Wednesday, July 22, 2009

Day 1 through 2

From Wales.





As you can see, we're still alive. Somehow we have managed to conquer this long treasurous journey across the world to Pwllheli. We started off my entering an Airbus (which as you know has recently crashed mysteriously in the middle of no where) but fortunatly we survived. Then after 6 and a half hours of torture on the plane we finally saw Gatwick. We rented a vehicle immediately and started to drive the long adventure. We have a European Nissan Note - manual with the steering wheel on the right and driving on the left. Sometimes we wanted to turn on the "turn signal" our windshield wipers went off. Additionally we saw a Tank on the highway. Later on we finally saw many round-abouts. On the highway we had no idea what the speed limit was so we ended up going 190 km/h (110 mph).





Once we reached Wales we drove on streets which were half the width of the ones in Canada so we rode over the curb many times. Even on these streets fellow Welsh drivers drove 110 km/h (70mph). Eventually we reached our destination Pwllheli. We drove to the Pwllheli sailing club first where we met fellow Mirror Dinghy sailors, who helped us reach our campground and lended a tent and utensiles.





The next day was horrible, in the term of weather. It was pouring rain non-stop, cold and dark. It took us very long to get up and actually want to start to do something. Soon afterwards we came to the sailing club and we received our boat. It is fully equiped, number 70226. It has a Bermuda rig and fibreglass hull. Then we went around town, bought some food.


We were invited by a family from the British Sailing club to have dinner. We went there and we were in a "luxury hotel" where we were able to swim, go in the sauna and wash. Then we had dinner with the Bearcroft family. We talked about our life stories and how we came to be where we are now. Les tried to crack a few jokes and miserably failed - they don't understand us Canadians, eh? Some even come up and say "Oh look, it's the 'Canadians'."

We soon called it a day and went back to our wet tent. Then came the next day...

2 comments:

  1. Hey Matt and Mike,
    Work hard, sail well, but most importantly have fun.

    Pete Kaiser

    ReplyDelete
  2. What is the speed limit on Welsh Roads?
    Speed limit on Motorway: 112kph/70mph
    Speed limit in Towns: 48kph/30mph
    Speed limit on Major roads: 65kph/40mph
    80kph/50mph
    96kph/60mph
    Speed limit in residential areas: 35kph/20mph
    Round signs indicate speed limits with the limit amount circled by a red band. When the speed limit has stopped then there is a black line at an angle crossing over the speed limit indicated.

    What is the speed limit on English Roads?
    Speed limit on Motorway: 112kph/70mph
    Speed limit in Towns: 48kph/30mph
    Speed limit on Major roads: 65kph/40mph
    80kph/50mph
    96kph/60mph
    Speed limit in residential areas: 35kph/20mph
    Round signs indicate speed limits with the limit amount circled by a red band. When the speed limit has stopped then there is a black line at an angle crossing over the speed limit indicated.

    ReplyDelete