Category: Canada

Ducati: Many Roads of Canada – Hot and Cold Running Llamas

After a while all the hotels blur together. Amenities begin to lose definition, as long as accommodations are clean, dry and comfortable they serve a purpose. Some are nicer than others, but after a while the running down Deltas meld with the aspiring Days Inns while Best Westerns roam the wilds of variable conditions and service. So, what do you do to stand out? How about hot and cold running llamas? Stonehame Chalets in Scotsburn, NS has it sorted.

Ducati: Many Roads of Canada – Histories

I know the man’s voice with its lecture hall delivery and resonance.  His white hair, with a hint of wild to it.  His jutting lower jaw.  Here in PEI, nearly the other side of the country the odds of running into an acquaintance should be slim.  Yet, despite probability forcing doubt on recollection, I know…

Read More

Ducati: Many Roads of Canada – Confederation Bridge

Not even I should be able to get lost on PEI. At 224km long and 64km wide, lost takes a lot of doing on PEI. And yet here I am, subject of my own refusal to u-turn, on a red dirt road that the GPS shows as “almost” connecting to the 13? Or was it the 2? Or the 225? So then, the Ducati Multistrada isn’t an adventure bike… PEI’s dirt roads, a vivid surreal clay red that V. van Gogh would approve of, say otherwise.

Ducati: Many Roads of Canada – On Roads

Percé, Quebec, no bones about it; this is a tourist town like so many others, save for coastal splendour that would make a landscape painter weep with frustration at being unable to capture its grandeur and subtlety, and an amazing driveway…

Ducati: Many Roads of Canada – The Foam on the Bang

Gaspé Peninsula — Between hotelier Evelyn Pouliot of “Saint-Maxime Petit Hotel” and I, we’ve worked out the literal translation for her restaurant recommendation here in Mont-Louis – “The Foam on the Bang.”  Some things sound better in the original we decide, “La Broue dans l’Toupet” is one.  Figuratively, it’s a restaurant term for freakishly busy,…

Read More

Ducati: Many Roads of Canada – The Saint Lawrence

In 1535, as part of his second trip to Canada, Jacques Cartier became the first European explorer to sail the inland part of the Saint Lawrence.  Later, in 1613, the river served as the primary route the exploration of North America’s, pioneered by French explorer Samuel de Champlain.  Those facts from social studies never had…

Read More

Ducati: Many Roads of Canada – Poutine

It’s a heart stopping ride, thanks to the diet. Poutine is everything your doctor ever warned you about, but better. French fries, covered in cheese curd and doused in gravy… The gold standard on which all other heart stopping poutine death is based.

Ducati: Many Roads of Canada – Jail

I’m writing you from Jail. Yes, some would agree that incarceration is long over due thanks to wanton acts of disregard for various social standards, but the details of my megalomania are quite inconsequential…

Ducati: Many Roads of Canada – Prologue

My “cunning plan” to ride the Buell Ulysses across Canada has been shattered in another journalists accident, before the trip proper even started. Luckily, Ducati’s stepped in with a flight upgrade.

North: The KTM Summer of Adventure – 19: Port Hardy to Nanaimo, BC

Is that a bloodstain on the carpet? Last night when the Ferry docked in Port Hardy, at the northern end of Vancouver Island, I found myself casting around for a hotel room, the Thunderbird Inn seemed to fit the bill. The lady at the front desk, congenial, plump and bespectacled, seemed only too willing to…

Read More

North: The KTM Summer of Adventure – 17: Stewart to Prince Rupert, BC

Last night I snuggled into the coziness of the Bayview Hotel, which is part of the Ripley Creek Inn complex. A restored period piece sitting above the Bitter Creek Café, the Bayview Hotel is refreshingly authentic, comfortably homey and decidedly inexpensive, and the café below puts the weak offerings of Bell II’s cuisine to shame….

Read More