water features along the way! The road from Jasper to Kamloops completed the next leg of the journey and was pretty quick it only took 3 hours of the 5.5 i had expected it to take us, there was also loads of wildlife on this road, I saw 3 male elk with all the antlers etc, at the side of the road, 3 bear cubs in the road, 1 bear sat on top of a burnt out car, and a very confused female elk in the middle of the road! Lee took over the driving in Kamloops and drove all the way to Whistler through some very twisty and slow sections of road at the top of highway 99, we both thought it'd be an ace location for a tamac rally!
The last 200km seemed to take an eternity Lee an I just wanted to get home and have a nice shower, after living in the car for 5 days and having driven from the east to west coast in just 4 days!

Road Trip Canada: Niagra to Banff (3670km)

From Niagra it was back towards toronto, before breaking off towards Barrie, and onto Wasaga beach! We reached the beach at sundown, which was lucky because the sun was the most exciting thing there! The place was absolutely dead, so i only stopped here to take some pictures of the sun going down over the wonderful sandy beach (apparently trade picks up at weekends and bank holidays)!
From Wasaga beach was the long slow drag to Owen Sound, knowing that there was no ferry service at that time of night, we were able to slow things down and take our time to get to the ferry terminal for the ferry across lake Huron. We had a near miss at driving the car right onto the beach... (the road suddenly ended and there was just a beach (Suable beach)), then we realised we'd missed a turning! But a quick correction and we got back on our way to the ferry terminal, using the relaxed travelling time to discover quite how close we could get the drivers seat to the windscreen whilst i was driving! God knows why anyone would want to drive so close, it was crazy! We finally got to the ferry terminal, and after a bit of a recce, settled down for a good nights sleep, knowing we had a huge driving blitz ahead of us!
The ferry journey was quite short and sweet, just 2 hours which was broken up by a breakfast we bought on the ferry! Lee did the next driving stint along the coast up to Thunder Bay, where i managed to get a good sleep in ready to drive through the night across manitoba! I took over again at thunder bay, and lee was understandably knackered! We carried on our blast across Canada, i was determined to make it to Winnepeg or beyond in the next 6 hours, or before lee woke up! Things seemed to pick up in Manitoba, as the speed limit increased (so i was a little less illegal) and the road changed from single to dual carriage way! This was to stay the same for the WHOLE of Manitoba including the ring road around Winnepeg creating an excellent opportunity to make up time, so it was foot to the floor and eyes out for the cops, oh and watching the fuel gauge drop, as an average of 148kph was achieved during one hour (just short of 100mph). Lee took over before the end of Manitoba as i began to suffer from extreeme boredom, more so than lack of sleep! Lee drove a hard leg through the rest of Manitoba and Sachz... right through to Alberta and Banff, where he immediately crashed out! Beofre i took over i managed to hook up with Tessa and Chris, meeting them for a hot chocolate to boost my sugar levels before quickly moving on to Whistler that night! It was so good to see Tessa and Chris again, they both looked extremely well, and seemed to be enjoying their time in Banff. Thanks for the hot chocolate Chris... you're right it is the best in the world! I have to admit that Banff looked a little nicer than Whistler in some ways, maybe thats just my soft spot for the rockies!

Road Trip Canada: Toronto to Niagra (141km)

We left Toronto, and headed for Niagra falls, the trip to the moderately sized sea side resort took just over an hour!

The falls are magnificent, and the flow is controlled by an HEP station, there is sooooo much water it's unreal, yet the water is so clear, you can see the bottom through the fast torrents at the top. Amazing!
We also took a small trip below the falls, which was again very spectacular, to see the falls side on, and all the eddys created at the bottom as well as the immense sparay which you could feel 500m away! There were also tunnels uder the falls where you could watch the water hurtling past!
The sky dome in Toronto, with the roof open!

Road Trip Canada: Motreal to Toronto (465km)

After a short cruise around montreal, we began our next long drive through the night to Toronto!
The Toronto stop was another very short one, as we were on a tight schedule to get back to whistler, we managed a short trip up the CN tower, the largest building in the world, we saw spectacular views from the top, and i found the glass floor particularly amusing, and the fact it was a gorgeous day, and you could see for miles!

The steamboat brewery

Road Trip Canada: New York to Montreal (575km)

We left New York about 6pm, (getting a bit lost in the process), and passed through albany, before crossing back into Canada and reaching Montreal at about midnight! After searching long and hard, we found the illustrius strip clubs, but alas they were all closed! Montreal seems to be a pretty small downtown area, but the buildings look spectacular at night including the Molson brewery!

Road Trip Canada: Detroit to New York (1229km)

We set off the evening of sunday 22nd May from Detroit, and drove through the night a total of 1035km and reach New York by late morning, a quick tour by car, dodging the hectic chaos of taxis and busses weaving through the traffic to find the quickest route, not using indicators.

We managed to see some of the main sites thogh, like Madison Ave, Madison Ave bridge, 5th Ave, Harlem, Central Park, Empire state building, Madison square park, World trade centre site, Brooklyn bridge, Brooklyn, New Jersey, and the statue of liberty!