After waking up in our free hotel room we had to leave early and find somewhere to eat breakfast. I think we must be the only people in history to stay in a $300 hotel room and then cook porridge in the car park. It was really cold though so thank you very much for your hospitality Stephanie.

In the morning we went for a quick visit to Lake Minnewanka, then headed off in search of some waterfalls and blue springs. We walked for a couple of hours through frozen canyons, beside a crystal clear lake before coming to a beautiful open valley.

Banff National Park is stunning, jagged snow capped peaks surround lush alpine valleys, it will soon be a skiers paradise.

Finaly dragging ourselves away from the mountains we headed to some family friends of Spike’s for the night. Thank you very much Simon and Feather, we had a fantastic night and even managed to tolerate the abuse you gave our favourite car. In the morning we decided we should really get insurance before heading across the prairies. Up until this point, despite our best efforts to part with our money, we had been driving in Canada with out the mandatory third party lability cover. You would not believe the problems with insuring an imported vehicle. However, after a whole day of phone calls we finally got hold of the Superintendant for Insurance for Alberta who sorted us out and we were on our way….

…Thirty one hours and 1600 miles later we were in Wisconsin, and that’s all there is to say about that. There is just enough habitation in the prairies to make them mindlessly dull.

We diverted a little off the 50th and headed south of the Great Lakes. Diesel is cheaper in the US and also it is not a cold so this seemed like a good idea. Besides, time and the weather have conspired to make the 50th pretty much impossible for us here, so we felt justified in our deviation.

We had a good lunch with Spike’s cousin in Madison, who also sponsored the expedition (thank you Nick) then we headed off to Chicago.

We spent two days in Chicago, staying with Spike’s friend Kim. It is another fantastic city, the lake front has been really nicely done and it is full of cool little bars and coffee shops, definitely another place to go back to.

We then started heading back to Canada and towards Quebec, through exciting sounding places like Kalamazoo and Paw Paw (so good they named it twice). Niagara Falls are just off the route so we pulled another 12 hour driving day and made it to a small town eight miles from the falls. Here we stayed with Harvey and Rusty, a couple we met at a service station. It was so generous of them to let us stay and they even gave us breakfast. This saved us another sub-zero night outside and Harvey was even kind enough to give us a tour of the niagara area, thank you very much.

Having just about seen the falls through the wind and the rain we headed to the Pillitteri Winery for a case study. They are world leaders in producing ice wine, a type of wine that, as the name suggests, can only be produced in seriously cold weather. This made of a very interesting case study and had the added bonus of trying some lovely wines.

I unfortunately had to drive to Toronto in the evening so was restricted to only a couple of sips. As such, we made it in one piece and are now enjoying a great spag bol and a warm night with another of Spike’s friends.

- Pete

Playing on the Ipod: ‘Maybe Tomorrow’ (theme from The Littlest Hobo)

(Some names have been changed to protect lovely receptionists from their evil bosses)

Since winning this bursary we have often been accused of being lucky (sometimes not so politely!), and we have generally stuck to our guns and replied that you make your own luck.  I’m beginning to think we’re lucky.

We made it to Vancouver without being decapitated (these things happen on the Greyhound apparently) and met up with Andrew Westlund. This then cued our second TV appearance (remember our first one?  That’s right, Kazakhstan, glad you’re keeping up), however this one Spike did alone.  Pete and I were so tired and looked so bad it was decided we should not appear. Spike managed an amazing job, even fielding questions of a spiritual nature.

Us with Laura-Lynn of channel 10′s ‘The Daily’

Since then we have been living at the Westlunds house and having an amazing time – thank you so much guys, you have made us feel really at home.  We’ve even had a go at stripping…bark off a tree, which is incredibly satisfying!

Pete + power tools = trouble

Vancouver is a fantastic city, full of great people and in an amazing setting.  It has a beautiful waterfront setting with rocky, snowy peaks floating on the horizon.  We negotiated Roxy’s customs clearance and had a lovely chat with the friendly officials, who were a little bit jealous of us!  We then picked her up from a warehouse and dropped her at the local Land Rover dealership for some much-needed TLC.

Welease Woxy!

Roxy in rehab

We’ve fitted in a couple of case studies here; the first was east of the city in a beautiful valley below the mountains.

The second was out on Vancouver Island which we visited for a couple of days.  Once again we enjoyed fantastic hospitality, staying with family friends of Spike in Victoria, which is another lovely (and slightly British!) city.  This was where we spent Pete’s birthday, and had a great night down on the waterfront.  The next day we hired a car and took a drive along the stunning coast line – the Pacific seems to have a lot of that – and did our case study at a lovely honey farm which also happened to have mead tasting…

Beautiful British Columbia

Pete, meet the bees

A few days later we celebrated my birthday with a fantastic day in Vancouver, even managing to gatecrash a party at the rowing club – they seemed to think we were ‘the rugby players’, so we didn’t ruin the illusion and enjoyed the waterfront view from their deck.

Our time here is still a little open-ended as we wait for the service on Roxy to be completed, but when we do come to leave it’ll hard to drag ourselves away!

- David

Playing on the iPod: ‘Don’t stop believing’ by Journey

Following the many responses to previous entries, this post has been given a guidance rating; it contains direct references to ridiculous ginger neck-beard that most people should find disturbing.

The Japanese leg of the expedition has always had a strange status in our plans, since it`s the only country we are visiting solely for logistical reasons.  As the expedition has gone on though, its status has risen as we`ve dreamed of the food, the unique culture, and crucially because of the silly agreement we made in Kazakhstan not to shave until we reached Japanese soil.

Well, we made it, and the clippers were unpacked very swiftly, but in what future historians will call the great shaving disaster of 2008, they didn`t work on Japanese voltage.  Hair levels in northern Japan remained dangerously elevated.

A break in the rain

This additional trauma may have helped focus our minds on our goal though – we needed to get to Nagoya in four days, the main highways are expensive toll roads and Japan is a deceptively long country.  So we drove.  It`s a testament to just how much amazing stuff we`ve seen that on a drive through half of Japan we didn`t get particularly excited by much of the scenery.  There are beautiful forested mountains running all the way down the spine of the islands, but there is so much human impact: concrete retainers to stop landslides, concrete barriers off the coast, and of course towns clinging to every inhabitable spot.  It`s a product of necessity, with such a high-density population living on islands at such risk from typhoons and earthquakes, but the impression is of a country fighting nature rather than living with it.

Japanese seaside

Repairs over breakfast

We found a good beach to camp on one night and spent a few hours playing in the sea, but apart from that and a little bit of car maintenance (we’ve worn down the rear brake pads and made a bit of a mess of one of the discs) we didn’t pause for long anywhere.  It would have been nice to explore a bit, but it rained for most of the journey so we didn’t mind being in the car!

Pete delves into a paddy field after a terrible throw in a game of Flop (rules to follow)

We arrived in Nagoya on schedule, and with the timing we seem to be blessed with were whisked straight to Obon celebrations (one of the main Japanese festivals).  We chatted to our host Steve and his family, then delighted the locals with our attempts at traditional dance!

The next day we finally fulfilled our dreams and proudly rejoined the civilised world of beardlessness.  Pete seemed to lose half his head!

Before and after… (the moustache was shortlived)

Spike’s moustache lasted a little longer…

…while Pete went from hair-hero to zero

We`re currently being put up by Steve and enjoying his amazing hospitality while we arrange the shipping and make plans for Canada, as well as addressing the sorry state of our budget!  It seems a very different expedition to much of what went before, and we’re facing new challenges; it’s exciting!

- David

Playing on the iPod: `Don’t let the Man Get You Down’ by Fatboy Slim

The relative quiet on the blog recently has reflected our status as adventurers in limbo. We have been shacked up in UB sorting out repairs to Roxanne and doing various admin stuff before we can set off again. This had all pretty much been taken care of when Pete rather carelessly decided to contract tonsilitis, so we’ve arranged visa extensions and will stay until he is back at full strength. An ill Pete is a most unnatural thing to behold; he doesn’t eat very much and his favourite maxim “Pedro’s a legend” has not been heard in days. We all look forward to him getting back on his feet.

In the meantime we have been embraced into the expat community in UB and must have met every volunteer in the city! It’s a slightly surreal episode of the expedition but gives us good access to translators for our research. We’ve also met some fantastic people through the G4 challenge and their links to the Red Cross – our night with the journalists we’d met in the desert being particularly memorable!

Since we’ve been stationary for a while you might like to have a look at some people on the move at http://minivanmongolrally.wordpress.com/ – I came across these guys through Steve Smith, one of the team members, who is arranging our shipping from Japan to Vancouver. The team and his company (Japan Car Exports) are raising a fantstic amount of money for Hope International, and we aim to meet up with them and compare stories at Halifax. A long way to go yet…

- David

New meets old as we say farewell to some of Spike’s family, but which is cooler?…

In preparation for our five month expedition, Landrover provided us with a three days of off-road driver training. We learnt how to get the most of our Landrover on difficult offroad terrain.

Here are some pictures of the course.

Our custom-built Landy has just rolled off the production line.