The flight out of Kelowna didn’t depart until 12:05 pm (Pacific
time) so we didn’t have to get up super early however as there is always a few
last minute items to take care of we were out of bed by 7:00 am. The taxi was 15 minutes late and this added
fuel to the overall travel anxiety.
However as we are only a few minutes from the airport we still had lots
of time and Kelowna’s airport is pretty small so the ten people in security
line seemed like a lot.
The flight to Lisbon was Kelowna to Toronto and Toronto to
Lisbon. The first leg was pretty smooth
and the flight actually got in to Toronto 13 minutes early. As the Toronto airport is huge we had a three
hour layover. If you have to run across
the airport and then clear security and go through US customs the three hours
may not be quite enough. We did not have to do any of these and then the flight
was delayed by an hour so we had four hours to kill. The flight didn’t get off
the ground until midnight.
The Air Canada plane turned out to be an ancient old
bird. You could see where they had
painted over the bombing missions on the nose and where they had put out the
many engine fires she had sustained over the years. The overhead bins were tiny and there was huge
competition to get one. Agnes and I
elbowed our way to the front of the line and got one.
Once under way we did half an Ambien. They worked
great and we got about 5 hours sleep on a 6.5 hour flight.
Once in Lisbon we were an hour late so we missed our jet way
and had to park on the tarmack. They
didn’t have enough buses to get everyone off the plane but Agnes and I made it
on to a plane. Once in the terminal we
joined the 1.5 hr cue for immigration.
It was so good to get to the other side and find Liam and
Suibhan waiting. The drive up the coast
to their place was so relaxing. It was great to be here. I don’t exactly know the total elapsed time
from door to door but I am sure it was more than 24.
Sept 5 2018 Liam’s Place
Agnes and I totally crashed and didn’t wake up until 11:20
am this morning. It must have been some
of Liam’s Portuguese brandy.
Liam and I were off on a little bike ride up the coast. I am using his second bike which is a Giant. It is very similar to my Giant back in
Kelowna. It is fitted with a triple in front and a 9 speed rear cassette. The
front granny gear however is only a 26 cog gear and the rear cassette goes up
to a 27. This gives the bike great
climbing ability and it is really needed here.
The road up to Liam and Suibhans place reaches 17%.
There are a lot of ridges along the coast so as you follow
the coast you are either riding up one ridge or descending down into one of the
valleys. Liam and I rode down a bunch of small back roads and came to a small
village. There Liam took us though this
tunnel which leads to a look out over the ocean. Liam was saying get a picture of the big
waves coming in from this direction and then there was a huge wave which came
in from the other side and crashed up the lookout totally soaking both of us,
just as I took the picture. The coast
was very beautiful and it was a very nice day although the wind was just
howling out of the north. This meant
that we had a wonderful tail wind all the way home. We managed to cover 42 kms and did 465 m of
climb so it was great shake down
ride.
This evening we drove to an excellent local restaurant. I had the pork ribs which are one of my
favorites.
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