14 October, 2013

This week-end we drove down to London, Ontario to have a final visit with Ralf’s family.  We arrived late, once again due to getting misplaced trying to find Ralf’s Dad’s apartment block.  We spent a lovely evening with Karl and Margaret (Karl’s partner) chatting about the trip.  Margaret has travelled throughout Thailand, Hong Kong and China so it was nice to get some insight from her.

We had breakfast at a lovely little restaurant close to their apartment building.  The owners were from Vietnam, we had a chat with Chi about our trip.  Her name was Chi and her husband was Tai – they were meant to be together – Tai Chi.

After breakfast and a relaxing morning we went to Ralf’s sisters for dinner.  Mike (Beate’s husband) was hilarious at dinner.  He asked a million and one questions – What were we going to eat? How were we going to cook?  Did we know how much to eat after cycling? What about water? What about camping? What about traffic?  What about reserve funds? How are we going to keep in touch? Could we really carry all our things in 4 panniers? Will we be safe?  How will we stay safe?  Did we know what we were doing?

I hope we allayed his concerns with our answers.  It was nice to know that they were concerned about our safety and well-being.  Of course with all the planning in the world, you never know what might happen.  But that can also be said about staying home and cycling in Canada.

Before leaving he gave me a small power storage unit. I tried it when we got home with the Garmin.  It works great.  This means we can charge the Garmin’s with the power unit if we have no access to power for a couple of days.

It was a lovely visit.