Rob-n-Hild, Eastward Ho!

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Nerdy Stuff
Here are some nerdy bits and bobs about our trip. To quote the motto of the National Institute of Statistics Rwanda: "Be counted because you count".

Running Totals	Distance, km	Time, hr:min	Average speed, km/hr	Climbed, m	Days
Sailed	644.05	52:497	12.19	-	2:20
Driven	12,426.2	169:19	73.39	-	7.05
Driven Rob	6,213.3	85:15	72.88	-	3.55
Driven Hild	6,212.9	84:04	73.90	-	3.5
Cycled	61.9	4:44	13.01	677	0.2
Walked	377.5	94:03	4.01	11,446	3:89
Time away from my bed, office desk and chair!	-	1,512:00	-	-	63.00 (203 cups of tea each)

Above is one chart showing our cumulative driving distance and how we did share-and-share-alike the driving, almost perfectly!
So bottom line after 63 days on the road: Of our total 12,426.2 km, Hild drove 6,212.9 and Rob drove 6,213.3! We were 400 metres off, which is pretty good. Nerd-alert. Last year, Hild had a much faster average speed than Rob. This year we were much more even - mostly due to Rob's cunning route planning to make sure Hild had to drive the steepest bits and as much as possible in rain and fog!

In the chart above, we can see that our walking was spread evenly across the whole trip, with a few lazy billable-hour-days in between and a big "leap" at the end in Forillon. We hiked close to 9 marathons, and climbed 30 percent higher than Mount Everest. A lot of huffing and puffing, for sure!

Our hikes did not bring us much above sea level compared to last year's westward journey through the Rockies. However we did find some higher hills to hike up. The chart above shows where we found the heights in different provinces:

Newfoundland 1st: 346 m hiking Bear Head Trail near Corner Brook (1st June)
Newfoundland 2nd: 335 m hiking to Lookout Hills Trail in Gros Morne (22nd May)
Quebec: 294 m hiking the Forillon National Park (2nd July)
Labrador: 168 m hiking Bouquet's Hill Walk (17th May)
New Brunswick: 163 m hiking Grand Falls Gorge (30th June)
Nova Scotia: 104 m climbing Jacob's Ladder in Truro beating the hike 74 m up to Halifax Citadel (8th June and 17th June)
PEI: 33 m walking around Green Gables (15th June)

The chart on the left shows that we spent most of our money on accommodation (since we didn't want to sleep in a tent). Petrol for Mary Jane didn't eat up as much of our budget as might have been feared. The answer lies in a combination of Mary Jane's excellent fuel consumption and lower prices than last year (except for in Labrador). A new addition this year was the cost of ferries, but they added so much fun so it was worth it!

Petrol prices varied between C$1.51 per litre to C$1.94. A happy average of C$1.66 with a standard deviation of 0.11.

Snusmumrikken has worked very hard the entire trip including on the high seas. We were quite pleased to see how good coverage he had on the Telus network, while our mobile phones (on Rogers network) were without coverage for most of the trip except when we were in major cities. Snus did get some time off when we had no mobile coverage such as in Gros Morne and the most remote parts of Labrador. Amazingly we had coverage even on the high seas at the end of the world (Land's End).

The charts above indicate that we put alot of MBs/day through Snus in:

Newfoundland 33% of the MBs on 26% of the days (stayed in several remote areas)
PEI 13% of the MBs on 5% of the days (several work meetings while staying in a bunkie)

While we used him relatively less in:

Quebec 8% of the MBs on 18% of the days (stayed in hotels and worked less)
New Brunswick 9% of the MBs on 16% of the days (stayed in hotels but worked more)

Species:

Sum all Species	65
Wild vs Tame	53 vs 12
Mammal	23
Bird	27
Fish	1
Insect	9
Crustacean	2
Reptile	-
Invertebrate	3

Some rules about spotting species:

Must be alive
Must be standing still (exemption: bald eagle, whale, sea otters)
Use generic "fish" or "whale" etc. until an expert can confirm

The intersection between species seen and species eaten

Things we should have brought:

Extra woolly hat for Hild because hers went missing somewhere between Twillingate and Terra Nova
Extra pair of trainers for Rob (he bought a new pair in Sept Iles)

Last year we had the following list of things we should have brought. This year we brought them and used them all!:

Fly netting to block cabin doors and when our motel room had sliding doors without screen doors.
One extension cord each of us to charge iPad/phone while sitting in comfy sofa or lying in warm bed
Coins for laundry machines
5 and 10 dollar bills to tip hotel cleaning staff

Things we could have left a home:

Snow chains for the car - although we had snow in Labrador
Shovel - there was not enough snow or any floods requiring digging of ditches
Tent - like last year, this was our Plan "F" if we could find nowhere else to sleep
Air mattress - also part of our Plan "F"
First aid kit - except band-aids, Savlon, and head ache tablets
Emergency triangle and jumper cables and booster battery
Head net - when mosquitos attack and spray is not enough
Compass - for when paper- and electronic maps failed us

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