Harv is off the axle stands and ready to go, with one new half axle and one reconditioned CV joint on the other side. Oh and I fixed the belt squeal and still had time to be a tourist this afternoon, so all in all, rather a good day in fact.

This was the problem that caused us to rethink our travel plans. That little crescent on the top left, should actually be a ring, but Harvey ate the other bit and so all the ball bearings that fit in the spaces in the lump of metal on the right, fell out. Stop me if I’m getting too technical here. That rubber boot on the right which fits around the whole thing had a split in it on the other axle, which was letting the grease out and when we took it apart the cv joint was showing signs of wear, so Paul constructed a new joint and I fitted it this morning. So now both axles should be good to go. Any questions? Good. Test on Friday.

I caught up with Philippa and Tom in Halifax later on. Its been a baking hot day which seemed like a good excuse for a stop at Cow’s Ice-cream, a Prince Edward Island company which makes extraordinarily good ice-cream. If you like that sort of thing of course. I just had one to be polite.

In the Maritime Museum they have a foam giant squid which Tom was fairly keen on, and a small but moving exhibition about the Titanic. Halifax was the closest city and the staging point for the recovery operation. All the clothing from the dead was supposed to have been burned to stop curio seekers but some of the rescuers kept little bits and pieces which ended up in the museum. There was a tiny pair of boys shoes which one of the police officers couldn’t bear to throw away and had kept in his office drawer until he retired.

There was another exhibition about a massive explosion which wiped out the heart of Halifax in 1917. A supply ship collided with a munitions ship in the harbour and created the largest man-made explosion before Hiroshima. It was heard two hundred miles away. 2000 people were killed and 9000 injured and the waterfront area was completely levelled. An anchor from one of the ships was thrown nearly two miles.

The buskers were still going strong when we came out and we watched a young man escape from some chains up a ladder. The trick, it strikes me, is not so much the trick itself, but the amount of time you spend building up to it. There does come a point amid all the “in a moment I will escape from these chains, but first…” when you want to shout “just escape from the chains already!”.

Nancy came and met us for supper in a waterfront restaurant (Paul is away for the weekend) and took us for a drive around Halifax afterwards. It is a great little city – a bit like a mini-Vancouver in some ways, with that same mix of interesting waterfront and leafy downtown neighbourhoods.

Tomorrow though we will leave it and head on with our journey.