On the Road Again

Welcome back! This is my first post in almost three years! I cant believe it's been that long since I got back from my stint at traveling. I haven't really been anywhere since then, which is why this blog has been neglected. Since then, I made the decision to become a teacher and got a degree in education, only to enter the insanely competitive world of teaching. Looking for, and failing to find meaningful teaching work, and being demoralized and unmotivated with the job market in Ontario, I made the decision to pack up and move to London, England to teach starting in September 2010. It's a big move, and I'll probably be there for at least a year. And that just leaves the time in between to kill, so what will I do?

I will continue working at Camp Couchiching Outdoor Centre in the Spring, and then at Camp Micah in the Summer (H is for our home just for the summer!). From now to May, however, I have nothing to do. So for the first time since I got back from South America and Australia, I finally have the opportunity to travel again. I loved it so much the last time, I am going to do it again.

This time, my destination is Central America. Two weeks ago I literally made a spur-of-the-moment decision to book myself on a GAP Adventure throughout Central America for 8 weeks. I went on GAP before through Peru and Bolivia, and I loved it. It is a great way to see the world without the stress of organizing and planning too much. The GAP adventure is for six weeks, and then I will take two more weeks on my own in Costa Rica before I need to get back to Toronto.

I booked two weeks ago, and I leave Friday in 5 days! Countries on the itinerary: Mexico, Belize, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, and Costa Rica:

I hope to post to this blog at least once or twice a week, just so I can personally record my experiences. I've been reading through some old posts and it brings back good memories that I would probably never have remembered otherwise. And this time I plan on keeping this thing alive as I am in Europe next year, and this is a travel blog. So drop by and read it if you like, and you can follow me through Central America.

Five more days to Mexico City!

The Last Chapter

This is my travel route from start to finish. Lots of criscossing is seems.
Being in Hawaii for three hours counts, right?

A blowup of Australia and New Zealand. Pretty good, eh?

For an interactive version see http://www.getjealous.com/getjealous.php?action=map&go=s_gutkin I don't have all the place I visited on that site though, just the ones that look good on the map.

Since Vancouver I took the train to Edmonton through the rockies. It was a nice train, with a games and movies car along with a sky roof made of glass allowing for good views of the mountains. Along with a stop in Jasper it was the nicest and most luxurious travel I've ever done, despite the fact that it was coach-class and 23 hours long. Ariving in Edmonton gave me my first experience of winter this year. My family there claimed it wasn't cold when I arived but I begged to differ. I guess I'm just not climatized. Despite the cold I had a good time in Edmonton and saw a lot of family who took good care of me. By that I mean they fed me lots.

After four days in Edmonton I took the bus to Winnipeg, which took about 19 hours (the shortest bus yet!). I've never been to Saskatchewan, and although I know there is nothing there with endless miles of flat land, I was still surprised to just that. For six hours of the bus I was the only one on it. So I moved seats to one directly behind a movie screen, reclined my seat, and watched three movies that the driver played for me, all the while eating the massive amount of food that my aunt packed for me. All in all not a bad trip. Winnipeg itself was also nice. I stayed with my grandparents for five days who were very happy I was there. Again, I saw lots of family, and ate lots of food. It was perfect.

For the final leg of my journey I just couldn't bring myself to get on another bus, so I flew home to Toronto, four and a half months since I left. I have to say it's nice to be here. My own room, my own bed, my own dog, my own parents. Although I like being here, if I had more money I would pick up and fly out again. Southeast Asia is next on my list. Or maybe Europe. I think I caught the travel bug. I'm here in Toronto for a few months until I move to Maine again for the summer, teaching canoe and kayak to kids.

And that's it. There's no more to say. It's done. I can't believe four and half months went by, it seems like yesterday when I arived in Lima and drank my first pisco sour, swung in a hammock in the depths of the Amazon jungle, walked on floating islands in Lake Titicaca, roamed the salt flats of Bolivia, went skydiving in Australia and hiked glaciers in New Zealand. Looking back I realiaze that this was an incredible trip and a wonderful experience. The things I've learned and seen will stay with me for the rest of my life.

And finally a few last words about this blog. People have been telling me they've enjoyed reading it while folowing my travels. When I created it, that's what I had in mind. I wanted people to read it, post comments, and get jealous. But as I wrote it took on a different purpose. I began writing it for me. It became a personal journal of my journy. I wrote things that I wanted myself to remember, told jokes that I would laugh at myself, and wrote like no one was reading it. Every week or so I found an internet cafe or computer at a hostel and sat down for an hour and just wrote. I quickly wrote whatever came to my mind, not worrying about perfect grammer or spelling, as you can probably tell. I wrote as much as I could in the expensive time that I allotted myself. It is something that I can always look back on to remember and smile as the memories come back to life.

Now it's over, this will be my last posting. As my trip is over, so is this journal. If I kept up the blog, what will I write on now? How I watched TV for six hours straight? I don't think so. To those who read it, even for just a posting or two, thank you. I enjoyed writing it.

I will leave you with photos from the end part of my trip.

The Blue Mountains of Australia: http://uwo.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2143945&l=1bb7c&id=58000349

San Francisco and Santa Cruz: http://uwo.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2143952&l=79865&id=58000349

Crossing Canada: http://uwo.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2143961&l=7d04e&id=58000349

And finally, the long awaited Milford Track: http://uwo.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2143969&l=4a1f2&id=58000349

And Milford Sound of New Zealand, the most spectacular place on earth: http://uwo.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2143973&l=b1cf6&id=58000349

Just a few more: http://uwo.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2143978&l=1691d&id=58000349

The Land "Up Over"

Wow, the last time I posted was February 21. I've been a lot of places since then. Let me tell you all about it. By the way, there are updated pictures of Canberra and Sydney in my last post.

I left off last in Sydney. I was there for a week and I had enough of the city. So I took the train to the Blue Mountains, which is a national park only two hours out of Sydney. I stayed in a hostel in the town of Katoomba that's been converted from an old Art Deco mansion. It was big and luxurious, but at the same time people kind of kept to themselves in that environment. I had two full days there, and I didn't really meet anyone. Otherwise I did what I came there to do, which was hike through the mountain trails. On my first day I hiked for five hours, and on the second day I hiked for six. I loved it. It was beautiful scenery. Cliff-peaked mountains with rainforest valleys. It was spectacular. I saw the famous Three Sisters, decended the Giant Staircase, and got lost on top of a recent mud/land slide along the way. I flew back to North America the next day on a fifteen hour flight, plesently exhausted from the days before.

I said goodbye to the Australian continent and arived in San Francisco last week. While I was there I stayed for four days to see the city. It is a great place to see. I met a guy from Sydney at the hostel (of all places) and walked around with him for 2 days. My highlights were seeing the sea lions who took up residence at Peer 39, eating fresh clam chouder from a seafood vendor, climbing the street hills (including Lombard Street, San Francisco's crookedest street) and going to Alcatraz. On my last day it was Chinese New Years, where I attended the festival in North America's biggest chinatown, and got caught in the parade where it took me 2 hours to walk around to get home.

I was happy to leave San Francisco because of one thing. No more hostels! I've been staying in dorm rooms for months with mostly strangers. But now I'll be staying with family from here on in! About a month ago I decided to extend my trip by about three weeks to a month. Instead of flying from from San Francisco, I would take the bus and train home and see friends and family along the way. It's cheaper, and I don't have any reason not to.

I took a quick bus to Santa Cruz and met my Mom's cusin Wendy and Robert, and stayed with them for a night. They were so nice, and showed me around their pretty town. It reminded me of some of the cities along the East coast of Australia, like Coffs Harbour or Byron Bay. One of the best things was my own room. I haven't stayed in my own room for four months, except for a day in Lima, Peru. The whole day was great.

I left Santa Cruz, and departed on a 31-hour bus to Vancouver. Wow it was long. But it was so nice to step into Canada again after being gone since early November. My passport has filled out nicely. Vancouver is nice, its cold, and raining, but it's Canada, and it's worth it. I'm staying with my Dad's cousin Ron and Patti. They're taking me in for three days. Once again I find myself being spoiled with food, free internet and my own room. They're so nice and excited to have me here.

I stay here for one more day and then take the train to Edmonton to stay with the Muscats, aunt, uncle and cousins. I'm very excited to see them all again. I'm also looking forward to the train through the Rockies although it's a 23-hour ride. If I can do a 31-hour bus, a 23-hour train should be easy.

All my pictures should be updated in my next post, so hang tight. And it wont be another two weeks until I post again, I promise.

Australia South

G'day
Once again I'm in Australia. I know my trip is starting to wind down when I start backtracking to my original destination. I started in Melbourne. I've already seen the city but I met some people there, so we walked around for a long time. I saw some things that I didn't see the first time, like the Royal Botanic Gardens, so it was well worth it to see see the city again. When I was done with Melbourne I had to eventually get to Sydney where my flight departs from. However, Canberra was on the way so I made a stopover. I wanted to see Canberra since I first arived in Australia, so I took my chance when I got it. Canberra is an interesting City. It was founded by an act of parliament to make it Australia's perminant capital. It's also its own territory, making it independant of the state of New South Whales. It is actually a city-state, one of only a small handfull in the world. I even studied it in my Geography World Cities class in university. The whole thing was designed by an American. All the streets, parks, government buildings, and even the lake is all new. The city began in the mid-1900s.

I took a 10 hour night bus and arived bright and early in the morning. I was surprised by what I saw. The road system has a circular design. And the different circles in the different parts of the city are connected by a main street. Its very confusing becasue most roads travel in every possible direction, so if you are walking on a street you can be walking north, east, southeast, northwest, and so on. Its quite confusing to get around.

But despite this I did eventually make it to the parliament building after hours of getting lost. I guess I could have took a bus, but, oh well. I loved this building. It was just built and finished only a few years ago, and the final cost was a whopping ONE BILLION dollars. Wow. The first thing I noticed is that it is built into the Capital Hill. I literally walked on top of it covered in grass. The explanation for this is that parliament shouln't be above the people. The people should be abover their elected servants, so the building is actually underground. However there are massive polls above the building waiving an enormous Australian flag that can be seen from the entire city. I went inside for a tour. The building is huge and awesome. Marble floors and pillers in the reception hall, big open spaces for the upper and lower houses, great natural lighting (for being underground), statues of the Queen, a large cafe, a Great Hall, everything you could want. It looks like it cost a billion dollars. Outside the building was another of those main connecting streets. You can see a perfect line connecting the parliament, down a large feild with flags, joining the old parliament building, across the lake, continuing on the other side with a large street leading to the massive War Memorial building/museum (which I also went to). This row goes all the way accross the city, yet from both ends you can see the perfect line connecting the buildings.

All in all, my impression of Canberra is that it looks fake. Not becasue everything is the National this or the Royal that, but the city as a whole just looks fake. Becasue it's designed and everything is new, even the lake it's built around. But don't get me wrong, fake is not a bad thing. It's a very interesting thing. I've never seen a city quite like it.

Later that night I heard music. I followed it and found myself at a Latin festival. There was music, and international food and drink, and it was great. I met this girl who was wearing the exact same Joyride Bolivia tshirt that I was wearing, so Ihung out with her and her friends, who had connections with some of the bands. So I wnt into one of the pubs and starting drinking with the bands. It was great fun. I had a long discussion with this one musician about some of the differences between Canadian and Australian politics. Afterwards around 1 am the band left, so I went outside and there was some amazing regge music going on (yes I know, at a Latin festival haha). So I stayed there for another cupple hours, by myself but in a croud. It was so good. I was told that Canberra was usually a very dull city, and I picked the only day of the year when it came alive.

So now I'm in Sydney. I witnessed yet another event here that was just lucky. Just yesterday, I heard on the news that the Queen Mary 2 and the Queen Elizabeth 2 were going to meet in Sydney Harbour, meeting in the same city for the first time since 1939 when they delivered troups for WWII. The Queen Mary 2 is the largest cruise ship in the world and the Elizibeth 2 is her sister ship. So this is Royal history here. I wandered on down to the Opera House at the harbour and found a good spot among the estimated tens of thousands of people. The Mary 2 was so big it couldn't fit under the Harbour Bridge. I saw the Elizibeth 2 cruise in and give three loud honks to Mary 2. There were cheers, and then there were fireworks marking the occasion. People were crazy about it, the Sydneysiders were so excited that this was happening in their city. I was just there for some free entertainment.

So that's it, now you're up to speed. I'm in Sydney for a few more days and then a detour to the Blue Mountains. See ya there.

P.S. I can't seem to upload pictures from the Milford Sound, but I know what the problem is, so I'll post them when I get to a home computer and I have some time. Here's some late pictures of the south of New Zealand and Christchuch.

http://uwo.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2125020&l=ec431&id=58000349
http://uwo.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2125021&l=a6847&id=58000349

UPDATE! Canberra and Sydney links are uploaded:
Canberra: http://uwo.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2125251&l=03841&id=58000349
Sydney: http://uwo.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2126134&l=d18a4&id=58000349

Final Thoughts on New Zealand

Kia Ora
My trip in New Zealand has ended and now I'm back in Australia, this time going from Melbourne to Sydney with a stop in the capital, Canberra. I want to take this opertunity to reflect a little on my time in New Zealand, what I liked the most and what I found interesting.

Firstly I want to start off with Kiwi history. To begin with, there are no indigenous mammals in New Zealand. None at all. Well, almost none. There are indigenous bats and whales, but no land mammals. Not even people. This makes for very beautiful and unspoiled scenery. I've noticed that the birds come right up to people with no fear. I suspect they are missing the evelutionary instinct that people are bad. Having no people there makes for a very short history. The Mauri People first came to New Zealand from some pacific islands 1000 years ago. The British came about 300 years ago, and there was no anaihalation or assimilation attempts of the native people, as there has been in Canada, the USA and Australia. I found this very interesting. The main fighting was between Mauri tribes. So as the history goes, the Mauri officially handed over governence over to the British, peacefully. Who owns the land however, is debatable. I rahter like how the Mauri and European Kiwis live together, peacefully, with equal rights all around. You can't say that for Canada or Australia.

Another thing I like is that in New Zealand, there are two species of possum: round and flat. The possum was an Australian import and has grown in population somewhere in the high 100,000s. They are destroying the native forests at a rapid pace. It is not only acceptible to kill them or run them over on sight, but it is expected that you do. The roads are littered with the flat possum type. There is a dead possum culture here. Stores sell the furs, people sell the meat. And animal rights groups have no objections. The possums were never supposed to be here in the first place. I did my part in solving the possum problem, I ate one! I ate a possum pie, also known as headlight delight. It was good, it tasted like dark meat of chicken.

Talking about culture, I want to say something about the cafe culture. This is something totally foreign to us Canadians with our Starbucks and Second Cup domination of the market. In New Zealand, and Australia too to a lesser extent, there is a wonderful cafe scene in all the cities. The cafes all independantly owned too. They are plentiful and fill the streets. The service is friendly and the servers take pride in their coffee. You can sit there all day, and you will never be asked to leave. One thing I like are the coffee types. They have all these original types, such as flat white and long black. I had to learn what they all were. And most importantly, the coffee is amazing. They have good food too, but I can't say enough about the coffee. Each cup is individually ground when ordered. That makes it so fresh. They wouldn't dream of using a percolator and letting coffee sit until ordered. Starbucks just doesn't do it like that. Even McDonalds has dove into the market. Every McDonalds has a McCafe attached. They have all the coffees, and tasty treats to go with them. Even their coffee is very good too. I would sooner go to a McCafe than to Starbucks.

Lastly, I want to say a little about the city of Christchurch. It was originally colonized to defend against non-existant french colonization rumours. But England didn't want juat another colony. They wanted a London of the south. Instead of bars and pubs there are churches and cathedrals. All streets have English names and all buildings have English architecture. It has a very upper class feel to it. And it is also very beautiful. It really does feel like London although I've never been there. I enjoyed my time there although it wasn't very long.

So those are my final thoughts on that wonderful country. It's beauty stunned me and the people were so nice. There's nothing I can say thats bad about it. Everything I've done was well worth it and the magnificent scenes and landscapes are in my memory forever.

I will write next from one of the only city-states in the world, the capital of Australia, Canberra. I'm looking forward to it becasue it was just built in the 1900's with the purpose of being the capital. I'll tell you more about it when I get there.

Kia ora (Mauri for hello, goodbye, good health and safe travels. A very cool word)

(Pictures to come soon...)

The South

It's been a while since I've posted last and I've seen a lot. I've seen magnificent structures and geological phenomenons. I'll start where I left off, ariving into Queenstown. This is a city set in the mountains with a view over the lake. Historically it's called Queenstown because it has views fit for the Queen. It is known as New Zealand's tourism capital, but I didn't do anything it offered, such as bungy jump, skydive, paraglide, parasail, luge down a mountain or anything else death defying like that. Instead we went to the town of Te Aneu and stayed there for a few nights becasue it is close to the world famous (or at least New Zealand famous) Milford Sound. The first day there we did a day walk on the Milford Track. People come from all over the world to do this four-day hike. I desperatly wanted to do it too, so way back in October I tried booking it. Little did I know that this is the most highly regulated hike in the world, and it was booked through March '07. So needless to say I did not walk the whole thing, just about 10 kilometres of it plus a stray off the beaten track. It was good, but not all that great. I've done better things in New Zealand. The forest though did look like it came out of the Lord of the Rings. It probably did. It looked like some of those trees could just get up and walk away.

But the next day was the best day. We went to Milford Sound. Most people go on a large cruise ship through the sound that holds 200 people. But I didn't. I did things right. I found this little diving company that takes divers and non-divers into the sound on a very small, eight person boat. It was personable, friendly, there were two guides on board, and the little boat could go where the big ships couldn't. It was spectacular. As of right now I'm even debating with myself if I should even write about it becasue I wouldn't know where to start. But the photo thingy doesn't seem to be working right now so I'll try: There is finger of the ocean called Milford Sound, and on either side of the narrow sound are enormous cliffs with snow glacier-topped mountains. Some of the cliffs are bare but some of them have outward growth, making it seem like a verticval forest when looking straight up. There are also waterfalls coming down the cliffs from hundreds of metres high, dwarfing Niagra Falls in size. It was a perfectly sunny day, allowing us to see the tops of the cliffs. However on the down side, there was no rain to fuel the waterfalls. I'm told that sometimes the entire cliffs from end to end are flowing with water making for a magnificent sight. I saw the second-largest waterfall in the world, or it would be, if it was continuous. But I did see the largest rock cliff in the world that comes from the sea. It was almost 1800 metres high if memory serves. Generally the whole thing was out of this world.

And because I went on a diving boat, I got to go snorkeling! I was the only snorkeler in the whole sound that day. It was pretty good too. The interesting thing about it is that the top layer of the water is fresh due to the waterfalls. About a metre deep it turns into saltwater. Inbetween there is a layer of alge making vision blurry. So to see anything I had to dive down through to the saltwater. It was fun. And cold. The water was 14 degrees celcius, so I was dressed in a full body wetsuit. And since the suit floats, diving weights were straped to me to enable me to dive. The whole thing was a fun experience. I saw loads of fish and coral, and I even saw rare black coral. Usually black coral lives 100 metres deep in the ocean, but at Milford it lives at about 30. But there was one spot where it was six metres down, and it was there that I dove to see it. I was the only person in the world that day who saw black coral while snorkeling.

After we were done with Queenstown Stephanie left for Rotorua becasue she'll be going to school here on exchange. I went in my own direction to Dunedin. Dunedin is a fairly large city, setteled by Scotish. I enjoyed my time there, although it wasnt all that special. Mostly I met some good people and went out at night for drinks. I also went to a very large and free museum. It was very good, but it seemed like I was the only one there. I went to the "Animal Attic" display, and I found there thousands of species of stuffed animals. And they were all real. Many types of insects, fish, reptiles, birds, and mamals, inluding kangaroos, wolves, bears, monkeys, and tigers. And it was so erie becasue I was the only living thing there from the time I arived to the time I left, about 30 minutes later. Thousands of species, and just me to look at them. It was such a weird feeling that I don't wand to experience again.

After Dunedin I went to Lake Tekapo where I stopped on the way to run up the steepest street in the world, as listed by the Guiness Book of World Records. It was pouring rain and I had to take my shoes off or I would slip down the street. It was all good fun. We later stopped again to view boulders. They were apperently some sort of geological phenomenon becasue they were only boulders in the world to be perfectly spherical. It was kinda neat seeing them on the beach. Ariving in Tekapo, I was only planning on staying one night but it was so beautiful in that town of 300 people. It was on a glacier-filled lake and emmited a bright blue colour. I wanted to do some hikes so I booked myself there for another night at this amazing lodge I was staying at. So the next morning I did a great 3-hour hike up Mt. John with good views of the lake, the town, and other mountains.

On my way back I almost made it to my lodge and just then the one of the weirdest things in my life happened. By pure coincidence and luck, I saw two people walking up to me whom I traveled with in Peru. It was Tim and Suzie, and they were just as shocked to see me. I think the first thing I said to them was 'Am I dreaming?' They were just about to walk up the mountain too. It was so strange seeing them there. I didn't even know that they were in New Zealand let alone in a town of 300 people. So I let them do thier hike up the mountain and when they got back down we spent the day together catching up. It was really cool. It's nice to see people when you thought you may never even see them again.

So thats about it up to now. I'm In Christchurch for another two days and then I fly back to Australia for two weeks. I'll write again from Melbourne where hopefully I can post the photos of Milford Sound. Till then...

Middle Earth

Middle Earth - Or could it be a whole different world all together? I've seen things that could make me believe it. Starting from the ferry that took me to the south island, everthing has been out of this world. From high mountains to low plains, pristine lakes to crashing ocean waves, to rainforest and glacier together. I've been from national park to national park. I think the entirety of New Zealand is just one big national park. I've seen it all, and still I will see more in the coming days.

Stephanie and I started west from Picton in the north, and then down south from there. Right away we did a day cruise and a six hour walk in the Able Tasman National Park. This was beauty at its best. It was an easy walk that took us along the coast, but accross the coast were spectacular views of mountains, and valleys. Also it was low tide when we walked, so we took shortcuts along the ocean floor, and sometimes waddling through waist-deep water reserves left over from the high tide. The beaches are famous for thie gold colour. I wish I could take some of the sand home. It was a great little walk.

Later we went onto Greymouth, a tiny little town on the coast. There we went to the Monteiths brewery where we had a tour, sampled their beer, poured our own and drank as much as we could in 20 minutes. Then we went to a bar for all you can eat bbq and a pint. This whole deal was $20. That was Greymouth.

Well, not quite. Near Greymouth we went to this park with pancake rocks and blow holes. It's a remarkable rock formation in the ocean where the rocks look like a stack of pancakes. And there are large holes in some of them, so when the tide is high, the ocean waves go under the rocks and through the holes, sending the water high into the air. The tide was a little low when I was there, but I still cought some good spurts.

And now, my favourite part of New Zealand thus far: The Franz Joseph Glacier. This was amazing. We hiked up this huge block of ice with an experienced guide. Most of the patch was carved out into make-shift stairs, so it wasen't all that hard. The ice was incredible. A rich blue colour. Also, the glacier actually cuts through the rainforest so it offered remarkable views of forest and waterfalls from the top. Our guide decided our group was a little more experienced and adventurous than the rest so he took us on his own path. He took us up and down and all around. The best part was through this very thin crevice that I could barely fit through. I couldn't even put one fut infront of the other so I shuffeled along the whole way. And it looked pretty dangerous too, with one wrong slip on the ice and you can fall 20 feet. All in all it was amazing and an incredible experience.

The only bad part of all this spectacular adventures is when we do stop the bus for lookouts and great views, they only seem adequate when compared to what I've seen. They just do do much for me anymore. I've been desencitized to beauty.

I want to say something about the roads here. I understand that its the mountains and there's lots of lakes and rivers, but these roads are dangerous! In all of rural New Zealand (about 95% of it) there are no two-lane bridges. It's all narrow one lanes, going in both directions. Usually this doesnt pose any problems, ans there are signs giving one direction the right of way. But other times, well, here's some examples. This one is called the can opener. Ie, the bridge is the opener, and the bus is the can. On either side of the bridge is rock cliff, and there are high steel beams outlining the dimensions of the bridge. So the driver needed the passengers' help in directing the bus into an extremely narrow opening and exit. Another is the longest one-lane bridge in the southern hemispheare. On most days, however, it's too foggy to see the other side, so drivers don't know if anyone else is coming. Good thing there's a small sholder half way along the bridge to pull over. Another one-lane bridge goes around a bend, so once again, you can't see the other side. So there's a mirror placed on the rail that is used to see oncoming traffic. I guess it works, I haven't heard of any accidents yet. Now listen to this one: This one-lane two-way bridge shares it's space with the rail tracks. We arived and a train was actually going accross it. W waited for it to pass, and then went onto it ourselves, driving along the tracks behind the train. I never thought I would ever see that one. And finally, my favourite is not even a bridge at all, but it is still one-lane. It's on a cliff, but dug into the side of the cliff, like a half-tunnel. It's great becasue it's so narrow that it can barelly fit even one vehicle. And it floods every so often becasue it wasn't built high enough above the river it drives directly overtop. I hope you enjoyed reading this as much as I enjoyed traveling on them.

Here's the photos: Just copy and paste.

http://uwo.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2116908&l=00f08&id=58000349

http://uwo.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2116910&l=f8ef5&id=58000349