Millions long for immortality who don’t know what to do with themselves on a rainy Sunday afternoon.
— Susan Ertz
EpisodeSo here I sit, souvlaki in one hand, iced tea in the other — on the bank of the Seine, beneath the Pont des Arts, half a world from home and twice as far from care.
To my left, the 16th-Century “New” Bridge (Pont Neuf) strides arrogantly across the murky waters. To my right, the Eiffel Tower is shimmering like a hula dancer in a sequined skirt above the silhouetted south bank rooftops.
(A little while ago the Tower was a stately lighthouse, swinging a Cyclops eye across the sky … and now it turns the light on again, but is still shimmering — or perhaps “shimmying”.)
Cruise boats patrol the banks, rows of spotlights lighting up trysts and groups indiscriminately. One huge boat, no doubt piloted by a latter-day Vandervecken, shines a putrescent green on the lower chins and cheekbones of the lost souls aboard.
An otter trawls by. I think it is a duck at first, but it passes through the light and even crawls out briefly on the muddy edge below me. I don’t know what it is hunting: it is uninterested in the chunk of souvlaki I sacrifice to it. It crawls back into the river and drifts on downstream.
Behind me, a homeless man is scaling the sloping face of the bridge foundation. There’s a deep ledge up there, large enough for several sleepers. I’m glad when he’s gone — he has been standing behind me for a couple of minutes, forcing me to keep an ear on him in case he turned out to be a mugger.
It is the fourth week of a trip that has gone amazingly well even by the standards set by my last three trips. A trip whose worst disasters are a thunderstorm in the Grand Canyon and flying out of Toronto three hours later than expected. Since I emerged uninjured from the heart of the storm, that was merely an adventure. Since the changed flight had no impact on what I saw and did in Quebec, that was a mere incident. This is not the stuff from which to construct a page-turner trip report.
My trip report is on my mind. I am determined to write one, and determined to make it as good and as interesting as possible.
The things people usually seek out in trip reports are the disasters: the revolutions, the pirates, the cancelled flights, the muggings and robberies. These things are intrinsically dramatic and interesting. They almost write themselves.
This trip had none of that. How am I going to rivet my readers without a juicy situation that I can extricate myself from only by the utmost exertion of body and mind?
The answer is, of course, that I must let the places speak for themselves and focus the drama through my mind’s eye, reflecting the places through myself. A frightening challenge for someone who hates placing himself in the picture.
But this is the trip for it: the third overseas trip in four years, the final link in a trilogy that has seen my view of the world enlarged and embellished out of recognition.
In 1995 I was deeply depressed. I was 37, unemployed, and felt that I was trapped in an endless winter. I once gave myself till the age of 35 (1993) to find my groove. If I was still drifting after that I’d be a bum. 1993 brought me hope — which, by the end of 1994, proved to be only a respite from the gloom. I couldn’t see another bright spot ahead of me.
There is a Marianne Faithfull song, The Ballad of Lucy Jordan, about a bored housewife who, “at the age of 37”, realises that she has surrendered her dreams of romance and adventure, characterised as riding “through Paris, in a sports car, with the warm wind in her hair”, for children and suburban security. I didn’t even have children or security, and Paris was a very remote dream indeed.
Fortunately, I did find another bright spot — in 1997 a 5-week temporary assignment gradually turned into a long spell of well-paid employment. In 1999 I started planning a series of holidays that would realise my dreams.
In 2000, I saw my overseas trips as a door into a perpetual northern summer. But looking back in 2003, most of each trip has actually been in September — in autumn. Far from perpetual summer, my time in the northern hemisphere has been an extended autumn. A forever autumn. A melancholy thought, considering that the song by that title was once one of my favourites.
The last four years have seen me bid goodbye to my youth. I have white in my beard now, and the average backpacker is starting to look rather young. Face it: I am middle aged. I have a good job now but no house, no assets, no partner, no children. No future. I’m a bum.
In 1979, aged 21, I ended the springtime of my life by dropping out of university. I embarked upon a quarter-century summer that lasted, with occasional cold patches, until my father died earlier this year. I’m into my autumn now. As with most autumns, it has started imperceptibly: a slight change in the colour of my foliage, the turn of a calendar page. But summer is over. In a decade it will be obvious as hair greys and wrinkles deepen. In two decades autumn will verge into winter. If I live three decades it will be full winter. And I have good reason to doubt I’ll live four more decades. I might make three. Age 75 is all I can reasonably ask of my genes.
Somehow, this evening, sitting on the bank of the Seine, the thought does not depress me. I am not that far below my peak, and the slope is still gentle. The leaves do not all fall on the first day of autumn.
Yes, I am a bum, but I am doing the things I want to do: the things I have wanted to do for decades. Prudence would have me at home, pouring my money into a mortgage to buy an asset to cushion my old age. But prudence would also leave me depressed and sad. My family is not notably long lived. My father died this year, aged 73, after retiring at 59 due to failing health. If I choose the prudent course I may live longer than otherwise, but the quality of that life is questionable: my savings will be soaked up by the costs of health care, I won’t be in a position to use those years to travel, and I will be eaten up by regrets.
In 2000 I made a value judgement: to prepare for retirement or to travel while I could and to let old age fend for itself. The choices are mutually exclusive. If I wait till I’ve shaken the travel bug, I’ll be too old to save enough for comfortable retirement. If I use my present income to save enough for retirement, I’ll probably be too old and infirm to enjoy travel. Faced with a choice between being the grasshopper or the ant, I opted to be the grasshopper.
Four years later, bathed in the light from Pont Neuf, watching the Eiffel Tower dance, I review that decision and find it Good. I’ll be poor and I’ll be ill and I’ll be miserable, but that would happen anyway and this way I’ll have these memories to comfort me!
But my souvlaki and iced tea are finished. It is time to catch a taxi to the Arc de Triomphe — and to ride along through Paris with the warm wind in my hair.
IntroductionThis is the story of my 2003 vacation.
In 2000 I travelled east from Melbourne as far as New York. In 2002 I travelled west from Melbourne as far as Rome. Now it was time to close the gap: to travel east from Melbourne to New York and keep on going east, past Rome, until I came back to Melbourne.
Along the way I would complete my leftover itineraries: picking up Plateau Point in the Grand Canyon and the Adirondacks near New York from 2000, and seeing London and Paris from 2002. It would be a trip that tidied up other loose ends, too. I had visited ancient ruins in 2002. This time I would see the portions of those ruins that had been looted and carried off to New York, London and Paris. I had seen some of the eastern half of the Roman Empire: now I would see some of the western half. I had walked two of the three Grand Canyon “superhighways”: now I would walk the third. I had seen Niagara Falls from a US base: now I would visit them from Canada.
Yes, this was the year for closing off unfinished business.
Contents
Episode
Introduction
Take Off
On the Rim
Bright Angel Trail — Lower Section
Bright Angel Trail — Upper Section
Return to Vegas
Las Vegas to Montreal to Toronto
Torcon III
Quebec
Montreal
Lake Placid
New York, New York
London
Paris
Paris to Melbourne
Aftermath
Take OffFriday, 22 August 2003
I called the taxi about 08:00 and went out to the gate to wait. “We already have your address,” said the automated call system, optimistically. Fifteen minutes later, I went back inside to advise a human operator that, no, they didn’t have my current address.
The taxi finally pulled up about 08:20. I passed the journey talking to the driver, Hakim, about travel and life.
The ride should have cost just under $50, but by the time we reached the airport about 09:00, the total with call fee and tolls came to $55, which meant that Hakim had not taken the shortest route. In fact he had looped too far south and had crossed the Bolte Bridge. I wasn’t in a mood to worry about it: I was already in travel mode, in which small ripoffs usually aren’t worth the hassle.
The airport had come up with a new security feature — an open bag search before people were allowed through to the check-in.
I packed well: the travelpack weighed in at 12.9 kg, which was what my scale at home had told me. It would have weighed even less, but I’d tossed in some extra gear for use in the Grand Canyon. As it turned out, the extra gear was excess weight. I could have bought it cheaply at the same time as I bought a tent in Las Vegas.
(With the things I identified as excess during this trip, it’s time for me to reconsider the travelpack. It’s a 60 litre pack that I have never completely crammed — I always have to toss in loose clothing to take up the worst of the excess volume. Maybe I should move down to a 50 litre model, or even smaller. I’m not even close to the point where I can fit everything into carry-on baggage, though. On this trip I saw some nifty 50 litre packs, as long as the travelpack, but narrower and lacking a daypack. Something like that could be good for extended rough travel. And I should upgrade to carrying a regular towel again: travel towels work, but are unsatisfying. If I go down-market in my accomodation as planned, I’ll need my own towel.)
I went through passport control about 10:15, then stooged around the shops until the boarding call was given. My money belt had a frayed strap, so I bought a replacement money belt — two pockets, elastic strap.
My last Australian meal was cappucchino and a croissant in the food hall, $9 — on plastic since I’d already converted my remaining AUD into USD.
They’d assigned me seat 35B for both legs of UA816 — the first time I can remember being given an “exit” seat. I’d mentioned to the woman the the check-in that the last time I flew United, from Chicago to Las Vegas in 2000, the plane was 5 hours late, and I think she moved me from a middle seat elsewhere in compensation. She said something to that effect. As it happened I missed the footrest that a regular seat would have provided. Being short, I find it uncomfortable to sit in an aircraft seat for long periods with my feet resting on the deck. Glass half empty.
Boarding started around 10:45, and the plane actually took off about 11:30.
The first leg, to Sydney, went OK, but it was so short that by the time we were up it was time to come down. This is the reality of most intercity air travel: you spend longer on the ground than in the air. By 12:45 I had been travelling for 4.75 hours (counting waiting for the taxi that went to the wrong address) but only an hour of that time was spent in the air. The rest was waiting, taxi, check-in and boarding, take-off and landing.
At Sydney I had to get off, but it gave me the opportunity to look around the terminal. I had nothing else to do — the travelpack was checked through to Los Angeles. (To LA, not Las Vegas, because I’d experienced LAX’s transit facilities in 2000 and did not want to repeat that error.)
The terminal was triangular, relatively small, and not exciting. Its main point of interest was a metal-and-glass pedestrian bridge decorated with politically-correct philosophising — inscriptions to the sacredness of the land and paens to the aboriginals.
I looked for a US travel adapter for the iPaq, but no luck. I did find a desk with power points, so the iPaq got a quick charge-up before the big hop. In the end I used the Australian recharger, with an adaptor, for the whole trip.
Back on the plane, things went downhill for the long leg: when the cabin lights went out, my neighbours turned their seat lights on. I was sitting between the same two tall guys as before, one Aussie, the other Canadian or, more likely, American. The American had a thick paperback. He spent the whole journey reading it. I tried snoozing with my eyes covered, but was so hot and uncomfortable that the best I could manage was an intermittent doze.
By the time the lights came back on I’d managed maybe a couple of hours of sleep in aggregate — just enough to leave me tired and irritable.
After Melbourne, US Immigration was routine and Customs just waved me through — Australia was clearly not seen as a high risk source of visitors. They appeared to be depending on the Australian end to do its job.
Getting to the next plane was confusing, as the direct stair to the departure areas from Terminal 6 was blocked off. I ended up walking outside, going up an escalator, and ambling down to Terminal 7. I walked past the security that was busily scanning departing international passengers, and went in the next door. Go figure.
The last change to my plans before I left had been to move my flight to the Grand Canyon from Friday to Saturday. After flight changes, my original plan would have me arriving at Las Vegas’ McCarran airport just over half an hour before the Grand Canyon plane flew out of North Las Vegas airport — on the other side of town. This was obviously too tight, so after waiting in vain for a place to open on a later flight, I was forced to concede to an overnight stay in Las Vegas.
The plane left LAX a little late, but arrived at McCarran a few minutes early. Even so, by the time I had made my way through the maze that is McCarran, taken the tram to the baggage claim, and made my way up the taxi queue, my original plan would have left me with 5 minutes to get to North Las Vegas. Not possible. So the change of plans was the right decision.
Aboard the taxi, I calculated that I had now been continuously on the go for 23.5 hours. In effect, my 22nd August 2003 lasted about 41 hours.
The taxi dropped me off at Days Inn — “City Hall Casino”. I found Reception, after a wrong turn at the cashier’s cage, and was given Room 3109.
The room was surprisingly good, complete with aircon and en suite, although getting to it required climbing two flights of stairs and navigating some long corridors.
I dumped my gear, stripped off, and had a long shower.
I headed out again about 16:00 looking for a tent. I’d decided before leaving home that carting a tent around the world with me when I’d only be using it for two nights near the start was silly. So I got on the web and Researched. I got steered to the huge Wal-Mart shopping chain. They offered various sizes of tent at good prices, including one model designed for two children at an unbelievably low price. Being short, I could sleep in it diagonally. Being cheap, it could be discarded when I was through with it — avoiding the need to lug it for the rest of the trip and the hassle of getting a used tent past Australian quarantine. All I had to do was find a store that stocked it.
I found my $17.95 tent at the first Wal-Mart I tried. $18? A pittance! $9 per night.
I also bought freeze-dried food and some odds and ends such as a AA-battery-fired lamp-come-torch. This device turned out to have a slider switch that was ridiculously easy to turn “on” and so cost me a perfectly good set of batteries the next day when it turned on in my pack.
The taxi to the Wal-Mart cost me $13 ($12 plus a tip), but that was OK: I was paying for speed and convenience. Taking Bus 201 back down East Tropicana cost only $1.25.
Tropicana was a big, wide boulevard, one of the major cross-streets off the Strip. It was baking beneath the sun. The bus stop was a couple of hundred metres away on the other side. By the time I found a place to cross I was hot and sweating, so I ducked into a handy convenience store and bought some munchies — salty pretzels, water, etc. I couldn’t afford to let my body dry out or run low on salt if I wanted to be fit for the Canyon tomorrow.
I dumped my booty at the hotel and headed out to watch The Strip come alive as the sun set.
When I was in Las Vegas in 2000, I stayed in CircusCircus, and I spent most of my time walking from there to Fremont Street and back. I never got much further down the Strip. Day’s Inn was near Tropicana, which plunges through the heart of the Strip. I walked down to East Tropicana and turned right.
The huge bulk beside me was MGM-Grand. When I reached the Strip I turned right again at Harley Heaven and heading on down toward Paris. After that I just followed my nose towards whatever caught my eye, and I have no clear recollection of my exact route. My camera shows I went past Aladdin, Venice, Barbary Coast, Caesar’s Palace, Mirage, O’Shea’s, Harrahs, and the Flamingo. I returned to Day’s Inn from the opposite direction, thus completing a loop, but I’d explored several side streets and walked a couple of blocks north on the Strip before crossing over and walking back.
By now it was getting late, though by Melbourne time it was only mid-afternoon. I faced an early start, so I turned in. I set my watch and alarm, the room’s alarm, and a wake-up call, all for 03:30 to ensure that I got up in time.
On the RimSaturday, 23 Aug 2003
I had a leisurely shower, made up my pack, and walked down to reception. Check-out was smooth and quick. By 04:20 I was sitting on a bench out front, watching a big white bus pull in. I didn’t see “Scenic” on the side, but it was my bus.
I was one of the first picked up. The bus made its way from casino to casino, accumulating people. It made a long stop at the Luxor. I noted the location, figuring I’d be dropped off here on my return from the Canyon — as I was.
At North Las Vegas Airport, I paid my return fare and hung around until boarding started. I’d expected a Fokker Friendship as in 2000, but instead there were three DeHavilands. I kicked myself: my camera was in my checked baggage, because I wasn’t going to waste time taking photos through small, cloudy windows. Now I had huge view windows that were ideal for photography.
Just to grind it home, we passed over Hoover Dam, Lake Mead, and parts of the Canyon. The views were superb. Hoover Dam looked like a toy: a perfect white model dam sitting in a model valley.
The valley had a white ring around the waterline. The area had suffered from years of drought; the white ring was where past water levels had leeched the colour from the rock, giving a graphic measure of how far the water level has fallen. [In the 2020’s the water levels fell further — and decades of disposed-of bodies started to show up …]
At the Canyon, most of the other people on the flight climbed aboard the bus for their tour. I was the only passenger not on a tour or staying in Tusayan. I had to wait for the taxi.
The taxi dropped me off at Bright Angel Lodge. The place was unchanged. I checked the travelpack into storage, slipping the guy a couple of bucks, then went to the tour desk to see if I could still arrange a dinner at Phantom Ranch.
I was in luck — there were places available at both sittings. In 2000, expecting to arrive late, I’d booked the 18:30 (stew) dinner. This time I went for the 17:30 (steak) dinner. I also ordered breakfast and a bag lunch for tomorrow.
My next concern was water and food for today’s trail. I went out back to the Fountain and bought six half-litre bottles of water and assorted munchies. With the 700 ml bottle of water I’d brought with me from Las Vegas, I figured I’d have enough water to get me to the bottom.
Last time I’d stood a while gaping into the Canyon, but now I couldn’t spare the time. I’d seen it before and I’d be back here in three days anyway. But I couldn’t resist a glance down to Indan Garden and Plateau Point. I’d be down there tomorrow
I went back to reception to order a taxi. The receptionist was already calling one for a couple of other hikers, so I just told him “add one for me”. We all wound up in the same taxi.
Just after 09:00, I was standing at South Kaibab Trailhead. It was a heady moment, culmination of three years of anticipation and planning.
In 2000 I stood here, looking down the first switchbacks and wishing I had time to explore the Grand Canyon’s “alternative superhighway”. That was when I knew I had to return to the Canyon.
Well, here I was. No point perching on the rim. I shouldered my pack and started down.
The first section was well maintained and I made good time, pausing only to take photographs. The trail switchbacks its way down the side of Yaki Point, then straightens out to head for O’Neill Butte. Initially I had a view east across to Mather Point, and then the trail crossed Cedar Ridge and the view faced east.
While taking a photo partway down I was overtaken by Austin and Teddy, the father-and-son pair I’d shared the taxi with. They asked me to take their photo using their camera, and I obliged.
I also paused to say hello to an old friend, or his relative. A squirrel spent a minute scurrying about my feet. There were a lot more squirrels on the trail than I saw in 2000. Perhaps the drought has driven them down to where they can scrounge occasional human leavings.
After the initial switchbacks, the trail leveled out to make its way along Cedar Ridge. The view was spectacular, marred only by the appearance of drifting raincloud and distant thunder.
Cedar ridge — a drop-toilet block with a sign, “No Drinking Water Available”. I didn’t stop. I was on my pace now, kicking back the trail at a steady three to four kilometres per hour. I felt good. The Canyon does that for me — lifts my spirit even as it grinds down my body.
My next landmark, O’Neill Butte, approached quickly. I was skirting its flanks almost before I knew it. I stopped beneath a tree to top up my main water bottle from one of the refills.
There was a couple resting nearby, on their way out of the Canyon. She had hurt her knee, and they had decided to use South Kaibab to get out because it was shorter. They were beginning to realise it was a mistake. Still, they had done the hard part. The question now was whether they would get out before the storm broke.
Rested, I continued downhill. From the trail I watched a thunderstorm break across a spine of rock that separated two side canyons on the far side of the river, perhaps five or six kilometres away. The shadow of rain cloaking the rock flanks was split again and again by flails of lightning. It was an impressive display of violence, any sense of menace being lost through distance.
However, the Canyon was merely building up the suspense. As I moved along just below the ridgeline towards Skeleton Point, black clouds began to spill over the top of the ridge above me, accompanied by flashes ond booms. It was like watching a breaking wave. Spots of rain began to fall: large, heavy drops pregnant with threat.
I pressed on, hoping to reach Skeleton Point and get down below the ridgeline before the storm broke. I didn’t make it. The rain became a torrent, and then the lightning crossed the ridge, striking down into the valley at my right. The flashes and the booms were now only about a second apart: I was passing into the heart of the storm.
Far from reaching safety, I found myself almost on the crest of the ridge, looking west into a flurry of dark clouds and lightning. Hell, this was getting bloody dangerous!
I suddenly realised that I’d neglected to wrap my pack contents in plastic bags. If the rain got in — and it would — my pack would triple in weight, not to mention the risk that water would get to the iPaq or the camera. As a stopgap I paused to pull out my umbrella — not the smartest thing to do in a thunderstorm, but I wasn’t thinking too clearly at that point.
I finally reached Skeleton Point, to find three intrepid walkers hugging the path. I ditched my pack in a crevice over the way and set my umbrella to cover it, then went to sit with them.
They told me that at the first nearby flash they had simply dropped where they were. They were on their way out of the canyon and could see that there was no cover ahead of them.
Their position looked rather exposed to me, but at that moment my umbrella blew away in a gust of wind. When I went to salvage my pack and see where the umbrella had got to, I noticed that the trail bent around and down to my left, and that there was a dry alcove above the trail. It looked safer than the path and offered protection from the rain, so I clambered into it.
My umbrella had gone over the edge. I never saw it again.
About ten minutes later I heard hooves clattering up the trail below. Soon three riderless mules came out of the switchback. They were followed a few minutes later by four girls on foot, one of them leading a fourth mule. They asked how far ahead the mules were.
Apparently a bolt had struck almost beside the trail, startling the mules into dumping their riders and heading for the rim. The guide had also been dumped, but for some reason his mule was not one of those I had seen. The guide was back down the trail trying to catch his mule. He had sent the girls after the mules, apparently hoping that the animals would stop once they got over their fright.
The girls ran up around the corner and out of sight, and just then I noticed that I had other company. The three other hikers were perched in smaller alcoves just along from me. One of them moved along to take up an empty bit of alcove next to me. I asked what had happened. He said that one bolt got so close that they actually felt a shock from it through the ground. Having seen me go around the corner and not come back, they’d decided that whatever shelter I had found must be better than where they were.
So we perched there, watching the lightning whip the flanks of the canyon. It was an awesome experience, made poignant by the knowledge that at any moment a bolt could convert us from observers into participants. Some of the booms were deafening and almost instantaeous after the flash.
The temperature was plummetting and a cold wind was starting to blow. I pulled on my jacket and felt warm enough, still being acclimatised to Melbourne’s winter, but the others had nothing warm to pull on. I could hear their teeth chatter even over the roar of the rain.
More hooves sounded, and the rest of the mule train came up the switchback. The guide had recovered his mule. His charges looked as miserable as my own companions. They did not stop, but went on up and around the bend, ignoring the lightning.
Finally the sky began to lighten and the lightning bolts drew away. I gave it fifteen minutes, then gathered my gear together and headed down.
I didn’t get far. Another storm came over the crest, more rain than lightning this time. Crouched in the lee of a cliff I dug out my emergency rain slick and used it to line my pack, determined that I wasn’t going to let the rain hold me up any longer. But by the time I had adjusted everything and was ready for a walk in the rain, it was over. The clouds lifted and the sun shone. Figures.
The guide had ridden back down in the rain, looking for another missing mule. Some hikers told him it had sheltered with them under an outcrop. As I started downhill again, he came back up, leading his prodigal mule. (I ran into him again at Indian Garden the next day. He said he was sure the lightning would’ve got me. I replied that a man on a mule makes a better target, but here he was …)
The trail levelled out and the cliff fell away on my left and right. Soon I was trudging across dull grasslands on the Tonto Platform. The trail was now bordered by rocks and in good condition, except where the mule trains had worn a sort of furrow or slot into it. The slot was easy to follow but its floor had a tendency to turn to mud unexpectedly, so I tried to avoid it.
I came over a rise and saw a building standing in the open some way off the trail. Some hikers were hanging around in it, apparently refugees from the weather. This hut marks the approach to the final descent into the inner Canyon, the Tipoff. It draws the eye: the hut and the trail are the only obviously manmade features in a big, brown landscape.
I could also see a patch of green ahead, my second sight of Phantom Ranch. My first sight had been at Skeleton Point after the rain stopped, while waiting for the thunderstorm to scram. It had seemed quite close, but I knew that was an illusion.
I passed some rocks with a peculiar latticework effect on their surface. Fossil worm burrows from some ancient seabed, I learned later. At the time I just wondered what they were.
On my right, a trail went off towards the hut: the Tonto Trail. Shortly its continuation came in on my left. Then a sign: “The Tipoff”. And then the trail dropped away in front of me.
The Colorado rolled below, roiling. I could see it and hear it, and I could see the trail on the far side. Both seemed very far away. Storm and all, the trail had been a cakewalk until now. This was the real thing: this was the section that sorted the men from the boys. With my sore, mud-stained legs and heavy, sodden pack I suddenly felt decidedly boyish.
But returning to the rim was not an option. Down I went.
I could thank the storm for one mercy: it had cut the heat from the morning. Starting so late in the day — most people start down at or before dawn — I’d thought my biggest challenge would be coping with the heat. Instead it was staying out of the mud and mule poo.
The path started steep, but the first switchbacks were long, lazy curves across the hillside. I soon found a pace that moved me along briskly without putting too much strain on my ankles or risking a tumble. The worst feature of the trail here was that it was in poor shape, torn up by mule hooves and thickly scattered with fallen rock. The storm had left a few puddles, but the trail was so steep that most of the water had run straight off.
Some of the broken rocks were an ancient Egyptian pharaoh’s dream — huge and so regular in shape that they seemed carved by stonemasons. But the only flat ground big enough to hold a pyramid was up on the rim.
At a sheer drop, I got my first glimpse of the Black Bridge: a strand of wool, impossibly far below. But it was good to have my next milestone in sight. There were also some good bird’s-eye views of the mouth of the Bright Angel Creek and the Campground, and parts of Phantom Ranch.
My ankles were twin sockets of agony by now: the effort of catching my full weight at every step was beginning to tell. My knees and the balls of my feet were also suffering. And still it went on.
Then, as I rounded another switchback, I saw the end of my pain: the tunnel that had been cut through the final wall of rock to connect bridge to trail. It was still a long way below, but now that I could see it I could encourage myself by watching it approach.
I could also see the clouds building up overhead: it was going to rain again.
Down, switchback, down, switchback, down. And then, incredible! The trail bent around in a gentle curve and plunged into the tunnel. I had made it! I laughed aloud from sheer high spirits and followed the trail in.
The tunnel does not go straight through. Supposedly the digging proceeded from both ends and didn’t meet perfectly, but they hadn’t even dug directly toward each other. The result is that it makes quite a dogleg in the middle. Beyond the dogleg, fortunately where I could just see it in the light coming in from the bridge end, there was a huge puddle of dirty water that lapped from wall to wall. I had to edge along on the right hand side to keep the water from overflowing into my boots.
The “Black” or “Kaibab” suspension bridge is black, even down to the black rubbery stuff placed underfoot to save the mules from seeing the river beneath them. The stuff has not aged well: it rises in billows and humps wherever mule hooves have not pounded it into the metal of the bridge.
On the other side, the trail twirled down and right, taking me beneath the bridge as I started into the final leg.
Shortly I came across some fenced-off indian ruins. Passing them by, I pressed on: a light rain was starting to fall and was threatening to get heavier.
The Bright Angel Creek appeared, and the bridge that led away across it to the Silver Bridge. I kept on. Then I reached the bridge across to Bright Angel Campground. I crossed it and took the first campsite (#1) on the other side.
In minutes, my cheap Wal-Mart tent was up, my food was in a metal box on the camp tables, my boots were in another metal box beside the tent entrance, and I was lying on my sleeping bag listening to the rain drumming on the roof and the spate of the Creek rushing by a few metres away. I was bone-weary, and utterly without a care.
There are such moments in every trip, when I am where I need to be, when I need to be there, and for the next few hours what I do — if anything — is entirely optional. I was four hours late getting to Bright Angel — three hours late starting and an hour lost to the thunderstorm — but I’d had all day to get there. For the next three hours my time was my own. If the rain kept up I could spend that time relaxing in my tent. If it eased off I could wander the Ranch area. All the options were fun. My next “task”, a pleasant one, was to be hanging out around the canteen at 17:30, when dinner would be served.
As it happened, the rain eased off. I wandered back across the bridge — technically my tent’s side was Bright Angel Campground and the other side was Phantom Ranch, but “Phantom Ranch” is used as shorthand for the whole area.
In 2000 I’d tried to bathe in Bright Angel Stream. This had not been notably successful as the stream was a bit shallow at the time. There was no question of bathing in the torrent below me now: it was brick-red and foaming. If I went swimming I’d be washed down to the Colorado. (I tried rinsing a pair of white sports socks at the stream edge. They came out the same colour as the stream. Two machine washes later they are pink, apparently permanently.)
Phantom Ranch is a peculiar mix of beauty and ugliness. The Rangers don’t go in for much landscaping or track maintenance, which makes for rustic charm and twisted ankles. But they also don’t spend a lot of time beautifying working facilities such as the mule pens.
Apart from being ugly, the mule pens do not even have proper drainage: in wet weather the mules stand up to their hocks in mud, poo, and urine. This nauseous admixture seeps downhill, turning the nearby paths into open sewers that run black with filth, and stink in a fashion rarely found in nature. There’s plenty of loose rock that could be set with a little concrete into attractive yet functional drains around the edge of the mule pens. The ordure could then be drained into nearby low areas where it could be dealt with by natural filtering and decomposition.
Needless to say, a mule is not a native American animal and is not well integrated into the Canyon ecosystem.
There’s rustic, as in built from local materials without a lot of unnecessary refinement, and then there’s crude, as in built from local or imported materials with no regard for appearance. Unfortunately many of the facilities at Phantom Ranch, such as the mule pens, are simply crude.
Some of the other decisions made are bizarre. Those staying at the Ranch have unlimited access to showers while those staying in the Campground have none, unless they can scrounge an arrangement with a cabin dweller. Presumably this is because the room charge covers the cost of providing those showers and disposing of the runoff whereas the price of a backcountry permit does not. I’m not sure how hard it would be to provide a couple of metered, pay-as-you-go showers in the Campground, but it could not be much effort compared to the comfort and hygiene offered to campers who may already have slept rough for one or more nights.
Two main paths connect the Campground with the Ranch. The streamside path is clean and scenic, but not well maintained — it is easy to twist an ankle. The inland path is the one used by the mule trains. It is better maintained but not as pretty, and tends to puddle in the rain. The inland path is also the one contaminated by the mule pens.
The canteen had the usual clusters of hikers standing around outside. It was closed while the staff prepared it for the first dinner sitting (the steak dinner).
I wandered all the way through the Ranch, until the buildings trailed off and I came across a familiar piece of track — the North Kaibab Trail, that I walked in 2000.
Coming back downstream I was just in time for a Ranger’s afternoon talk. This one was about the geology of the Canyon. She made quite a show of it, with analogies and rock samples. This was where I discovered the origin of the worm tracks I’d seen in a rock.
I went back to my tent, then along the path that connects all the campsites to the facilities. After a bit of comparison with photos taken in 2000, I identified my old campsite: #19.
The washrooms were the same as in 2000, just older and more worn.
Dinner time. Back up to the canteen — about a 10-minute walk. The clusters of hikers had grown to a mob. The door opened and the waitress came out. People started filing in, and she ticked them off her list as they went by.
The canteen was also the same as in 2000: four massive wooden tables attended by rickety wooden chairs. The chair seats are woven from bark or wicker, and they sag abominably in the middle. They look picturesque but are very uncomfortable to sit in.
Last time I took the second sitting, the stew dinner. That was delicious. This time I was at the steak dinner and it too was delicious. Huge, thick steaks. Vegetables and salad. Foil-wrapped potatoes. Melons. Chocolate pudding. Fruit juice. Coffee. My appetite tonight was prodigious, and the best part was that I would walk it all off — and more — tomorrow.
Replete, I wandered back to my tent to lie down while the meal digested. I rested until after sunset, then headed back to the Ranch. I snuck into the back row of a lecture by a Ranger about some topic that he made sound so boring that it has completely slipped my memory. At 20:00 I slipped away and went up to the canteen.
After 20:00, the canteen becomes the social centre of the Ranch, where people come to meet and talk and to buy souvenirs and trail food. I bought some cards marked “mailed by mule”, addressed them, stamped them, and “mailed” them in a saddlebag. They would be carried out of the Canyon by one of the next day’s mule trains.
I had already ordered breakfast and a bag lunch, and I was carrying a freeze-dried beef stew dinner (bought from the Wal-Mart in Las Vegas) for tomorrow night, but I bought a sachet of “Gookinade” — powdered electrlyte drink — some raisins and similar munchies to see me through Day Three. That should see me out of the Canyon with a healthy appetite for my traditional (well, I did it in 2000) celebratory dinner at Bright Angel Lodge.
Then it was back to my tent, startling a browsing mule deer on the way. A doe, fortunately.
I didn’t sleep well: every time I moved, I found a new stone beneath me. Sheer exhaustion helped some. Time kept slipping away every time I checked my watch, so I must have cat-napped my way through the night.
Bright Angel Trail — Lower SectionSun 24 Aug 2003
I tucked away a solid breakfast of pancakes and toast and bacon and eggs. Not enough to make me feel bloated or heavy, but enough to sustain me for hours on the trail.
Breaking down my camp took about 20 minutes. I even did a “patrol” to make sure I’d not forgotten anything. My pack was so precisely organised that everything had its place — everything, that is, but the wretched bag lunch. I’d have to carry it separately
I hit the trail just after 07:30, bag lunch in hand. Late, but this was such a short leg that I knew I’d be in Indian Garden before the real heat set in. This was my second time on Bright Angel Trail, so I figured I knew what I was in for.
I was right in general, but details had been lost during the three year gap. I found plenty of surprises. My memory had collapsed some sections together and stretched others out ridiculously. The section from the Campground to the River Resthouse had collapsed — in 2000 I’d walked it at breakneck speed, trying to make distance while I was fresh. From the Resthouse to the middle of the Devil’s Corkscrew was stretched — in 2000 I was beginning to realise the scale of the challenge I had set myself. From there to Indian Garden was collapsed — in 2000, I was exhausted and sinking in on myself in order to tap my energy reserves.
I set myself an arbitrary target of noon. That gave me 4.5 hours to cover 7.5 kilometres, an average of just 1.7 kph. But I actually expected to do it in about 4 hours. Don’t ask me why, because in 2000 it took me 5 hours, and I have not improved with age! I weigh more now. Still, this time my practice walks in Melbourne had concentrated on altitude, not distance. I might surprise myself. I might.
Across the bridge, turn right. Turn right, cross the next bridge. Stop at the tap near the ranger station to drink deeply and top off my water. I was carrying 2.7 litres, which is actually less than recommended for midsummer, but after yesterday’s storms the morning was quite cool and I expected to arrive at Indian Garden with water left over. (I did — just over half a litre.)
Then on, down to the river and up to the Silver Bridge. This was unchanged from 2000, although as I had set out an hour and a half later than in 2000, I saw it in full morning light instead of dawn. The bright sun made deep shadows, though, so my photos were less satisfactory due to the contrast.
Mules don’t like this bridge. The footing is a metal grid, and they can see the river beneath them. But it’s actually as sturdy as the Black Bridge. And rocks just as much. There’s no tunnel on the other side. It simply links up with the River Trail. The Bright Angel Trail actually starts further on, at the River Resthouse, with all the intervening section being part of the River Trail, but for practical purposes this detail can be ignored. What you call the trail depends on where you started, where you’re going, and how much of a bastard you consider it to be.
It took me 50 minutes to get to the River Roadhouse. I’d allowed 45, so I was already a little behind schedule. I decided to ignore my schedule.
Garden Creek flows past the resthouse, and there was a mini waterfall that looked so delicious that I couldn’t resist. I stripped off my T-shirt and wallowed in the cool, fresh water, still wearing my boots. The rules forbid using soap in these streams, and I obeyed the rules, but I made a thorough soap-free bath out of the occasion. I even rinsed out my T-shirt. The water was carrying so much dissolved mineral that it was its own detergent.
By the time I moved on, 20 minutes later, I was rested, refreshed, and CLEAN! My morale was sky-high. In 2000 I’d marched stolidly past, smelly, sweaty, grimly set on reaching the rim. But I’d learned. In the Canyon, taking a rest break does not slow you down. Half the effort is psychological, and those glowering cliffs fall behind you much easier when you’re fresh. You also sweat less when your clothes are wet, so your body doesn’t have to work so hard replacing lost fluids and electrolytes.
I was into the Devil’s Corkscrew before I knew it. This set of steep, sun-blasted switchbacks is aptly named. The trail climbs 360 metres here. Granting the NPS claim of a maximum grade on the trail of 17.5, this means that getting up the Devil’s Corkscrew represents more than 2 kilometres of unrelenting climbing. It demands respect.
I’d allowed over an hour to climb this torturous section of track. I expected to top it at the 2h10 mark. I actually did so at the 2h40 mark, so at this point I was half an hour behind my schedule. I didn’t care. Most of that extra time represented my bath at the River Resthouse. In 2000 I came out of the Devil’s Corkscrew dazed and staggering: this year I’d swaggered through it.
To capitalise on this, I found another friendly patch of streambed and spent some time getting thoroughly wet again. Although the morning had started cool, the heat was now starting to build up.
The top of the Devil’s Corkscrew marks the end of the hard work. The track climbs only another 50 metres in the remaining distance to Indian Garden, and most of that is lined by trees and bushes.
Approaching Indian Garden, I startled anothef mule deer. It was right beside the track but had blended in so well that the first I knew of it was the heavy crashing as it danced upslope to get away. Fortunately, like the one I’d seen in the dark at Phatom Ranch, it was a doe. A stag might’ve stayed to argue who had right-of-way — and he would’ve had antlers and mass on his side.
Indian Garden. As I came past the mule pens I gave an exultant arm-pump to the mule drivers sitting nearby. They laughed. One of them was the man I’d last seen looking for his lost mule.
At just after 11:30 I was standing looking at the ugliest drinking water trough in the Canyon. It looked beautiful to me. I ran deliciously cold water over my arms and hands, and wiped my face. I’d done the lower trail in just on four hours — an hour faster than in 2000 — with energy to spare. I was feeling better than I did in 2000, and the only walking left to do was to get to Plateau Point, sometime before sunset, and back again afterwards, which in 2000 I’d been too tired for.
I moved on uphill, looking for the campground. Soon I saw large wooden gazebos on my right, behind a wooden corral fence. Then an entrance. I moved through, turned right, and took the first vacant site on the left that showed fewest pebbles and the best promise of early shade.
A few minutes later, my tent was up — I that discovered depite my policing earlier, I was already shy one tent peg — and I was relaxing flat on my back on the wooden table in the shade of the gazebo. My damp wardrobe was draped over a metal post, drying in the sun, and my boots stood on the ground nearby, also baking. Once again I was where I had to be, when I had to be there, with nothing but time on my hands.
It was bliss.
The afternoon wore on. I munched my lunch and mixed some Gookinade for tomorrow.
About 14:00, I wandered down to the water trough. In passing, I noticed that the “How hot is it?” thermometer was showing 44C. It felt about right at the time — although its accuracy was called into doubt later, after the sun went behind the cliffs and things had cooled down, for then it claimed the temperature had climbed to 55C!
Around 17:30 I set out for Plateau Point. A couple of friendly campers offered to join me if I’d wait a minute, but I had a sudden yearning for solitude. I suspected — rightly as it turned out — that by now the day walkers would’ve cleared the trail, and the main bunch of campers would sit tight for another half an hour. This was my opportunity to have Plateau Point to myself.
I walked down through the camp and out the lower entrance (which I’d missed on arrival — walking to the upper entrance instead). Down through the deserted day use area. At the empty mule pens I turned right and crossed a stream, then left to follow the trail. It ran below a low crest for a while, bent around a gully, and then ran out onto a dry plain.
This was the Tonto Plateau, dull scrubland and too extensive. The Canyon loomed above it like a delusion, a painted backdrop shimmering in the heat. I could see crows and condors skimming the cliffs. The trail ahead was a pumpkin coloured scrawl against the grey-green vegetation.
I came out of the shadow of the cliffs and the sun was like an explosion on the back of my head. Sweat sprang from my every pore. I took a big swig of water and pulled on my sunhat.
The trail seemed endless, but I knew it was only 2.4 kilometres to Plateau Point — half an hour’s walk, more or less, on a trail this flat. Well, OK, a little more in this sun.
The Tonto Trail ran in from my left. Across the crack that Bright Angel Trail comes up through, I could see some people exploring the near end of the section that cuts across to the South Kaibab Trail. They looked discouraged and, sure enough, even as I watched they turned back.
The trail guide says there is no water at Plateau Point, but there is. There’s a big metal tank standing beside the track, a tap protruding from its side, with a damp patch on the ground below it. I opened the tap: water flowed out. Makes sense — the water pipeline from Phantom Ranch runs through here, and they bring mule trains out here. Mules need water.
I'd drink this, but only in an emergency.
I came over a rise and there it was. A wooden sign saying “Plateau Point”. Some mule hitching rails. The trail ran towards some pancake rocks perched precariously on the rim, and disappeared.
I clambered out on the rocks — carefully, as one false move could see me on my way back into the Canyon by the express route. The Colorado rushed below — far, far below. I was as far above it as I had been at the Tipoff, but here I could point the camera straight down to take a shot of the river. If I jumped I’d probably bounce once or twice on the way down, but I’d end up in the water.
I wandered to the right along the edge. At the right hand end of the railing that marked the safe limit, I could look down into Bright Angel canyon and see the section of trail near the River Resthouse. Moving around to the right I could see the Devil’s Corkscrew. And further right I could see Indian Garden. So in a few seconds I could traverse with my eye the ground that had taken me hours to labour over earlier in the day. What a wuss I was, to make so much out of so little!
I realised the sun was getting to me, so before I could get any notion into my head that I was a bird and could fly across the Canyon, I moved away from the edge and found a shady spot to rest up.
I lay there, watching the colours change on the cliffs on the far side of the Colorado as the sun descended. And then the solitude was banished as the rest of the campers arrived — not in a body but in several noisy, chattering waves.
They all went through the same awed exploration I had, gathering at each vantage, pointing and taking photos. Then as the sun began to set we all settled down to talk and watch the colours change. One well-prepared group had brought their camp stove, a billy, coffee, and a packet of freeze-dry. They cooked and ate their dinner at Plateau Point — the food was no gourmet delight, but the location made it sublime. Wish I’d thought of it. (And if there’s a next time, I will.)
I was at peace. Three years ago, time and tiredness led me to skip Plateau Point. Now I had rectified the omission, and had also added the South Kaibab Trail to my list of “done that”. If I ever return to the Canyon and want to see something different I will need to try one of the rougher trails: I’ve done all three corridor trails.
But I would also like to walk the North Kaibab Trail again, this time spending two nights at the North Rim and stopping at Cottonwood Camp. And I’ve walked Bright Angel Trail twice, but uphill both times: it would be nice to see how it looks going down. Walking up South Kaibab Trail has no appeal to me except as an exercise in masochism. There is no place to camp there. Still, I could come down Bright Angel to Indian Garden, camp, then go across on the Tonto Trail, thus climbing South Kaibab only from the top of the Tipoff. That would be tolerable. Then the next day I could come back down Bright Angel to Phantom Ranch and continue on to Cottonwood after a couple of nights at Bright Angel Campground (or even in a cabin at the Ranch). That’s a bits-and-pieces way to do it, but there are a number of other ways to mix and match the Canyon experience even using just the corridor trails and their connectors. Bearing in mind that I’m 45 now and won’t be back for quite a while. So fitness will be an issue.
The sun was gone. Before full dark, I started back to camp. Some of the others had already gone, but the diners had settled in to stay a while.
In the gloom, the wasteland was less friendly. My uneasiness was heightened when I came across a large turd in the path. It wasn’t mule and it wasn’t human. It could have been left by a large dog, if there had been any dogs down here.
The rest of the walk was a flurry of nervous head-turning, flashing my torch at every sound, half-expecting to see eyes staring back at me, But nothing happened, and I made it back to camp safely.
My Backcountry Permit had slipped down inside my tent and there was a terse message on the camp table telling me to present it at the Ranger station to avoid a citation. So I took it uphill. The Ranger had every comfort: light, stove, music. Roughing it is for the campers.
By now I was ravenous, so I prepared my dinner by emptying a bottle of water into the freeze-dry and mixing it up. Even cold, it tasted delicious.
Then to bed, and another restless night. Things kept rustling, grunting, and calling all around me. But again I did sleep — a bit.
Bright Angel Trail — Upper SectionMon 25 Aug 2003
I was up early, but not as early as planned. Still, I was on the road by 06:00, intending to gain distance while it was cool.
The first part of the track was easy going, winding a bit but only rising a little, lined by trees and bushes. I kicked it back easily. Then the switchbacks started, and rather than fight them — after all, I had all day to get out — I immediately settled down to my pre-planned rhythm of “one step, another step …” This equates to a pace of about 2 kph while moving, but I was also taking a five to ten minute break for every half hour of walking, plus five minutes on the hour or whenever it seemed appropriate. I was expecting to take about 6.5 hours to reach the rim — two hours to 3-Mile Resthouse, two more to 1 1/2-Mile Resthouse, then two and a half hours more to finish it in the heat.
The climb always looks impossible from a distance: the track surely must creep along the face of a sheer wall of rock. But when you’re on the track it gradually unfolds and you can see how the track builders followed the outlines of cracks and old rockfalls. You are rarely suspended over a straight drop, and the “sheer” wall you see from a distance actualy leans back quite a way.
I soon realised that I had an altimeter nearby: the intimidating bulk of “The Battleship” — so called because it looks like a WW I vintage dreadnought from some angles. It loomed overhead, seemingly as high as the rim, but that was an optical illusion. As the day wore on I gradually came level with it, then looked down on it.
But not yet.
It took less than an hour and a half (07:25) to reach 3-Mile Resthouse, 2.6 kilometres from and 292 metres above Indian Garden. I had covered more than 1/3 of the distance but less than 1/3 of the climb. Still, it was encouraging to be ahead of schedule at the first checkpoint. There were no streams here to soak in, nothing to raise morale except to be doing better than expected.
I’d left Indian Garden with 2.2 litres of water, but had used only one litre on this leg.
A guy came around the Resthouse, camera in hand, muttering and shaking his head. He’d seen a picture of the Resthouse in a book and he thought it looked pretty cool, so he had come down to see it for himself. He was disappointed: it looked nothing like the book picture. It was run down and crumbling.
But it had looked beautiful to me when I arrived. Perhaps he needed to descend further and climb back up in order to discover an appreciation of its real beauty.
I had used twenty minutes to rest up. Now for the second leg. This was where The Battleship achieved its best resemblance to its namesake. It is sailing toward you at an angle, with the bridge looming over the front guns and a row of smokestacks behind the bridge.
There are several vantages here where you can look down the valley and realise how far you have come. The track wriggles down the valley floor like a snake before disappearing beneath the dark green patch of trees that conceals Indian Garden.
You can also see Plateau Point, resembling a ledge of rock pointing into the heart of the canyon, bisected by the track from Indian Garden to the observation platform.
An hour into this leg, The Battleship was now bow on to me and no longer looked like much of anything. But I suddenly realised that I was looking across to it, not up to it. This was progress.
At about 09:10 the downbound mule trains came through. At 09:15 I caught my first sight of 1 1/2-Mile Resthouse, or at least the blocky, ugly toilet block nearby, and I reached the toilets about 09:25, 3.5 hours out from Indian Garden.
I was now 5 kilometres from and 585 metres above my starting point for the day. This leg had been 2.4 kilometres long and had climbed 293 metres.
I unloaded some ballast here, then walked over to the Resthouse proper to load up with water. (There is no water at the toilet block, which raises interesting issues of hygiene.)
On the way, I was startled by a brilliant smile and a soft “I hope I’m not in the way”. An Indian couple were resting by the trail, and the woman was bending over to retie her boot. Her bum was stuck out into the trail. She wasn’t in the way, but it was a lovely bum and it could have the whole trail as far as I was concerned. She was strikingly beautiful.
I’d used 1.5 litres of water on this leg. I decided to fill an extra bottle here and carry 2.7 litres into the final, most grueling leg — 2.4 kilometres and 348 metres to the rim.
This is as grueling as the Devil’s Corkscrew, but the Corkscrew is the single obstacle in an otherwise moderate walk. The rim leg comes after you’ve already climbed 600 metres from Indian Garden or a vertical kilometre from the Colorado.
Up. The Battleship dwindled below me. The lower sections of trail merged into the valley floor, looking as level as a footpath. Plateau Point was a small arrowhead, an insignificant part of the landscape.
And up. The rim grew closer, but was still dishearteningly far overhead. I could see people walking on the edge, ants. I was moving in stops and starts now, perching on cool rocks whenever I found shade, then moving on through the heat-blast to the next patch of shade once I stopped sweating and my heart had settled down to a sane beat.
And up. The Battleship was a blister in the landscape below me. The sun was a blowtorch searching for me, burning away the remaining shade.
And then I realised that I was well into the two tremendous switchbacks nearest the rim. The trail runs from beneath the trailhead far around to the side away from the village, then sweeps all the way back, passing through a hole or arch in the rock on the way. From the arch it was a cakewalk. When Kolb Studios appeared ahead of me, I knew that I had made it up again.
I don’t go to the trailhead proper. Since I always try to have a reservation waiting for me at Bright Angel Lodge, I walk up past Kolb Studios instead, and for me the point where I leave the trail is the trailhead (though not the end of the walking, alas).
I stepped off the trail at 11:56. I had taken just under 6 hours to walk 7.4 kilometres, climbing 933 metres, from Indian Garden.
An interesting comparison for this effort is 1985/86, when I was aged 27 and was managing the Te Aroha YHA hostel in New Zealand. The town takes its name from the 1100-metre mountain whose feet it is built on. The peak is about a kilometre above the town. There are walking trails from the town to the peak, and by the shortest route, a roughly comparable height and distance to what I’d done today (shorter but steeper and higher), I once climbed the mountain in 1.5 hours. Today’s climb from Indian Garden took me four times as long.
I walked up through the Kolb parking lot, past the Lookout, and onto the patio of the Lodge. People brushed past on all sides. As in 2000, they looked incredibly clean and cool. They gathered on the rim to gape blankly into the depths, not really taking it in. I stood there and understood every toelength, for I had measured it twice now with sweat and blister.
I shook my last bottle of water. Half a litre, no more. I raised the bottle in salute to the Canyon. And poured the water out.
I went across to the “Fountain”, went in, and bought a cup of coffee and some sandwiches. Came out and ate them, looking over the Canyon. Then I went into the Lodge and checked in.
Someone passing me in the hall flashed a dazzling smile. “So you made it.” It was the Indian woman from the trail.
After recovering my travelpack, I showered and decided to lie down for a bit. Lulled by clean me and clean sheets, I dozed off and slept for four hours, my longest unbroken sleep for three days. I’d had some half-formed ideas about sightseeing and shopping, but after all, I’d been here before. Having a sleep was an OK use of the time.
I woke up refreshed and alert. I’d been so tired that I hadn’t even realised how tired I was.
I gathered my dirty laundry together, stuffed it in the daypack, and took the free shuttle bus over to Mather Campground, where there is a laundromat. I emptied the laundry into a washer, looked at the daypack and dumped it in after the clothes (blandly ignoring the sign that said “do not wash packs”).
The wash restored the daypack to respectability, but my Samaria Gorge souvenir T-shirt had acquired several permanent red stains. The white sports socks, as mentioned previously, came out pink. The rest of my wardrobe came through relatively unscathed, although the boots will never be the same. Three days in the Canyon equalled a year’s normal wear and tear for them.
On the way back from the laundromat I got off the bus at the shopping plaza and wandered into the general store to see if they had anything worth buying.
“General” is a good term for the Fred Harvey Company store, but doesn’t really embrace its size. It’s supermarket sized, but most supermarkets don’t carry the variety. Groceries, clothes, backcountry gear, rentals, souvenirs, books — it has some of everything, sometimes occupying as much floor area as a good-sized speciality shop.
After a bit of snooping I found the ideal souvenir: A range of USGS map quads covering the Canyon. If I got them all, I could patch them together to make a 1:24,000 poster that I could then frame. Unfortunately the corridor trails cover four quads and the shop only had three in stock. I settled for the two southern quads, that cover the area I walked this year.
Wrapping them was another question — the shop was out of wrapping paper. But a helpful shopper had the answer. I left the shop with the maps rolled up and encased in two long paper bags, one on each end of the roll, overlapping in the middle, and taped together.
I also browsed the books. I was tempted by Over the Edge: Death in Grand Canyon, a copy of which I had seen in the canteen at Phantom Ranch, but managed to resist temptation due to the weight of the thing.
I wandered back across the huge car park and grabbed the next bus back to Bright Angel Lodge.
Wearing freshly washed trousers and shirt I went over to the Restaurant for my traditional celebratory dinner: steak, as big and plump as possible. But not as big and plump as the one I’d had at Phantom Ranch. And a glass of a good white wine. But not as good as water fresh from the tap at Indian Garden after a hot trail. Food and drink always tastes better down in the Canyon.
It was all over, all over again. Until another year, who knows when. Maybe never again. I started this trip with a bang: would everything else on it be anti-bang? Had I made a mistake?
I shrugged and sipped my wine. Even if the rest of the trip went bad, this part had been perfect. That was what counted. And if I could make each remaining day satisfying no matter what happened, the trip would take care of itself.
Return to VegasTue 26 Aug 2003
I got up at 06:00, after a restless night. I had by now acquired some nice dark bags beneath my eyes from three nights of broken sleep.
Someone had beaten me into the hall shower, so while waiting for the shower to be free I wrapped my two USGS maps more securely. I intended to find a mailing tube for them in Las Vegas, but that plan came unstuck when I accidentally left them on the bus in Las Vegas. I let them go — it would take more time and effort to recover them than they were worth.
Once the maps were rolled and wrapped I had my shower and then finalised my packing.
About 07:30, I headed off for breakfast — a “Bright Angel” in the Restaurant. Scrambled eggs, bacon, potato pellets, toast, orange juice, and coffee. I put it on my room tab.
I booked a taxi to Tusayan Airport with the Lodge at 08:15 and went outside to wait. It finally showed up at 08:55. I dashed up to the Scenic desk at the airport at 09:12, “just in time” for my 09:30 flight — although, as it happened the plane didn’t begin boarding until 09:30 and only took off at 09:42.
The flight back was not as scenic as the flight out, but I had my camera with me and spent the flight happily snapping away, playing with the camera settings to bring out the colours.
At Las Vegas I decided to use the shuttle service that came as part of my ticket to get to the Luxor rather than pay more over-the-odds Las Vegas taxi fares. I finally reached the Luxor registration desk at 11:45, only to discover that this huge, glitzy place has not yet realised that people arrive at all hours and so it does not start booking people in until 13:30.
To kill some time I went to the Tours desk and asked the woman there about a tour to the Hoover Dam. The Luxor’s preferred tour ($85) was booked out. So was another operator that uses 4WDs and cost $68.
Having exhausted the Luxor’s tour options, I introduced my own — the 13:30 Grayline tour for $44. She’d never heard of Grayline (a subsidiary of Grayhound) but this prompted her to come up with a third option ($45) … and the phone rang. In an instant she was deep into making arrangements of some sort with her distant caller. After three minutes of total neglect, I simply walked away.
I asked at the helpful bell desk about public phones. Using my Wal-Mart card, I called Grayline. It took a bit of trying because the first number I tried was permanently engaged, but a second number worked. Yes, they had a tour leaving at 13:30, yes the price was $44, and yes they had vacancies. Luxor pick-up was 12:45 at the “north-west bus plaza”, look for a “CoachUSA” bus.
It was now 12:30. The Bell desk gave me a set of directions that sounded familiar. Sure enough, I wound up back where the Scenic bus had dropped me off.
Just after 12:45 a CoachUSA bus pulled in and I climbed on. It picked up at a couple of other casinos before dropping off the accumulated horde at the CoachUSA/Grayline/Valen tour terminal around 13:00. Everyone piled off.
I paid my fare, then waited. After a while we were all herded aboard another bus, which eventually set off for Hoover Dam.
This was a personal “must”. I was fascinated by the great hydro-electric dams when young, and more recently I have been a devoted player of the various releases of the computer game Civilization. This game features “Wonders of the World” that can be built only once and which give the owning player special benefits. One Wonder is the Hoover Dam, which (depending on game version) increases industrial capacity by 50% across an entire continent. I try always to build the Dam, which is one of the most useful and cost-effective Wonders in the game.
The real-life Hoover Dam comes close to equalling its virtual namesake. It is a publically-owned asset that supplies energy to half a continent and even turns a profit. It was completed on time and below budget. And it has an iconic status that gives it a prominent place in the list of modern wonders of the world.
I wanted to see the dam in 2000, but was thwarted when my United Airlines flight was delayed in Chicago by mechanical problems. I arrived in Las Vegas too late to join a tour. This time I was determined not to miss out.
The bus headed out of Las Vegas towards Boulder. An alternative name for the dam, popular with opponents of J Edgar Hoover, was the “Boulder Dam”. That name is rarely used today, but was still common in the ’60s. This was one of the first things that caught my interest as a child: that two huge dams should be built so close together …
The first part of the trip was not exciting. Away from the Strip, Las Vegas looks like any other overgrown town, with ticky-tacky houses growing like toadstools from the raw red desert. A huge new freeway cuts through the mess and soon the city was behind us, but we never really got out of built-up areas. Las Vegas has reached out an arm of development to embrace Boulder.
Boulder itself started life as the workers village during the construction of the dam. It has subsequently reinvented itself as a wealthy satellite town to Las Vegas, but has not become beautiful — though the lake views are OK.
Our route took us past a gigantic cactus, more than 150 years old. I was sitting on the right side of the bus and had my camera ready, and the driver slowed down, but it turned out that my position was too good — the cactus loomed up and was gone. My photo shows a huge, blurred object that overflows thebframe. The bus driver also pointed out a row of grand houses along a ridge, one of which was enormous and rambling.
Things improved once we reached the lakeside and more once we left Boulder behind. The ruined desert hills have a serenity that I find attractive. It’s an atmosphere of “OK, we’ve been sun-baked, air-blasted, lightning-wracked, dug up, tumbled down, and strewn with rubbish, but we’ve been here a long time and hey, shit happens”.
Winding through the hills we shot past a last, lonely casino — the oldest in the state, surviving because it is the first place seen by gamblers driving in from out of state.
The bus came up to a security checkpoint. All cars and buses must undergo inspection here. They are only allowed to proceed once they demonstrate that they are not carrying any baggage and any cabin luggage bigger than handbags and small daypacks. The guards were polite and not overbearing, but also no-nonsense and completely humourless. There was nothing half-hearted about their search. The dam knows it is a prime terrorist target and it takes security seriously. They turn back all loaded trucks and any other vehicle that fails inspection — the rejects must backtrack and take a long detour that avoids the dam.
Approaching the dam, we passed some new construction work downstream from it. This is the long term solution to security: a bridge that will divert all but local traffic past the dam.
We also caught tantalising glimpses of the dam, a huge white wall between cliffs.
Finally we pulled into a huge garage. The driver gave us each a ticket and a handout about the dam, and warned us to leave all bags — even bulky camera bags — and packs aboard the bus. We wouldn’t be allowed into the generator areas with them, and the bus would be locked behind us. Water was OK, in clear bottles. Cameras were OK. That was about it. It was about 14:25, and he told us to be back at 16:25 sharp. Anyone not back on time would be left behind.
With that, he turned us loose. Where and when we went was up to us — our tickets would get us into any area on the “Discovery” Tour (but not inside the dam itself — “9-11” had seen to that).
Heart thumping, I hurried outside. And the dam was there. Enormous. Beetling. Immovable. White water frothed at its base, and blue water glittered serenely in the lake beyond it. The leeched rock above the waterline sparkled like broken marble. The dry hills made geometrical shapes on the horizon. Every nearby ledge and corner bristled with pylons and wires and buildings. The work of man and the work of nature mingled and harmonised. It was ugly, blocky, brutal strength and utility. And it was beautiful, graceful, an arched triumph of design and function. It was everything I’d expected — but my expectations were irrelevant. Like the hills that surround it and hold it, it doesn’t care what you want it to be. You can only accept it for what it is.
I guess you get my drift. The moment was perfect. I was overwhelmed.
I made my legs move on, down an escalator. At the bottom, ropes and flunkies funnelled the crowd towards the security lanes. Everything went on the conveyer belts for x-raying, and everybody went through the scanner. Somewhat to my surprise the iPaq hardly raised a murmur, although they did get me to turn both it and the camera on and off to prove they were real. (There was no way I was going to risk leaving the iPaq on the bus, locked up or no.) They even shook my clear plastic bottle of water
After security, they channelled people into a theatre and showed us a film about the dam’s construction. Afterwards we were free to find our own way around.
All this was in the shiny visitor’s centre that had cost more and returned less value than the dam itself.
I decided to see the generator rooms first — mainly because I happened to pass the elevator down just as it started loading up passengers. From the elevator we walked down a tunnel driven through bedrock to a cavernous chamber filled with a row of enormous turbines. Their size wasn’t obvious until a couple of workers wandered into view beside them. The part of each turbine that we could see was as big as a house. The part we couldn’t see, below the floor, was even larger — four times the size.
As we were being ushered out to make way for the next group of gawpers, I noticed that here and there the floors were inlaid with geometric mosaics. I’m not sure of their import. Some had an Indian look. They provided a nice finishing touch to the decor. The sort of ornamentation that would have looked out of place on the clean lines of the dam itself was just right down here.
My next stop was the observation deck atop the visitor centre, to admire the dam itself. There was something fascinating about the smooth sweep of the wall. The Hoover Dam’s strength is in its shape, not its mass. It is a sort of horizontal arch. The eye naturally scans across it. If you look at the top you’ll instinctively sweep down to the base, and vice versa. If you look at one end your gaze will slide across to the other end. The white concrete is stained by decades of rain and weather but the marks are honestly earned and do not detract from its beauty.
From the observation deck I went down and looked through the exhibits in the visitor centre. More about the history and characteristics of the dam and the times that built it, and the plans for future development. There were newsreels and models and “hands-on” displays. Very little that couldn’t have been done for a fraction of the price and half the ostentation, and much of it written in the sort of wordy, blow-your-own-trumpet tone that governmental and corporate public relations flacks are fond of. Unreadable.
Fortunately the dam itself is an achievement that even such insects cannot spoil. Modern equipment can build even bigger, more impressive dams, but it was the supreme expression of the technology of its time.
Time. Time to move on. I left the visitor centre and walked around and onto the dam.
The dam is crossed by a two-lane road. There is a wide footpath either side of the road. Here and there are balconies that jut out from the crest of the dam. Some had water fountains for thirsty visitors. Some had couples instinctively holding hands as they peered over the edge of a balcony, looking down, down, down, following the sweep of concrete down to the churn at the waterline.
The experience of actually crossing the Hoover Dam is anticlimactic. The dam disappears. You’re on a footpath beside a road, with a lake on one side and a concrete-faced cliff falling away on the other. It’s so common-place that it’s extraordinary, after the build-up as you approached the dam.
I walked into Arizona and continued to the end of the bridge, then crossed the road and started back. In winter, entering Arizona takes an hour, for the two states are in different time zones. But Arizona does not observe daylight saving, so when Nevada sets its clocks foward the two sides of the dam come together — chronologically speaking. There are clocks on the water intake towers at each end of the dam.
At the midpoint of the dam there’s a plaque stating:
A MODERN CIVIL ENGINEERING
WONDER OF THE UNITED STATES
_____________________________
ONE OF SEVEN SELECTED BY THE
AMERICAN SOCIETY
OF CIVIL ENGINERS
— 1955 —
Below the plaque there are arrows labelled “Nevada” and “Arizona”, pointing into each state.
I finished my crossing at the memorial plaza where a couple of winged bronze statues flank dedicatatory messages. The plaza also has astronomical information set into it, plus an anomalous astrological structure. The buttocks of the nude male figures and the breasts and buttocks of the female ones were polished brightly by fondling from generations of tourist hands. The toes of the winged statues also gleamed from a related agency.
The was another theatre nearby, with cutaway models of the turbines and a huge scale model of the entire Colorado River watershed. This model features in a light-and-sound show illustrating how the system of dams on the river moderates the temper of the river and makes it possible for millions of people to benefit from it instead of living in fear of its floods.
My last stop was the souvenir shop. I wanted a piece of the dam as a souvenir, but figured that they might take it amiss if people started chipping off “specimens”. But the shop was selling chunks of copper cut out of a cabinet door taken from the “gold room” that once housed the dam’s main electrical bus. The copper was stamped directly from the door in the shape of medallions and miniature spades. I bought a spade.
Back in the plaza I took a photo of the spade. My water bottle is in the same picture. This bottle, incidentally, was one of the half-litre “Xanterra” labelled bottles I’d bought at the South Rim and carried into the Grand Canyon. I kept refilling it, and in the end I brought it back with me to Australia, scratched and battered but defiantly watertight, with label intact and a freight of memories. Some of the best souvenirs are free!
But my visit was drawing to an end. I was due back at the bus in less than 15 minutes. So I gathered up my booty and went, casting final backward glances at the dam.
I was back at the bus with time to spare for a quick pit-stop. Then it was time to board, and as everyone else also turned up on time, the bus was soon on its way. I had spent two hours at the dam. By 17:30 I was back at the Luxor.
I checked in. I’d left the travelpack checked with the hotel during my Hoover Dam excursion, and I now arranged for it to be sent directly to my room.
Staying at the Luxor was not as swank as may seem. It was midweek, when all prices drop dramatically. My stay here was costing me only $64 plus tax — about the same as Day’s Inn had on Friday night. In the end Day’s Inn hit my credit card for AUD102 and the Luxor for AUD108, a bit more than half the amount that comparable accomodation would have cost in Melbourne — and outside a Melbourne hotel there’s only Melbourne.
My room was on the 26th floor. To get there I had to cross the length of the building to “Inclinator #1”. The inclinators are elevators that climb diagonally up each corner of the pyramid. There’s a security guard in each ground floor lobby. Only guests are allowed up, although I’d guess that it’s easy enough to sneak up if you want a view from one of the interior balconies that ring the building.
At the 26th floor I had to walk right along one balcony and halfway along the next to reach my room. The view was vertiginous. As the building narrows, each balcony is forced to overhang the one beneath it, so there’s nothing beneath you but air. The pyramid is hollow, so there’s a huge gap of air in front of you, too. You look down on full-sized buildings that are built on a platform that covers the main gaming floor. Although the balcony has a railing tall enough to save tipsy gamblers, there’s nothing to stop a depressed one from climbing over and smearing themself on the scenery below.
My room was splendid, with two queen beds, en suite, and a huge window looking north along the Strip. I spent some time drinking in the view. Excalibur was below me. New York-New York peeked over the rooftops beyond it. Thunderstorms crossed the city in the distance, their flashes briefly dimming even the glare from the Strip. Even after my pack arrived and I tore myself away to unpack, to change, and to recharge the iPaq and copy my Hoover Dam photos from the Compactflash cards to the Microdrive, I kept drifting back to the window for another peek. I left the camera sitting on the window ledge for convenience.
Finally I realised that time was fleeting, so I made my way back through the pyramid and out the front entrance to see the area and to find dinner.
These hotel-casinos are all immense. The Luxor has the size, though not the mass, of the Great Pyramid, and the Sphinx in front is also full sized. The Sphinx covers the lobby. I walked through and emerged below its right armpit.
When I got to the corner I stopped and looked back. The pyramid rose into the night, a bulk dotted with lit windows. The apex was a glare of searchlights casting a huge blue-white beam into the sky. And I suddenly realised that it reminded me less of the pyramids in Cairo than the pyramid in William Hope Hodgson’s The Night Land. The real Great Pyramid is a dark mass of rock and stone, but Hodgson’s is a tower of light and technology, with balconies (on the outside) where millions can stand, and a circle of light around its base. The real Great Pyramid has no inhabitants: Hodgson’s is home to millions.
I checked out the food prospects. There was supposed to be a reasonably priced buffet around. I couldn’t find it. And it was a long walk down to the casinos with “buffet” on the signage. Possibly I should have gone for the buffet at one of the casinos, but I wound up at MacDonald’s. Sigh. At least it balanced off my food extravagance at Bright Angel Lodge the night before.
The price of food at the Luxor was awesome. $35 for a steak. Burgers started at about $7 and escalated rapidly to $11. By contrast, my MacDonald’s, including a $0.39 “Eat In Tax”, cost $5.76 for a meal that was not as satisfying as last night’s gluttony but was equivalent to the burgers the Luxor was flogging and better suited than steak to the energy expended daily now that I was out of the Canyon.
I never really credited the woman who sued MacDonald’s after scalding her mouth on coffee. Of course coffee is hot. That’s why you sip it. But now I understood. My coffee came scaldingly hot. It also came with a MacDonald’s standard lid, to be sipped through a straw. My first sip was incautiously large even though I was staring at the “WARNING: HOT” notice on the lid at the time. After that I took the lid off and drank it the way coffee should be: in an open cup with the steam curling around your nose.
I was also startled by the recycled cardboard used to package the Mac. That is to say I’m used to the cardboard being in the Mac, not around it. I think Oz still uses polystyrene. Must check on that sometime. I usually avoid MacDonald’s at home.
Fed, if not satisfied, I headed south on the Strip to a landmark the bus driver had pointed out earlier in the day: supposedly the very “Welcome to Las Vegas” sign that features in all those movies. I discovered later that there are actually at least two such signs, and the other one is at a more spectacular part of the Strip. No matter. I had fun fiddling around trying to get a good shot. I wasn’t the only sign-spotter: there was a guy there with tripod and SLR trying to get the same shot.
I went back toward the Luxor, but stopped myself in the lobby. If I went to my room I’d lie down and probably fall asleep, and I still had one thing to do: the Fremont Street Experience. It was getting late, and the last show would be at midnight.
So I walked back down to the Strip, along till I found a bus stop, and waited for the next 301 articulated bus.
Downtown is not as pretty as the Strip. In places it’s downright grotty, and of all places I went in 2000, only while walking between Downtown and the Stratosphere did I feel particularly unsafe.
But Fremont Street itself is up to par. There is life here till all hours, with street vendors and buskers. The difference is probably the great metal roof that arches it over. For five minutes on the hour, every hour from 20:00 to midnight, this becomes the screen for a unique light-and-sound show called the Fremont Street Experience. I missed it in 2000: I was determined to see it this time.
I arrived forty minutes early for the midnight show, so I used the extra time to wander up and down the street browsing the souvenir shops and getting some photos. I bought a nice dragon shirt from a street kiosk.
Wednesday, 27 Aug 2003
At midnight the streetlights died and the roof lit up. The show itself is a blaze of sound, colour and movement. It’s hard to describe. The designers took full opportunity of the canvas offered by a screen three blocks long. It doesn’t matter where you stand, although the east end might give a bit more of a buzz because things tend to move from west to east, so you’d have them all coming at you. I was near the middle.
First there was a title sequence telling you it was the Fremont St Experience, just in case — I suppose — you were expecting something else. This exploded into stars, then transformed into something like the “ultimate trip” from the movie 2001: A Space Odyssey. As with the film, the expressions on some of the faces around me suggested that some people got stoned to maximise the impression.
The designers didn’t waste time on pastel shades or still life. Everything was vivid and everything moved. The colours cartwheeled and zoomed and splashed. There was a dramatic sound track to go with it, but it was the lightshow that carried the action.
More explosions, then flags, a virtual jet flyover, a lineup of pretty women wearing white gloves who morphed into a piano keyboard and then trumpets and drums.
More abstract colours became multi-hued comets, a tube of light, and then a fireworks crescendo.
All over. Five minutes of colour and sound, gone by in the blink of an eye.
I blinked, and wished I’d come down here on the 22nd, or at least earlier tonight. I wanted to see it again!
But this was the last show tonight, and tomorrow night — tonight by now — I’d be in Canada. I guess I’ll just have to go back someday.
Las Vegas to Montreal to TorontoEven though my flight was in the afternoon, I didn’t do anything with the morning. I’d intended to see more of the Strip by day. What can I say? I woke up early enough, but went back to sleep and didn’t check out till it was time to go to the airport. It was marvellous.
Security checked my baggage, but there wasn’t any passport control. I couldn’t believe how lax they were. I wasn’t surprised a few months later to learn on the evening news that Las Vegas was apparently a popular entry and exit point for terrorists. If I could see it, it must have stood out like a neon sign to people trained to find security weak spots.
I wandered through to the waiting area and bought a souvenir — a small coin purse. It was a handy place to stash my left-over US coins. Chuffed with my cleverness in finding such a cheap but useful and appropriate memento of Las Vegas, I lashed out on an overpriced burger and coffee at a nearby eatery.
The plane took off more or less on time. A bit over four hours and three time zones later, I was in Toronto.
During the flight I made the mistake of trying to use the phone built into my seat to call ahead to make sure my hotel was waiting for me. These calls are very expensive, but I figured I’d only need a minute, or at most two, so the total price would be reasonable.
A guy picked up. I gave him my name and confirmation number. Before I could say anything else, he put me on hold while he looked up my details!
After waiting more than a minute I hung up and called back. This time a woman answered, and my first words to her were, “do not put me on hold”.
At Montreal they checked my Passport, but not my baggage. I walked out of the terminal and down to the cabs and told the driver to take me to the Ramada Inn near the airport.
Ramada is a chain hotel of a type I prefer to avoid, but my booking at the Strathcona in downtown Toronto didn’t open up till tomorrow. I had booked it back when Toronto was in the grip of SARS and the hotels were offering special promotional rates to get people back in. By the time I learned I was going to be arriving a night early, SARS was over and the rate had gone back up. Rather than queer the good rate for the five nights of the convention by trying to change the booking or making a separate booking, I chose a slightly cheaper hotel that was almost next door to the airport.
After lugging everything through long corridors and up some stairs, I discovered that the first card-key they gave me didn’t work. I had to go back to Reception to get another. This was a continuing theme in my US experience: the hotels and hostels all seem to have gone for the same hopeless card key system.
The room was OK but had a connecting door whose lock was not on my side. I had come equipped for this sort of contingency, and a sturdy rubber doorstop soon secured my privacy. Unfortunately I forgot to retrieve it the next morning. Sigh. Meantime, I showered and sacked in.
Torcon IIIThursday, 28 Aug 2003
The next morning, I used a coupon they’d given me at check-in to have a solid bacon-egg-potato-toast-and-coffee breakfast. I’ll give them that credit: there was no “continental” corner cutting. Their coffee was as bad as its American counterpart, but the food was good and the serving was large. And when I went back to my room there was a complimentary newspaper outside my door.
Still, I was glad to be moving on. The place had no personality and no soul. I shook the figurative dust from my shoes, grabbed a taxi from the rank in the parking lot, and cruised on into Toronto.
The Strathcona was central and close to the convention site, just a minute’s walk from one of the convention hotels, the Royal York, and less than 10 minutes walk to the convention centre. Hotel check-in was hassle-free.
My room was small and had small, high up windows that looked onto an air well. Not what I normally expect for $129 per night — Toronto is notoriously overpriced — but it looked OK and had all the amenities and was as cheap as I would get on a long weekend.
I unpacked and headed out to find the convention.
The convention centre was designed to almost the same bland, characterless standard as the one in Melbourne that was used for Aussiecon III, but it did have one redeeming feature: a room numbering system that made no sense and guaranteed confusion. I could tell immediately that I would be spending many a wasted period attempting to find the next panel. The convention’s habit of relocating or rescheduling panels did the rest.
The main floor was a vast sea of lost fans. Queues stretching back from Registration crossed other queues lined up for the escalators or the Information desk. After a quick browse of the alphabet soup of signs on the Registration, I joined what proved to be the correct line and received my badge, pocket program, a plastic bag of odds and ends, and a chit that could be redeemed tomorrow for my copy of the convention book.
The panel at 16:00 on the 1973 bidding didn’t happen. The panel on “Is Fandom Unique?” did happen. Ben Yalow, Nicki Lynch, Evelyn Leeper, Andy Porter, James Hay. When the topic got too narrowly focused on the uniqueness of fandom and was running out of space I had my hand up but Porter said questions & comments could come later. Less than two minutes later he recognised the guy behind me, then a guy from further back. My contribution, which was that fandom was the result of a desire to communicate finding itself with the means to communicate and as such is not unique (travelers sharing tips on the web are a modern counterpart) went unvoiced.
The alternatives actually considered by the panel were all offshoots of sf fandom or were long ago subsumed into fandom. In the end, no new ground was covered and the lede got buried.
For dinner, it was back to the Food Court — less crowded this time. I ate Chinese — chicken balls, ruce and chow mein, with a small bottle of orange juice.
Then it was off to the Concert Hall at the Royal York for the 20:00 Opening Ceremony. Lots of fen milling around, some seated on the few chairs set around tables. The rest of the chairs were stacked in a side room. An individual with initiative fetched out an armful of chairs for his group. Within minutes the onslaught began: chairs materialised in ones and twos and were arranged in locations that suited the purposes of the fans bringing them out.
At 20:09 a lone committee member mounted the stage and attempted to bring order and balance to the room. She was ignored, but the event started a minute later with the introduction of the Con José Chair.
Friday, 29 Aug 2003
I was up early to catch the 06:45 Greyhound to Nigara Falls, that would get me there about 08:15. The bus station was a twenty minute walk from the hotel. I had scouted it out yesterday when buying my ticket, so although I was half asleep my feet knew the way and got me there without mishap.
It was a grim, grey morning — unpromising except for the promise of rain. I had no precise plan for the day in mind so from the Bus and Train station in Bridge St, I just walked down to the river. At Dad’s Diner, on the corner of River Rd and Bridge St, I stopped for a magnificent breakfast. Just after 09:00 I turned right at the Whirlpool Rapids Bridge, trusting to serendipity.
By 09:30 I was at the Rainbow Bridge and gazing across to the Observation Tower and American Falls. The Canadian Falls were visible in the distance, sending up a plume of pulverised water. I turned and crossed the Rainbow Bridge, crossing the midpoint at 09:42.
By 10:05 I was gazing at an art exhibit — a stainless steel car with a smashed-in driver’s window. Not sure the window was in the artist’s plan for the exhibit, but it felt authentic anyway.
I continued on and crossed a pedestrian bridge to Green and Goat Islands, a dramatic passage where the water ran between boulders and surges over rock platforms. At Luna Island (a superb viewpoint between Bridal Veil and the main American Falls) I looked down on the decks and steps of the Cave of the Winds. Then I walked on a little further and paid my regards to the statue of Nicola Tesla.
At Terrapin Point I grarred over the sign where, rather than let Canada take a trick, America calls the Canadian Falls the “Horseshoe Falls”. However, I then went on down and admired the view.
From there I made my way back to Prospect point, on the far side of the American Falls, then recrossed the Rainbow Bridge, ending this brief 2-hour counterpoint to my 2000 visit.
Back on the Canadian side, I headed down to take a ride on the Maid of the Mist. As in 2000, it was an awesome experience to get so close to the thundering base of the Canadian Falls.
Afterward I walked up to an apparently unnamed viewpoint at the lip of the Canadian Falls, in front of the Journey Behind the Falls building and Table Rock Centre and Restaurant. Which reminded me that I was hungry, so I took an hour-long late lunch at the Table Rock Restaurant, enjoying its view of the Falls.
After lunch I drifted down toward Whirlpool Rapids, where eventually I was sucked in for a close look via the Great Gorge Trip. If the Aero-Car had been running I would have taken it. Instead I took a Peoplemover bus along to the Ten Thousand Buddhas Sahira Temple (according to the outside; the inside of the gate is “Na Mo Au Mi Tou Fu”).
From there I walked up into Clifton Hill, the tacky core of the Canadian tourist experience. I took a photo when I arrived at 17:06 and my next picture shows I was still there at 19:18, but I have no idea what I did in between. Probably dinner. After that I spent a few minutes admiring a black squirrel in a park, before making my way back to the Falls for the evening light show.
In 2000, I had to move on in the afternoon. This year I had time to watch the American and Canadian Falls lit up by giant coloured spotlights.
Finally, I have a picture taken at 21:31 as I trudged past Dad’s Diner on my way to catch a bus back to Toronto. It had been a great day of sightseeing and I had no regrets over ghosting Torcon’s Friday events.
Saturday, 30 Aug 2003
Saturday morning was spent at the Convention Centre. I had circled in a 11:00 Computerization thingie, of which I remember nothing.
Saturday afternoon had a number of things circled but in the end it was a viewing of The Two Towers in the Royal York’s Canadian Room. I don’t actually remember that either, but I had it circled in my Pocket Program and I took a photo of the Royal York at 12:26, which would have been right around the time I was arriving back from the Convention Centre to watch it.
Saturday evening was Laundry evening (photo at 18:25), then the Hugo Awards Ceremony at 20:00, then a late dinner at the “Lone Star” Texan steakhouse.
I realised tonight why the WorldCon seems so empty and void … [rest of thought lost or never recorded].
Sunday, 31 Aug 2003
Lunch was the Jack Chalker Kaffeeklatch, followed at 13:00 by Quantum dot and Programmable Matter (Artificial atoms with programmable properties; Houses; PDAs; Power storage), followed by Stanley Schmidt with Worldbuilders, then a panel featuring Lloyd Penney and Dick Smith on whether fandom was losing its collective memory.
A 16:00 event (Cliches in Military SF?) was held in 202D and 203D. Two separate rooms, same event.
The rest of the afternoon left no impression on my memory or my camera. I had circled in The Economics and Sociology of Abundance at 18:00 and Technical Tall tales at 19:00, and I probably attended both, but I definitely skipped out on the Masquerade and probably went out for a sleazy cash dinner. By 23:20 I was roaming my room taking pictures of it.
Monday, 1 Sep 2003
Internet: Social Enabler or Disabler? at 11:00, and The Death of Money with Cory Doctorow, Charlie Stross et al, at 12:00, were double-circled but neither left any trace in my mind.
The only other thing for this day was the 15:00 Closing Ceremony. All over by 16:00. I have a 19:27 picture of the deserted lobby of the Convention Centre, however, it was only deserted because the Surplus Equipment Auction in 205B was doing a roaring trade.
And that was it. That was my TorCon III experience. I went back to my room, got into bed, and started reading the copy of The Immortal Storm that I had bought in the Hucksters Area sometime during the convention. I had an early start tomorrow and I planned to read for a bit, figuring it would put me to sleep.
QuebecTuesday, 2 Sep 2003
This is the point at which the biggest glitch to my travel plans occurred in the whole trip.
By the time I finished The Immortal Storm it was 02:00, and as I needed to be up by about 04:30 to go to the airport, I decided not to try to sleep. So I had a shower, then lay back and drowsed for two hours.
The nearest Airport Express stop was at the Royal York, a minute’s walk down the street. I was there by 04:45. The bus pulled in just after 05:00, and just after 05:30 I was at the airport.
Walking up towards the check-in, I was troubled because I couldn’t see my flight listed on the boards. The first Quebec flight listed was at 10:00. There was a long queue at the check-in. It was 06:20 before I reached the front, at which point I learned that they’d changed the flight on 21st August! I was now on the 10:00 flight. If I’d known, I could have slept in till 07:00. ALWAYS CHECK YOUR FLIGHT THE DAY BEFORE!
I went through security — no reason not to, there was nothing for me on this side. On the other side I had breakfast (a dry double cheeseburger and coffee) and checked my email. I started to compose an email, but at $2 for 10 minutes then 30¢ per minute I quickly realised that this was an expensive proposition. So I just wandered the travelators a bit then stretched out on some vacant seats and drowsed for a couple of hours.
After all that, the flight was routine. I watched Canada roll by below: the Lake first, then the endless flat shieldlands, farmland and forests broken by glacial lakes. Towards Quebec the land started to roll and the rooftops, which had been red and brown, became grey and silver.
The plane landed a few minutes early. My pack, as usual, was one of the last items off. Then I walked out and grabbed the first available taxi. There was a flat fare of just under $25 to downtown.
Counting on a slump after the long weekend, I hadn’t booked a hotel, but I’d picked Maison Ste Ursule out of the Lonely Planet as a good starting point. If it was full, there were many other hotels within five Minutes walk. But they had a vacancy, for $69 — which with the various taxes eventually came to over $80!
Just after midday, I set out to have a look at Quebec and to post home the wad of paper I’d been accumulating since Las Vegas.
I headed for the distinctive roof of the Château Frontenac. The streets were very French in appearance and where elsewhere in Canada at least a token nod toward French is made in bilingual signage, in Quebec there is almost none. French predominates.
I found a Post Office just north of the Château. The paper, books and con souvenirs added up to 3 kg. I split them into two small packets and posted them home surface mail for about $13 each.
After returning to the hotel, I set out again on a more determined exploration about 13:00. I wandered through the Porte St-Jean and the Musee du Port, admired the Montcalm Statue, and took the Funicular down to the Quartier Petit Champlain.
I took a ferry across the Traverse and back, just to get some views of the Old City from the St Lawrence.
I admired a mural on the end of a building, a scene of frenetic activity except for the placid priest gazing out at you, then took the Funicular back up so I could stroll along the Governor’s Walk to the Citadel.
I went back to my room and crashed. Despite my late night/early morning start and the stressful flight changes, I’d achieved quite a lot with the day, but my body was calling time on me. I did rouse late in the evening for dinner at l’Omelette. Soup of the day, Beef with mushrooms, fruit salad, coffee, house red.
Wednesday, 3 Sep 2003
I had a lethargic start before retracing some of my steps to Frontenac, the Governors Walk, then continuing onto the Plains of Abraham.
Museum of Quebec, no photos. Wall mural, “Apotheosis of Christopher Columbus” — artist obviously did not like Spanish government of Haiti — the officials were being driven away by Fame and Vengeance, while Truth and Justice watched.
Watched the 16:00 changing of the guard outside the Governor-General’s digs.
MontrealThursday, 4 Sep 2003
Took the 09:15: “Orleans Express” line bus to Montréal. The seat was equipped with a functioning electric socket so I had the iPaq plugged in for the opportunity to crunch the trip photos into compact albums that I could use for quick reference while updating my diary.
There was some good scenery just after crossing some bridges outside Québec — a nice view of rapids beneath a highway overpass, and moments later, some pretty falls further upstream. Wish I’d had my camera ready — but the odds are the digital slug would’ve been too slow even if I’d had it switched on and pointed in the right direction. I was beginning to think I should carry a disposable camera just for those instant views that the digital couln’t catch!
By 14:33 I was eating luch in a food court in Montreal. I couldn’t find my planned hotel, La Gîte du Plateau Mont-Royal, if it even existed, but a nearby place called Econo Lodge filled in — for a higher price. Never mind, it would be only one night. I had my Amtrak tickets.
So here I was, with a bed just under half an hour’s walk from the station and my ticket to ride in hand and nothing to do now but to take in a glimpse of Montreal. Cool! I headed off to Parc du Mont-Royal.
I chased squirrels. I caught a falling autumn leaf and snapped pictures of it in improbable juxtapositions with the scenery; only the first shot, which coincidentally had a solid black background, got used: it became the logo for this report. From the top of the hill there were grand views of Montreal.
Lake PlacidFriday, 5 Sep 2003
At 09:23 I was at Montreal Station, admiring the fancy tiling. By 10:00 I was aboard Amtrak Service 68, Montreal to Lake Placid, with the iPaq charging beside me.
The train gave several snapshots of rural countryside and small town, then around 13:40 it pulled into Westport, where I had to change to a taxi for the rest of my journey to Lake Placid. The driver was waiting for a pickup on the next train, so I got to kick my heels around the station for a while and make the acquaintance of the station cat, whose hunting prowess was demonstrated by the dead chipmunk it was playing with.
Once the 2nd passenger was in hand at 14:24, our driver wasted no time, reaching Lake Placid by 15:08. A few minutes later, I was outside my chosen hotel, the Woodland Inn (since closed and replace by The Boha) in Saranac Ave. I had been captivated by its rustic wooden stairs and railings. It was also well located between the lakes for my plans, and right next door was the Mykonos Restaurant.
Saturday, 6 Sep 2003
I have a diary entry that summarises Saturday for me.
In the cusp of my holiday I find a golden afternoon.
This morning I skipped breakfast and after a late start, I walked around Mirror Lake — a matter of five or six kilometres. That was the appetiser. I had a solid lunch (beef soup, turkey sandwiches and chips), then walked out to Lake Placid Lodge and back — about 10 or 11 kilometres return, getting back about 1600.
With that much mileage beneath my heels, I felt justified in taking the rest of the afternoon off to relax, drink coffee, organise my photos, bring this journal into better repair, and enjoy the golden sun and soft breezes. For a day completely unplanned in advance, this one has turned out very well indeed.
The whole trip has been like that. The time to activity ratio has been about right, apart from my horrible laziness during Torcon. But understanding now that I am not a convention person means I feel no guilt over that — although I should have seen more of Toronto.
I had been hoping for a little more more autumn colour, but there was no way to delay my journey long enough. I was here too early by at least two weeks. But the lakeshores were beautiful and a local maple tree had dropped a rich red leaf before me that I have used to close out this report.
New York, New YorkSunday, 7 Sep 2003
I was at Westport Station just before 13:00, with ample time to wait for the train.
The train pulled out around 14:50.
Whitehall at 15:18,
Albany-Rensselaer at 17:04,
Hudson at 17:38,
Poughkeepsie at 18:18,
Croton-on-Hudson at 19:01
By 1951 I was standing outside Madison Square Garden. I reached my hotel, Manhattan Inn, 303 W 30th St, just after 20:00. This billed itself as a hostel, but I had a single en suite room. With a toilet that did not accept toilet paper.
I bought something at Paramount Electronics in Broadway for USD 141.20, at 21:07. I have found the receipt, so I know it was me, but it confirms only that I bought something, not what I bought. It was probably a high-capacity memory card.
Monday, 8 Sep 2003
I was up early the next morning and by 07:41 I was walking through Herald Square, on my way to buy a Weekly Unlimited Metro ticket. That in hand, I took the subway to South Ferry and from there walked to the Staten Island Ferry terminal. I had planned to be there at 08:10, but arrived at 08:12, just in time to see the 08:10 ferry leave without me. I lost 20 minutes while the next one came in and disgorged its cargo. The perils of tight planning. It was no great loss. We cruised out and I enjoyed the free spectacle. At Staten Island I stayed aboard and rode the 09:05 (nominally the 09:00) back.
By 09:28 I was walking through Battery Park looking for the damaged Sphere.I had seen this at the WTC in 2000, and it had since been pulled out of the wreckage and relocated to Battery Park. It was brutally scarred in the fall of the towers.
I went up past Bowling Green to Wall Street and admired the polished balls of the Bull. Then I went down to see Ground Zero — still just a hole in the ground, although all the rubble had been removed.
Next stop was City Hall, where in 2000, people had collected to enjoy the cool spray on a 30C day. It was practically deserted now. City Hall itself huddled behind barricades.
After admiring the statuary on and around Surrogates Court, I dived into the subway and rode up to 86th Street, then walked across Park Avenue to the Guggenheim Museum. I stopped to try to find the spot where an alien pulled a gun on Wil Smith in Men in Black. Then I went into the Guggenheim.
From the Gugg I crossed ionto Central Park to reprise some sections of my 2000 walk. I came out again to visit the American Museum of Natural History. I took particular pleasure in getting a good picture of the enormous blue whale that hangs from the roof in one hall. The picture I took in 2000 hadn’t come out.
At the Dakota Building I had hoped to get in to see the courtyard, but the gates were all closed or guarded, so I went directly on to Strawberry Fields. Amazingly, thanks mainly to having to skip the Dakota Building, I was almost on schedule. I had planned to arrive at Strawberry Fields at 16:25, and I have a photo taken at 16:35.
My last stop for the day was Coney Island. Here my schedule slipped, but that was OK. I had expected to be here at 17:30, I have a photo taken beside the Bumper Cars at 18:18. I may have stopped at Nathan’s to buy a burger or something for dinner. Didn’t matter, I knew the rides were closed on weekdays. I was here just to see the place, stroll on the Boardwalk, and enjoy a sunset with unusual silhouettes against it.
Tuesday, 9 Sep 2003
I got almost to Grand Central before realising that that free ’n’ breezy feeling of slimness about my waist this morning did not mean I had miraculously lost weight overnight. I’d left my “money paunch” in my room. Since Wave Hill wasn’t a “must” and since I needed cash anyway, I decided to go back for the money belt and to leave Wave Hill for a later year.
This meant I had a couple of hours in hand before picking up my itinerary again at Roosevelt Island, so I decided to take a roundabout way to 59th St via 1st Ave and the United Nations.
When I got down to the UN I discovered that the Security Council and General Assembly were recessed, so I paid over $10 for a tour (the chambers are skipped when in session). The tour took over an hour and visited the chambers of the Security Council, General Assembly, and the coordinating organisation for UN bodies such as UNESCO and the IMF. The latter was in session, and was dull as ditchwater no matter which language I selected though the earpiece, although the Russian version sounded like a dull declaration of war.
Most of the tour was the guide, Mariko, giving us the same puff job on the UN that I got in school 30 years ago. The only relatively interesting moments were when the token American asked awkward questions. But I had enjoyed making little matchstick-size models of the UN buildings at school, so it was good to see the place in person at last.
After the UN — now about an hour behind schedule — I went on to Roosevelt Island. I bought a picnic lunch on my way up 1st Ave.
The aerial tram was a blast — the views were amazing. At the other end I looped around and headed south on the west side of the island. After the hospital the footpath ended at a huge gate, which was closed, but there was a small gate in it and that was open, plastered with notices that Southpoint Park was open to the public. So I went through and on down to the point.
I finished out the day with the Metropolitan Museum of Art. It was splendid.
A very satisfactory day, though not exactly what I’d planned.
Wednesday, 10 Sep 2003
For my last day of sightseeing I had selected Flushing, site of the 1964 World’s Fair, and also a MIB location. I got my first sight of the WF site from the train at 08:44. From the 111 St / Roosevelt Ave station I headed towards them, past the fugly three-legged behemoth that is Terrace on the Park. When I reached them, the observation towers were closed off by wire fences festoomed with DANGER HIGH VOLTAGE signs. I shrugged and started circling the site. I eventually reached and walked around the Unisphere.
I went into the Queens Museum of Art, which displayed a notable and detailed scale model of New York City. The model still had the Twin Towers, but a red-white-and-blue ribbon had been placed over the iheir tops. The room lights cycled on and off to allow the city lights to be demonstrated. By night, patches of Central Park glowed a somewhat sickly green.
The exhibit made a nice bookend with the models of ancient Rome I’d seen in Italy the year before.
I walked back to the station and rode in to Grand Central Station. After a search I found a fast food place to get lunch. Aftwerwards I walked down to the Flatiron district, with its famous building, then on to Union Square.
After a bit of back and forth I found an unimpressive red brick building at 14 10th St with a bronze plaque on the side.
In this house once dwelt MARK TWAIN (Samuel Langthorne Clemens) author of the beloved American classic The adventures of TOM SAWYER
I extended this small quest by going on to 4 Patchin Place, once home of e e cummings.
At Washington Square Park, a pregnant woman was feeding an attentive crowd of squrrels and pigeons.
That night I went downtown to see the twin searchlights and the night-time harbour, and to pay my respects to The Sphere with its small eternal flame.
Thursday, 11 Sep 2003
After doing all my morning chores, I still had two hours until I needed to head out to JFK, so I decided to take a turn around the ESB. When I got there, about 13:15, I thought “why not?” and went in. I asked someone in uniform how long the queue was for the Observation Deck. “No queue”. So I followed serendipity and headed on up. Sure enough, I was on the 86th Floor in less than 20 minutes, which counts as jig time for the ESB.
Since I was here in 2000, I didn’t waste any time dithering: I knew where to go to get the shots I wanted. Even with taking time to admire the view I was finished and back down in less than 40 minutes. Shocking, really. I finished by killing time in the ESB’s “Big Apple” diner.
I went out to JFK after that and found myself killing time again — this time waiting for the boarding call on my flight to London.
Security, as expected, was very tight. I was selected for a “random” security check. They checked me very thoroughly — I even had to remove my money paunch, which had been ignored in every other boarding. The iPaq and its backpack both got the treatment — another first, as previous checks had only worried about laptops, apparently regarding palmtops as toys or calculators.
My flight departed at about 18:50, and as soon as we were in the air I changed my watch to London time, a couple of minutes before midnight. Pretty soon it was the 12th of September. Half an hour later I had the odd experience of watching the sun setting just after midnight! Half an hour after that, a full moon rose. My plane was due to land at 06:50, a flight time of just 7 hours, so I curled up and did my best to sleep.
LondonFriday, 12 Sep 2003
We probably landed on time, because by 07:42 I was standing groggily on the platform at Heathrow Station waiting for the 07:44 Heathrow Express to pull in. When it came, the train was uncrowded and I had a window seat to see my first live English countryside — and it had laid on a beautiful a sunny morning, too.
At London I was ahead of my expected time by about 45 minutes. I followed Plan A and went over to the City of London YHA, Carter Lane, dropped my pack, and headed back down toward St Paul’s, which was draped in sackcloth for renovations. Plan B would have had me go direct to St Paul’s and lug my pack around with me for hours.
I did a couple of chores at the Visitors Information Centre on the way, and found myself circling the cathedral around 9:30, still 45 minutes ahead of schedule. I lost a bit of time because the entrance had been moved to make room for the repairs, but in due course I was gazing down from the parapets.
Having time in hand, I lingered and used it up, but eventually descended. In Fleet Street at 11:03 I caught my first sight of a London double-decker bus in action. I continued down Fleet to Bow, the Strand, and finally stopped for coffee at Covent Garden, where a wandering soprano was performing. I threw a pound into the collection.
At 12:05, now a comfortable 20 minutes behind my plan, I reached the British Museum. I admired the Rosetta Stone, a couple of gigantic winged bulls from Nimrod, and said hello to a crouching Aphrodite who gazed at me in startlement. I found the Elgin Marbles, may they soon return to Greece. They know where they got ’em from, because they had a nice model of the Acropolis right there. I gazed on mummy portraits from Roman Egypt, and polychrome heads from the same place. I also gazed on a 5,000-year-old Egyptian from Aswan, nicknamed Ginger for his red hair. I saw a Sumerian head dress and an undressed statue from Easter Island. I said “Who’s a Good Boy?” to a dog that looked very like one I’d seen in the Vatican in 2002. British Museum, indeed.
And I saw the head of one of the horses from the Mausoleum of Maussollos. In 2002, I’d looked at the Mausoleum and felt sad that there was so little left in place. I had to come all the way to London to see this horse, and the statues of Maussollos and his devoted sister Artmisia.
Back outside, I headed past the Palace Theatre, still playing Les Miserables, and the statue of Eros. At Charing Cross I admired the four rearing bronze horses. I bypassed the National Gallery but stopped to look at the hand prints of Charlton Heston and Omar Sharif nearby. By 16:45 I had reached Trafalgar Square, where the great lions were panting in the unseasonable heat.
Another Tube ride took me back to the YHA, where I checked in and relaxed in my unexpectedly comfortable single room.
I came out again after dark to see the Thames by night. I was going to be in Paris soon and I wanted to be able to compare the Thames and the Seine by night.
Saturday, 13 Sep 2003
My first stop this morning was the Roman Mithraeum that was uncovered in 1954 after demolition of a nearby building and bodily moved 100 metres to where I saw it in 2003. In 2010, it was moved back — almost — to its original location. Almost, because more bits of the structure had been found since and they couldn’t put Humpty back together again. Which goes to show that schlepping historic ruins all over the countryside is not in general a good idea.
I walked on down past the Royal Exchange and Bank of England, with its square-headed statue of Wellington outside. Although the statue was erected to commemorate his aid in developing parts of London, for all the world it looked like he was riding away from the bank in disappointment after being turned down for a loan and having to pawn his hat and stirrups instead.
There was a nice pyramid behind his horse’s arse, each side of which neatly described everything of note that can be seen from that spot. Across Threadneedle St, the Bank of England had an array of blocky brutalist heroic statues on a patio above its doors, and some interesting bronze doors. One door had two lions with blepped tongues, climbing — or clawing at — a mound of coins.
I saw the Monument to the Great Fire over the rooftops and headed that way. This being London, it wasn’t exactly a straight-line route, but I got there. The Monument was not open. I went and looked over the nearby Pudding Lane location, noting several security cameras that probably would have been handy back in 1666 — except they wouldn’t have electricity to run them.
I went down to the Thames and walked under London Bridge. Tower Bridge was silhouetted against the morning sun, with HMS Belfast moored nearby. I found a set of stone steps that at high tide would be convenient for boarding a ferry or other boat, but the tide was out and there was just stinky brown-grey mud. Perfect for mudlarking, if that had been my interest!
I reached the Tower of London — which I promprtly dubbed “Tower, Inc.” because of the obvious commercialisation of the space. The first thing reached on entry is “the Tower Shop”. There were Beefeater guides to regurgitate details to visitors. However, it wasn’t always intrusive and there was plenty to see. Especially the famous ravens. I got too familiar with one, and it bit me. Speaking of bits, bits of the Roman city wall showed here and there.
Inside the White Tower there were original Norman fireplaces, and an original Norman loo. (The poo dropped outside the walls.) Also various suits of armour. One of Henry VIII’s looked OK from the front, but when seen from the side the true measure of the man emerged. It also had an amusingly-shaped steel codpiece. There was a wall display with a circle of pistols pointing inwards at a goofy lion’s head that also looked slightly nervous. There was a headsman’s axe and block, and you knew they had to be authentic because the display said so and besides, this was the tower where such things would be stored ready to lower the profile of the next high-profile prisoner. There were models of the Tower down through history, showing the slow accretion of the defences.
Outside, I found a small cobblestone square that was supposedly the actual site of the executions of such eminences as Anne Boleyn, Katherine Howard, and Lady Jane Grey.
The once formidable moat was now empty, and grassed, and the day I was there they were setting up equipment in it — portable projectors and speakers, looked like — for some sort of show. The Traitors’ Gate, however, retained its watery floor.
I moved on from the Tower to the Tower Bridge. Inside were displays on everything from the planning up to the operation of the drawbridge. Somehow, possibly because of the walkway between the towers, I’d always imagined the roadway was lifted bodily, but no,it was your bog-standard raised leaves, just larger than most.
Next stop was the Britain At War Experience (closed in 2013). Lots of maniquinns with tusselled wigs. One copper-haired victim in a white nurse’s cap, black LBD and black too-modern panties looked like she had been knocked off her feet and was dazedly wondering what happened. For authenticity, some areas were blanketed in smoke. At the bomb site, one maniquinn had lost her head. At one point the Tardis had arrived, and the frazzled tea lady was pouring a cuppa tea to welcome the Doctor. ’E’s not that sort o’ doctor, luv.
I walked down to London Bridge and crossed back to climb the now-open Monument to the Great fire, which once offered superb views in all directions but was now being engulfed by the new towers of the modern city. Time for another fire, I say! Vermin had smeared graffitti all over the stonework behind the catwalk, and up close it looked like the gold plating on the flame needed some TLC. Still, it was worth the walk back to have this experience.
I descended, recrossed London Bridge, and beneath it found Nancy's Steps, so named after a character supposedly murdered here in Dickens' Oliver Twist. As it turns out, in the novel, Nancy was not murdered here, nor did these specific steps exist — they replaced an older set after the novel appeared.
I wandered along the Thames, discovering odd pieces of Roman London, until I stumbled across Clink Street and its rather famous prison. The phrase getting “tossed in the Clink” is less common now, and when I learned the pharse as a child, “the Clink” existed for me in that same nebulous half-world as Coney Island and the Catacombs. But here was the original phyical manifestation, larger than life, complete with exhibits and signs.
I walked past the site of the Globe Theatre and so came to the replica Globe, of which only the lobby was still open (it was due to close at 17:00 and the time was now 16:43). So I continued down and crossed the Millennium Bridge, and thence returned to the YHA around 17:01.
Sunday, 14 Sep 2003
After a later start, I walked across Blackfriars Bridge to Waterloo Station, on my way to Greenwich. As a bonus, there was a Dali exhibition in the station. From there I took the Tube to Canary Wharf, switched to the DLR for Island Gardens, then walked to Greenwich through a very ugly tunnel under the Thames, coming out near the Cutty Sark, a rather famous clipper ship that first plied the tea trade to China, then the wool trade between Britain and Australia, setting time records that stood for a decade before steam took over. I paused to admire her fiercely grimacing bare-breasted figurehead and walked around her. Then I came across the Gypsy Moth, that Sir Francis Chichester used to chase several sailing ship records in the 60s.
I went on across a park to the yard of Flamsteed House that has the Prime Meridian, and had fun straddling the line and watching others straddle the line. I bought a pocket watch as a souvenir. Then I went on to the Maritime Museum, where there was a statue of Captain Cook, plus various buoys and anchors lying around.
That was it for a while. I went and found a spot for a long lunch that has left neither photographs nor memories. I resumed in the afternoon, seeking 221B Baker Street. I found it at Abbey House and admired the plaque. Then I went down the street to the fake, but much more satisfactory 221B (#239) that held the Sherlock Holmes Museum. From there it was a hop and skip to Baker Street Underground, and thence.
To Hyde Park Corner, where I found Wellington, this time with hat and stirrups, obviously before his visit to the bank. (To be fair, the bank statue dates from 1844 and this one from 1888, replacing a larger one that stood on the nearby Arch from 1846. So perhaps he got his loan and used it to buy a hat and stirrups.) The Arch now holds Nike in a quadriga, holding up a laurel wreath, which is closer to the architect’s original conception
I walked down Constitution Hill to the gates of Buckingham Palace. Which were closed. So I continued to the Queen Victoria Memorial, which with its blacksmith and harvester statues beside lions, was pretty cool.
I started off down The Mall about 16:00, but soon deviated right into St James’s Park with its eponymous lake, where it was cooler and more shady. I came across a marker identifying the Princess Diana Memorial Walk, then at 16:18 I came out at Queen Anne’s Gate, whose ghost is said to walk three times up and down the street on the 1st of August. Missed it by a month and a half dammit!
I zoned out around here and woke up to take a snap as I climbed up to the Jubilee Bridges and Hungerford Bridge at 17:13. 25 minutes later, I was riding the Millennium Wheel (the London Eye). Magnificent views! The circuit took just over 25 minutes.
Jubilee Gardens, in the shadow of the Wheel, was a riot of international colour, with dance troups on a portable blow-up stage. There was also another clutch of Dali, and on the grassy are in front of County Hall, one of those rope things that bounce people around above a trampoline.
Around 19:00, with the sun beginning to set beyond Big ben, I walked past Boudicca and daughters in a chariot and made my way back to my welcoming little room at the YHA.
Monday, 15 Sep 2003
I started the day by packing up my gear and lugging my pack down to Waterloo Station, to stow it in a locker until it was time to board the Eurostar. From there I walked down and crossed the Thames at Westminster Bridge.
Opposite Westminster Abbey, Parliament Square Garden was a big wall of posters and signs protesting the Iraq War's “Genocide of the Infants”. From Parliament, Oliver Cromwell gazed on, unimpressed.
Outside St Margaret's Church, I spotted an old guy in a black suit giving me the stink-eye. He followed me round a bit, then I lost sight of him.
I wandered over the the Cenotaph and peered down Downing Street. Tony Blair didn't pop out offering tea and biscuits, so I moved on to the Banqueting House, then past Admiralty House to Trafalgar Square. After a circle, I made my way south into the Horse Guards Parade, just in time for the changing of the guards. One line of horses was already in place; as I watched, a second trotted in opposite them
One horse seemed restive. The cause was soon plain, as it crouched ts withers and peed copiously. One horse opposite began frothing at the bit then took a poop.
After the two rows of horsemen had gazed at each other long enough, the lot that had been there first trotted out the way the second lot had come in. Then the second lot trotted out the other way. Just a drying wet patch and some froth and a pile of horse poo left behind.
I walked a bit south along the edge of St James’s Park until I encountered the Cabinet War Rooms 1939–1945. These drew me in and I spent nearly an hour lost in the intricacies of a war that was over before I was born.
I walked up to Admiralty Arch, past a statue of Cook, and back into Trafalgar Square. From there I eventually went down The Strand past the Adelphi and Vaudeville Theatres, until I reached the Savoy Hotel. I turned and crossed Waterloo Bridge, taking in a couple more Dali scultures, and arrived at Waterloo Station about an hour before my Eurostar departure. This day had been a lot more fun than hustling out to hurry-up-and-wait at Heathrow!
I retrieved my pack and hung around until boarding commenced. At 15:23 the train slid out of Waterloo Station and I was on my way to France!
ParisThe Eurostar slid into Paris Gare du Nord about 19:23, which with a time change after the Channel represented a 3-hour journey. I grabbed my pack and looked for a Metro station. At 19:59 I emerged at Châtelet-Les Halles, a shorter walk to my hotel, which I reached by 20:36.
I stayed no longer than required to shower and change my clothes, then I headed out to find dinner and explore the area. Down to Louvre, across Pont Neuf to the Île de la Cité, then down along the bank to Pont des Arts. At a food truck on the riverbank, somewhere, I picked up a souvlaki and a drink for dinner.
So here I was, sitting on the banks of the Seine, where I wanted to be, when I needed to be here, with nothing left to do except eat souvlaki and soak up the night …
Tuesday, 16 Sep 2003
I started my day at the golden statue of Joan of Arc on Rue de Rivoli at the corner with Av. du Général Lemonnier. I continued down Lemonnier the veered into the Tuileries. I crossed the Seine at Passerelle Léopold-Sédar-Senghor. Somehow I was approaching the Eiffel Tower just 20 minutes later, and since it was over half an hour;s walk and I wasn't familiar with the buses, I probably took the RER C Line from Musée d'Orsay to Champ de Mars Eiffel Tower.
Things were still closed, but I took advantage of the lack of crowds to be first in line. At 9:31 I was in the lift and on my way up. The city gradually opened up around us as we rose. I got out on the highest stop, just below the telecomunications facilities. Through a window behind me, Gustav Eiffel, his daughter Claire, and Thomas Edison were in earnest conversation about a gramophone. It was not a crystal clear day, but even Sacré-Cœur stood out well enough. I roamed the cage, sticking my lens through the wires to get photo after photo.
At 11:07 was back down on the ground, where the early morning serenity had been replaced by mob scenes, made worse by packs of hawkers — who would not take a polite “No” for an answer, and who simply mocked less polite negatives. However, the gendarmes were attracted by loud yells and chased them off.
I walked around the tower, then drifted out into the Champ de Mars, turning every so often to get a picture of the receding tower. I diverted to see the Monument des Droits de l'Homme, then walked on down to the École Militair and on to Église Du Dôme — Napolean's Tomb. Inside, the late Emperor was housed in state in a sarcophagus shaped like a classical altar.
From there I headed south-east past Église Saint-François-Xavier to Rue de Rennes, where there was supposed to be good shopping. I needed appropriate shoes, jacket and tie for my big night out at the Moulin Rouge on the 18th. I also needed to find a nice place for lunch. I ended up in Montparnasse for lunch.
Mission accomplished, and at 14:15 I was walking up to the entrance to the Catacombes de Paris at Place Denfort-Rocherau. The line was long, but just after 14:30 I was at the sign saying “HALT This is the empire of the dead.” From there it was signs and exhibits and stack and stacks of bones and skulls.
Half an hour later I emerged at the unsigned, unpretentious exit — sooner than expected.
My plans called for me to walk to Mouton-Duvernet and take Line 4 to Châtelet, but that was a relic from when I planning my Moulin Rouge for tonight. With time in hand I just went to Saint-Michel Notre-Dame instead, where I spent a few minutes admiring the Fontaine Saint-Michel before crossing Pont Saint-Michel and visiting Notre Dame, then walking around the outside of the Louvre. Finally I went back to my hotel to rest up for the day's finale, sunset in the Jardins des Tuilleries, then dinner, finishing off with the Eiffel Tower by night.
By 20:15 I was in the Tuileries Gardens. Paris had laid on a rich feast of a sunset, and I set upon it greedily.
Sunsets are fleeting, and I needed something more solid. By 21:00 I was sitting above the Seine at “La Fregate” Cafe-Brasserie, on the east corner of Rue du Bac at Pont Royal, sipping on a carafe of Beaujolais and eating Beef Bourgignon and chocolate mousse. Sound effects courtesy of regrettably heavy Seine-side traffic. Altogether more expensive and less restful than last night — but tonight was the 3rd Tuesday so tonight’s dinner was for Dad (my father had died in February). Not but what he himself would probably have preferred the takeaway down on the riverbank! I could not do that on the 18th, as I would be at the Moulin Rouge. Wakes need not be expensive, but I liked to go to a little more effort once a month. It taught me to value the family I had left, no matter how far I wandered from them.
Replete, I headed to Gare Musée d'Orsay and zipped over to Champ de Mars Eiffel Tower, reprising this morning's journey. This morning I had taken a snap of on of its feet at 11:07; tonight I got its match at 22:24. Soon Paris was a sea of light all around me. A perfect bookend to the day.
Wednesday, 17 Sep 2003
By 08:30 I was snooping around the entrances to the Louvre. There was already a queue forming, but I was early enough to be in the first few hundred entrants.
I drifted through the Museum, taking in a model of the Temple of Zeus, an Etruscan mortuary sculpture, the Nike of Samothrace, a couple of marble thrones, Cupid and Psyche, Modesty, a copy of the Aphrodite of Knidos, with a separate head, and a crouching one, headless but with a Cupid hand on her back, the Venus de Milo, the Three Graces, Hermaphroditus, Bastet, game pieces, Akhenaton and Nefertiti, mummy portraits, so many things. Including, naturally, the Mona Lisa.
By 14:00 I was on my way out, famished. But not so famished that I could not walk up one side of the Champs Elysses to the Arc de Triomphe without being reeled in. In the end I explored the Arc, top and bottom. The views from the top were less expansive than those from the Eiffel Tower, but much more in-your-face and immediate.
Eventually hunger reasserted itself, and somewhere along the other side of the Champs I found fast food and coffee.
Refreshed, I headed on down the road until I reached the Place de la Concorde with its fountains and Luxor Obelisk. From there I eventually made back to my hotel for a siesta.
By 18:40 I was back at the Louvre for Round 2. Friezes, lawn statuary, and Death. Frescoes, Milo of Crotona, eaten by a lion. Various Roman Emperors. Classical oil paintings. A second try at the Mona Lisa. By 21:20 I ws done for the day, not to mention totally done in. No Seine-side vigil tonight.
Thursday, 18 Sep 2003
A slow start to the day. I took the Funicular up to Sacré-Cœur. The day was hazy, so the vistas were limited. I took the Funicular back down, and half an hour later I was outside the Moulin Rouge. Half an hour after that I was at the Jardins des Tuilleries. I walked to La Madelaine, through Place Vendôme, and back to my room to chill out. Tonight was going to be a big night, and I was totally beat from days of beating the pavement.
At 19:00, I was in the line outside Bal du Moulin Rouge waiting to see Féerie. I had to check my camera, but the evening was bright, glitzy and everything I had hoped it would be. By 23:00 it was all over.
Friday, 19 Sep 2003
I had another slow start the next morning, but by 10:35 I was in Tuileries. At Saint Michel-Notre Dame, I caught RER-C to Versailles-Rive Gauche. By 11:30 I was walking up to the Palace of Versailles. This was to be my suitably epic last major site in this trip.
The grand rooms and corridors were bright with gilt and paint, some fluorescently bright, and I spent my first hour there, but I reserved my love for the grounds. The fountains and Grand Canal drew me forth. I walked all the way around the Grand Canal, stopping in at beauty spots. My last photo was at Bassin de Flore. Not sure why — probably my camera was full and I had forgotten to charge my iPaq.
My next shot was of the fancy Metro entrance of Le Kiosque des noctambules, in Place Colette, at 18:01, as I headed out to buy myself a nice Paris fashion suit at Ciseax d'Argent on Rue de Rivoli.
21:52 And so my time in Paris is ending as it began — on the bank with the Seine in front, Louvre behind, Pont Neuf to my left and the Eiffel Tower doing its shimmy to my right.
Across the river, jungle drums throb near Pont Neuf, and flames twirl and bob: someone is juggling fire. A smaller, lighter drum beats counterpoint upstream on this bank: a teen has a drum and a can of soft drink and is making his own experience.
Dinner barges thunder upstream and downstream in line astern. One is my old friend with the putrescent green lightning. Tonight it has company in canary yellow and midnight blue and coal red. One boat has huge white fluorescent lighting panels on the waterline and ranks of huge lights on the roof. It lights the banks like day.
There are so many cruises that their exhausts foul the air — not that those dining expensively aboard notice: the cabin’s air conditioning will brush out the half-burnt diesel fumes. The river thrashes in torture against its banks as the wakes cross and recross.
The dinner barges are standard river cruisers, long and flat and wide, totally glassed in. The diners are as insulated from their surroundings as if they were in a long narrow movie theatre with Seine images projected on the walls and multilingual Seine commentary blatting over the sound system. Someone could change the reels and they’d instantly be on the Rhine or the Tiber without spilling a drop.
I could find out how much these people are paying in order to trundle up and down the river. I could afford to join them. But I won’t. I don’t envy them. My dinner cost me €7.50 — it would’ve been only €6, but I splurged on an extra can of fruit juice. The ambiance — dirty river and unburnt fuel oil and stale urine, and clusters of young people walking and chatting, and someone playing loud bad music on the bridge overhead — can’t be bought and is literally priceless, i.e. free. No rational company would undertake to provide it! But it’s a more authentically “Paris” experience than the barges provide.
22:47 It’s an appropriate bookend to my stay in Paris. But now I must leave it, for tomorrow I fly, and I still need to figure out how to pack that wretched suit.
Paris to MelbourneSaturday, 20 Sep 2003
By 11:15 I was at Charles de Gaulle, taking a photo of a set of fancy tube travelators that I remember seeing a picture of many years ago and had wanted to see with my own eyes ever since. A minor wish, finally granted. Its durability in my memory was beyond doubt, until I saw it. Now? I have no idea of the original context.
Take-off was 14:28.
Sunday, 21 Sept 2003
I zonked out almost immediately, waking 11 hours later over Malaysia as we began our descent into Singapore. Two hours after landing in Singapore, I was in the air again, freshly showered and in my last set of clean clothes. We crossed the coast near Port Hedland at 13:17 WA time. At 17:14 SA time, I snatched a pic of the Ayre Peninsula. And at 18:34 AEST I watched the sun set over Victoria. Landing was timed for 19:10.
Aftermath“It is so much like a Swiss valley in Autumn,” said Catherine as we walked along the road into Emerald; “Everything is so well kept and all the trees are turning to gold, and all the leaves are falling to the ground.”
I laughed, lunging to catch a leaf that had twirled across the road in front of me. “Here’s one leaf that won’t reach the ground,” I said.
Catherine looked at it. “Soon you will drop it,” she said, “and then your effort will be wasted.”
I said nothing, but I placed the leaf gently in my diary. I still have that leaf, and it has not yet touched the ground.
The Leaf That Never Came Down (Easter, 1988)
I tossed the travelpack into the spare room and walked into the lounge, dropped the daypack by the wall, and went to check my anti-burglar device — lamp and ghetto-blaster plugged into a timer set to turn them on and off a couple of times per day.
The lamp was on and the stereo was pumping out talkback. But when I touched the plug hanging in the air between the arms of a director’s chair, the light went out and the radio stopped. I had left it securely plugged in but over the course of the month the weight of the timer must have gradually pulled the connection loose, so that my fingertip touch dislodged it. It would probably have fallen out on its own in a few more days, leaving the flat dark and silent and obviously empty.
I collapsed onto the lounge. The only sound was the tick of the cheap green clock I bought at an event in the Exhibition Building a couple of years back. Between the ticks was … silence. Twenty hours in the roar of the plane had set the threshold of my hearing so high that the rush of the cars in Bridge Road was inaudible.
I sat there, waiting for the post-trip depression to set in. It didn’t. Instead I felt a slow wave of satisfaction roll from my head to my toes.
In 2000, I didn’t achieve all my major goals. In 2002 the trip itself was such a high that a fall was inevitable. But this year I did everything I most wanted to do, including amending major omissions of 2000 and 2002, without getting too hooked on the high. It wasn’t the trip of a lifetime, but it was a near-perfect gem, clean and sparkling in every facet. The few trifling flaws were lost in the blaze.
There was no reason to be depressed. Spring lasted forever. So did Summer. So will Autumn, unless I live longer than I have any reason to expect — for I will die in middle Winter.
It was a long Summer, but it wasn’t all glorious. Autumn will also have its ups and downs: it’s for me to decide which will dominate. The song Forever Autumn is melancholy: the Forever Autumn need not be. The best period of my life may still be ahead of me. Time will tell. All leaves fall to the ground, but some take longer than others. Some are grabbed and pressed between the pages of books: I still have a preserved maple leaf I grabbed one Easter, fifteen years ago, pressed between pages of Kipling’s Definitive Edition. If I can keep employed, keep travelling, keep learning new things, who knows how many more leaves I can snatch out of the air before they touch the ground.
