Over the past couple of days we've really been getting into the spirit of Halloween. Having never spent a Halloween in a country that actually embraces the spooky day, we (read: Robyn and I) are going all out, getting costumes and candy and we've even carved Jack-O-Lanterns. Now we just need a Halloween party to go to... They do a bit of a do down at the pub and there's prizes and whatnot so we might mosey on down there.
The only problem is, having grown up in Australia, somewhat sheltered from all the money-making commerciality of the day itself, we just don't know what to go as. We thought we'd go as something actually scary but it seems that you just don't do that. In fact it seems the main reason for any girls over the age of 12 to dress up is so they can wear the smallest items of clothing they own and add a hat or a broomstick and call themselves a witch. This would of course be fine, but the average temperatures overnight in Fernie have been hovering around the -3 mark. Not so great for Naughty Nurses and Wicked Witches and the like. Robyn and I scoured the op shops and the $1 stores (girls on a budget) and we came up a little short (pun intended). Man I wouldn't be able to bend over in some of those costumes, and if I did, THAT would be scary.
I really wanted to go as butchered brides but the thrift store wedding dresses were still pretty expensive. So in the end, Robyn got a cute little devils tail, horns and some sweet red and black striped stockings and she's borrowed one of my dresses and she's going as a devil. I'm sure she'll be batting off questions about her horns and if she's horny all night but what can you do. I'm going as a pumpkin. I think it was an idea that, once in my mind, I just ran with, and maybe I shouldn't have. And now I have an orange shirt and a glowing pumpkin cut-out to stick to my back, and the top of my jack-o-lantern to wear as a hat (depending on the extent of mould growth) so I'm really all in. I even got a cute little pumpkin bag! And orange nailpolish! So I'm a pumpkin.
It's quite funny how we've all got into the groove of living together. We've all intuitively chosen places to sit at the dinner table, we all help out and cook dinner in turns, we don't argue about the cleaning chores, everyone lets me watch Glee on Tuesday nights. Mostly Zane and Adam have been playing online poker and Robyn and I have been reading the Charlaine Harris True Blood series non-stop. We're home bunnies but it's nice. Robyn and Adam are getting snow tyres for Crystal over the weekend, in anticipation of the MASSSIVE AMOUNT OF SNOW THAT IS GOING TO FALL SOON!!! We had our first at-home snowfall yesterday, so we all ran out onto the balcony and caught snowflakes on our tongues. It was exciting. It's been snowing heaps up on the hill but it's still too warm in town for any snow to gather.
So the Halloween party is tomorrow night, look out Fernie, you are about to be outpartied by a devil and a pumpkin and two guys who refuse to dress-up OH YEAHHHH
I'll try and get lots of photos to put up :)
Lots of spooky love, T and Z
Friday, October 29, 2010
Roadtrip from Vancouver to Fernie
Road-tripping!!!
Welcome to America!!!
Crystal!
For most of the ride, beautiful lakes and streams were winding alongside the road. Every couple of kilometres along the way we'd find another pretty stop to take a photo.
Epic Helmcken Falls. I don't think photos can aptly capture the magnificance of the falls. Super amazing.
We all agreed Jasper was the most beautiful town we've come across. And it was situated high enough that snow had already begun to dust the tops of the mountains, which were completely surrounding the town. They made for a spectacular backdrop.
Day-trips around Jasper also provided up with some awesome sightseeing and nature watching. Nothing beat the bear though.
Zane and Tenille at Medicine Lake
My favourite location was Maligne Lake. It was so pretty and we stopped at a lookout and walked right down next to the lake. There wasn't a soul around apart from the four of us, and there was complete silence and the water was still and like glass. It was such an amazing moment.
Zane's gets up close with Jasper wildlife
Beer time in Jasper!
Pretty snow-capped mountains near Jasper
Cruisin in Crystal
This is the epic Columbia Icefield which is 325 square km of ice. It's the largest body of ice in the Rocky Mountains. We managed to visit on the last day of touring for the year. They take you up onto the Athabasca Glacier. In some parts the ice is 300m deep, that's the height of the Eiffel Tower!
The glacier drains into the Arctic, Pacific and Atlantic oceans, and is therefore called the Triple Continental Divide.
This is the vehicle that takes you onto the glacier.
Banff. When we were strolling down the street there came the unmistakeable sound of a backfiring vehicle. Repeatedly backfiring. Sure enough, an old van painted with "Bob the Bang Bus" on the side came bunny-hopping down the road. I can't be 100% sure, but I reckon they were Australians.
These are the Johnston Falls, between Lake Louise and Banff. It was pretty cool because you could walk through a little hidey-hole and pop out right next to the waterfall.
Stunning Lake Louise
Our accommodation at Lake Louise. Pfft I wish!
Here are some photos of our mad jack-o-lanterning skills. Wasn't nearly as hard as we anticipated, but we agreed clearly, we must just be awesome. Love how mine looks all evil and Robyn's looks happy and dopey.
Welcome to America!!!
Crystal!
For most of the ride, beautiful lakes and streams were winding alongside the road. Every couple of kilometres along the way we'd find another pretty stop to take a photo.
Epic Helmcken Falls. I don't think photos can aptly capture the magnificance of the falls. Super amazing.
We all agreed Jasper was the most beautiful town we've come across. And it was situated high enough that snow had already begun to dust the tops of the mountains, which were completely surrounding the town. They made for a spectacular backdrop.
Day-trips around Jasper also provided up with some awesome sightseeing and nature watching. Nothing beat the bear though.
Zane and Tenille at Medicine Lake
My favourite location was Maligne Lake. It was so pretty and we stopped at a lookout and walked right down next to the lake. There wasn't a soul around apart from the four of us, and there was complete silence and the water was still and like glass. It was such an amazing moment.
Zane's gets up close with Jasper wildlife
Beer time in Jasper!
Pretty snow-capped mountains near Jasper
Cruisin in Crystal
This is the epic Columbia Icefield which is 325 square km of ice. It's the largest body of ice in the Rocky Mountains. We managed to visit on the last day of touring for the year. They take you up onto the Athabasca Glacier. In some parts the ice is 300m deep, that's the height of the Eiffel Tower!
The glacier drains into the Arctic, Pacific and Atlantic oceans, and is therefore called the Triple Continental Divide.
This is the vehicle that takes you onto the glacier.
Banff. When we were strolling down the street there came the unmistakeable sound of a backfiring vehicle. Repeatedly backfiring. Sure enough, an old van painted with "Bob the Bang Bus" on the side came bunny-hopping down the road. I can't be 100% sure, but I reckon they were Australians.
These are the Johnston Falls, between Lake Louise and Banff. It was pretty cool because you could walk through a little hidey-hole and pop out right next to the waterfall.
Stunning Lake Louise
Our accommodation at Lake Louise. Pfft I wish!
Here are some photos of our mad jack-o-lanterning skills. Wasn't nearly as hard as we anticipated, but we agreed clearly, we must just be awesome. Love how mine looks all evil and Robyn's looks happy and dopey.
Sunday, October 24, 2010
Well here I am, sitting on the nice comfy fold-out (in case anyone wants to visit and needs a place to crash? Hint hint family...) in front of the fireplace of our beautiful Silver Rock condo, watching Ghostbusters. We’ve been living in Fernie for almost a week. And I mean LIVING. Clothes put away, fridge stocked with groceries, and more importantly, beer, toothbrushes in toothbrush holders, Crystal the car happily stowed away in undercover, heated carparking. We managed to completely luck out with this amazing condo, and our landlady is really nice and knows the town and all the hotspots to check out. We came into Fernie really late Monday night, I’m talking 9:30pm, but Deb was happy to meet us and show us the condo. We thought we’d just have a quick look and be off down the road to the motel for the night but everything just worked. As soon as we walked through the door, we felt we were home. It was so nice and huge (the smaller bedroom is probably as large as our old B Block unit) and fitted out with everything we could ever need. Deb must have thought we came across as nice, clean, friendly Australians (and why wouldn’t we?) and she offered for us to move in that night.
After some squealing on mine and Robyn’s part, we calmed down enough to realise that we needed a beer to celebrate our moving into our sweet pad. Robyn and Adam went off in search of an open bottleshop and Zane and I took the time to finally unpack our lives after 2 weeks of living in a suitcase. This was our new home.
Since then, we’ve been having nice little walks to check out the town of Fernie, I’ve joined the library, we’ve found a great coffee and bagel shop, we’ve done a big grocery shop and we’ve been really good, eating at home most nights.
Our one big night out in town started very innocently, as it always does. We decided we’d do a pub crawl as such, only a professional one, as we wanted to scope the bars and see where we might want to work. So off we went, starting at the Brickhouse where we thought we would sample the local brews. With such names as “What the huck” Huckleberry wheat ale, “Pumpkin Head” dark ale and “Ole Willy” Belgian Ale, how could we resist? Well, I wish we had. They weren’t much to write home about. We continued onto another pub and had a few more pitchers of whatever was on special. We also had poutine, which is a fat-tastic combination of French fries, gravy and curds, like melted cheese. It was quite delicious. We thought we’d finish off, by having a few bevs in the hostel bar, where Zane and I continued our winning streak in pool. And I wasn’t there just to make up the numbers, I can proudly say that I sunk a few balls and even sunk the winning black in a few of the games. I love how there’s that level of drunkenness where your pool skills seem to increase for a small amount of time.
We then headed home, Robyn and Adam actually sprinting, as Robyn was in the unfortunate position of needed to pee. It’s really cold over here, jumping behind a hedge would probably result in frostbitten genitals and that just wouldn’t be fun. As a matter of fact, once when we were walking home in Jasper, Adam alluded to needed a pair of tweezers to assist in locating his genitals in order to urinate. It’s really cold in Canada. So those two crazy kids ran off and Zane and I followed in a more leisurely pace. Obviously we just couldn’t just call it a night so down we went to try out the hot tub. It is quite a unique thing to sit in a pool of water over 40 degrees Celsius, while around you, your beers are keeping frosty in around -5 degrees Celsius.
On Friday night we headed out to see the local Ice Hockey team the Ghostriders take on the team from Kimberley. They were victorious of course and it was such a fun game. I’ve always been quite a passive, anti-violence person but I couldn’t help myself and soon enough I was cheering on the biffs like everyone. At one stage, after a particularly impressive fight, a player got sent off, not before showing off his blood nose to the crowd and ensuring he was escorted off amidst a raucous cheer and a few sprays of blood. It was a great atmosphere and we could get beers at the game and we met some locals, fun night all round.
The past couple of days we’ve been doing interviews for jobs up on the mountain. We all went up on the first day to lock in interviews for the following days for specific job positions. Robyn had her interviews that day, she applied for a job in Guest Services and another one where she would have to start at 5am to leave bright, chirpy messages outlining the snow conditions for the day. Needless to say, she’s leaning more towards Guest Services. Zane and I had our interviews today, for roles in Food and Beverage, and now it’s just a matter of hearing how we went. Adam was really prepared, with no resume and seemingly, no inclination to even fill out the application form. He’s just a lucky bugger though. We could have all picked it, and sure enough, he came home today from his interview with a job at the rental shop, even thought the rest of us had been told we’d have to wait until the end of the week to hear about our fate. Typical Adam.
The wage most of us a looking at getting for our jobs up on the mountain is $8.50 an hour. Oh the riches. Given that, Robyn and I have been offering our services as babysitters. Together we looked after an 11-month-old on Saturday night. It started off really well. About two minutes after the parents left Robyn and I were playing with him and Robyn innocently gave him a little nudge to push him over towards me. He face-planted the wooden floor and there was that instant where you think “Oh he’s alright” but then the screaming started. Being the awesome, full-of-experience babysitter that I am, I laughed a little at the faceplant and then blanched. Crying child. What do I do? Luckily enough, Robyn was more resourceful and quickly occupied him with a toy to play with. Phew, crisis averted. Then, all was well until it was time for the kid to go to sleep. Wow, he had a set of lungs on him. I think he almost blew one of my eardrums while I was walking around with him trying to help him settle. He sure was a screamer. Robyn finally got him settled with some gentle, soothing pats, all the while I was upstairs vowing to never have children much less never babysit a baby again. In the end though, it was good money and the parents really appreciated the night out and maybe I’ll be better with children a bit older, ones that I can communicate with...
So it’s off to Cranbrook tomorrow to get our Social Insurance Number, all very exciting. It’s been snowing up on the hill quite a bit today, raining in town. They say in a few more days it’ll be cold enough in town and we’ll see some snow down here so that’s hugely exciting. I hope it’ll be like in the movies and we’ll just wake up one day and our front lawn will be blanketed in white.
Until it happens though, we’ll just have to wait.
Much snow-searching love, Z and T.
After some squealing on mine and Robyn’s part, we calmed down enough to realise that we needed a beer to celebrate our moving into our sweet pad. Robyn and Adam went off in search of an open bottleshop and Zane and I took the time to finally unpack our lives after 2 weeks of living in a suitcase. This was our new home.
Since then, we’ve been having nice little walks to check out the town of Fernie, I’ve joined the library, we’ve found a great coffee and bagel shop, we’ve done a big grocery shop and we’ve been really good, eating at home most nights.
Our one big night out in town started very innocently, as it always does. We decided we’d do a pub crawl as such, only a professional one, as we wanted to scope the bars and see where we might want to work. So off we went, starting at the Brickhouse where we thought we would sample the local brews. With such names as “What the huck” Huckleberry wheat ale, “Pumpkin Head” dark ale and “Ole Willy” Belgian Ale, how could we resist? Well, I wish we had. They weren’t much to write home about. We continued onto another pub and had a few more pitchers of whatever was on special. We also had poutine, which is a fat-tastic combination of French fries, gravy and curds, like melted cheese. It was quite delicious. We thought we’d finish off, by having a few bevs in the hostel bar, where Zane and I continued our winning streak in pool. And I wasn’t there just to make up the numbers, I can proudly say that I sunk a few balls and even sunk the winning black in a few of the games. I love how there’s that level of drunkenness where your pool skills seem to increase for a small amount of time.
We then headed home, Robyn and Adam actually sprinting, as Robyn was in the unfortunate position of needed to pee. It’s really cold over here, jumping behind a hedge would probably result in frostbitten genitals and that just wouldn’t be fun. As a matter of fact, once when we were walking home in Jasper, Adam alluded to needed a pair of tweezers to assist in locating his genitals in order to urinate. It’s really cold in Canada. So those two crazy kids ran off and Zane and I followed in a more leisurely pace. Obviously we just couldn’t just call it a night so down we went to try out the hot tub. It is quite a unique thing to sit in a pool of water over 40 degrees Celsius, while around you, your beers are keeping frosty in around -5 degrees Celsius.
On Friday night we headed out to see the local Ice Hockey team the Ghostriders take on the team from Kimberley. They were victorious of course and it was such a fun game. I’ve always been quite a passive, anti-violence person but I couldn’t help myself and soon enough I was cheering on the biffs like everyone. At one stage, after a particularly impressive fight, a player got sent off, not before showing off his blood nose to the crowd and ensuring he was escorted off amidst a raucous cheer and a few sprays of blood. It was a great atmosphere and we could get beers at the game and we met some locals, fun night all round.
The past couple of days we’ve been doing interviews for jobs up on the mountain. We all went up on the first day to lock in interviews for the following days for specific job positions. Robyn had her interviews that day, she applied for a job in Guest Services and another one where she would have to start at 5am to leave bright, chirpy messages outlining the snow conditions for the day. Needless to say, she’s leaning more towards Guest Services. Zane and I had our interviews today, for roles in Food and Beverage, and now it’s just a matter of hearing how we went. Adam was really prepared, with no resume and seemingly, no inclination to even fill out the application form. He’s just a lucky bugger though. We could have all picked it, and sure enough, he came home today from his interview with a job at the rental shop, even thought the rest of us had been told we’d have to wait until the end of the week to hear about our fate. Typical Adam.
The wage most of us a looking at getting for our jobs up on the mountain is $8.50 an hour. Oh the riches. Given that, Robyn and I have been offering our services as babysitters. Together we looked after an 11-month-old on Saturday night. It started off really well. About two minutes after the parents left Robyn and I were playing with him and Robyn innocently gave him a little nudge to push him over towards me. He face-planted the wooden floor and there was that instant where you think “Oh he’s alright” but then the screaming started. Being the awesome, full-of-experience babysitter that I am, I laughed a little at the faceplant and then blanched. Crying child. What do I do? Luckily enough, Robyn was more resourceful and quickly occupied him with a toy to play with. Phew, crisis averted. Then, all was well until it was time for the kid to go to sleep. Wow, he had a set of lungs on him. I think he almost blew one of my eardrums while I was walking around with him trying to help him settle. He sure was a screamer. Robyn finally got him settled with some gentle, soothing pats, all the while I was upstairs vowing to never have children much less never babysit a baby again. In the end though, it was good money and the parents really appreciated the night out and maybe I’ll be better with children a bit older, ones that I can communicate with...
So it’s off to Cranbrook tomorrow to get our Social Insurance Number, all very exciting. It’s been snowing up on the hill quite a bit today, raining in town. They say in a few more days it’ll be cold enough in town and we’ll see some snow down here so that’s hugely exciting. I hope it’ll be like in the movies and we’ll just wake up one day and our front lawn will be blanketed in white.
Until it happens though, we’ll just have to wait.
Much snow-searching love, Z and T.
Monday, October 18, 2010
BEWARE: Really long post. To bring you up to date, we've gone from Seattle to Vancouver, to Jasper, to Lake Louise and tonight, to Fernie. All in 5 days. Just about 2,000km. As we haven't had internet access for a few days, there's a lot to catch up on. These are just a few posts that I wrote up on the road, I'll do a bit more tomorrow. The moral of the story is, we're in Fernie, we have our dream condo, and all is good. Sitting on our new couch drinking an icy cold Bud. More posts and photos to come. Lots of Fernie love, T and Z.
BACK IN CANADA
With Crystal’s brakes fixed we were all set to leave Marysville, Washington State, and start our road trip to the Rockies. We readied ourselves for another probing (bad choice of words) at the US-Canada border. We already had some beers but we needed some hard liquor. And at as little as $15 for a 750mL bottle of Smirnoff who could say no? Obviously we would have liked to stock up to the max, but the border crossing limits were very specific; only 1.14L per person. This limited us somewhat. So we joined forces and bought a good line-up of vodka, gin, white rum, spiced rum and two types of bourbon. (And mum you’ll be happy to know we haven’t drunk it all. Yet..) But what about the beers? They would surely cut into our beverage allowance... Robyn and I therefore graciously took it upon ourselves to deal with the problem. Such selfless people that we are.
We then got up to the Canadian border, (Robyn and I a little bit giggly) with a wait time of two minutes as opposed to the two hours coming through the other way. We steeled ourselves for a barrage of questions and accusations.... and were waved through, basically welcomed with open arms! They didn’t even check the alcohol! Well, there was a stern customs officer, but he was Canadian, which is different to stern Americans. We softened ours up and in no time, he was giving us tips on the most scenic route to get to Fernie.
Ah back in Canada. If I knew the Canadian national anthem I would sing it. I love the different coloured maple leaves, floating to the ground. I love the reasonably portioned meals (in America we were still stuffed if we only ordered half sizes). I love the way people say “eh” a lot. But really, America was great. Sure we didn’t see much, just popped into Marysville for a few days, but everyone was super friendly and Walmart is great.
So on the Thursday we stayed just out of Vancouver and on Friday we drove through Squamish (or in the native language Sḵwxwú7mesh. And yes, that 7 IS meant to be there). We checked out the Shannon Falls which were really beautiful, there was a really nice walk you could do right up close to the falls. After Squamish we continued up to Whistler which was nice but it was such a miserable day that we didn’t stay very long. We had lunch and a little look around and then headed back on the road. Unfortunately the gondola was closed, probably due to weather, so we couldn’t ride up to the top which was a shame.
After Whistler we continued along and into cowboy country. That’s what it looked like to me, anyway. There were massive rolling green plains, the big mountains surrounding us, leftovers of old railway tracks, I could just imagine gun-toting, steed-riding pillagers riding through. We went through lots of pretty little one-street towns, and the whole way, massive lakes were snaking their way along through the mountains.
It was our plan to stay at Lillooet but upon our arrival we saw it was a very small town with limited places to stay and not much going on. Lillooet was beautiful, however, it was like a town all in a row, perched on the edge of a big canyon. We decided to carry on to the next town, which Adam said was a bit bigger. It was probably another hour in the car when we stumbled across Kamloops. I say stumbled across, and that is literally what happened. We were just cruising along and then BAM! out of nowhere, this massive town appeared! It had been hiding in the mountains and it had everything! Tim Horton’s, McDonalds, KFC, the sights were endless! We ended up staying at the Hospitality Inn and there was an Indian Restaurant next door. We shared butter chicken, lamb vindaloo and some rice and naan bread and it was so delicious.
After an early 7am wake-up and an abysmal Macca’s breakfast we hit the road again. The weather was so much better than the day before, clear, sunny skies. We couldn’t wait to see some sights. We came to Clearwater and drove to the nearby Helmcken Falls. The lady at the information booth said it was about an hour’s trip to get out there so we debated whether or not too do it, as we had a long slog to Jasper. We ended up going to see the sights and we made the trip round trip in just over an hour because we were hooning in good old Crystal. It was a good thing we made the trip as the falls were absolutely incredible. The crystal clear water was gushing down the falls into the pools 130m below. With the lush trees either side and the mist billowing off the falls, the sight was breathtaking.
We had a delicious lunch at the Clearwater bakery and cafe and then it was back on the road. Soon enough the mountains surrounding us began to have a dusting of snow on top and we knew we were getting closer. It was exciting just to see the snow-capped peaks jutting out from the clouds, as it’s been around 5 years since Zane or I have seen snow. There were even a few times that the light rain falling on the windshield looked particularly snow-like and Robyn and I got really excited but I think we may have been jumping the gun. There were sleety-like snow splodges, but nothing snowflake-y. Then, at 4:23pm Alberta time our first official flakes fell. It was so exciting, we wanted to do the official ‘first flakes’ celebration but as we were cruising down the highway at 110km per hour we couldn’t quite pull over to dance around and catch snowflakes on our eyelashes and tongue. So we all decided we’ll wait until we have nice big fat floaty flakes and dancing is appropriate. Plus, Adam prefers to dampen our first snow encounter, calling the precipitation “slein”, a cross between rain and sleet but whatever. Either way, Robyn and I will always remember our first snow(like) encounter.
We got into Jasper Friday night and it is such a beautiful town. Pretty little cobblestone and wooden houses, tree-lined streets, mountains in EVERY direction. We had a great dinner, splashed out and paid around $25 per main each, as opposed to the $5 per main each that we have become accustomed to. It was worth it though, Robyn and Adam had steak, Zane had barbecued ribs and I had grilled Mediterranean chicken. Yum.
So we had the most amazing day today. It didn’t start off too amazing though. Zane woke up at 7:30 and I woke up at 8:30 and we both must have thought, oh we’ll all wake up soon. We all woke up at 10:30. That is a late start. After showers and breakfast, we finally set off for our adventures at around midday. But we still managed to fit a lot in. We were going to do a climb up the Edith Cavalle Mountain but it closed yesterday! Fancy our luck. Oh well, plenty more to see and do. We were instructed by the nice information booth lady to check out Maligne {pronounced may-leen} Canyon and the surrounding lakes. The nice information booth lady also warned us that it was bear season and a few had been spotted recently in nearby areas.
Segue: For a few weeks I’ve been doing this blog and I’ve really been enjoying it, I find it quite therapeutic and it’s a great way to chronicle experiences and thoughts that might otherwise be forgotten. So I’ve gotten into the habit of incorporating the word ‘blog’ into my daily vernacular. This isn’t good when you’re travelling with people like Zane and Adam, who have jumped on the fact that the word blog also rhymes with a word that colloquially means to defecate. You can imagine my conundrum. Here I am talking about seeing something exciting and looking forward to blogging, or discussing all the various showers we’ve encountered, different pressures and nozzle heights and whatnot and maybe making a shower blog... you can imagine how it quickly turns to ahem... toilet humour, and let me tell you – I like to blog a lot!.
Anyway we were talking about the possibility of seeing a bear. I was the only one blogscared of seeing one, the others were super keen to see a massive grizzly. Robyn said how it would be an experience worthy of blogging about, I said I’d probably blog myself right there and then (hey, if you can’t beat them...).
So off we went to the Maligne Canyon. It’s a steep-walled gorge of limestone bedrock. At the first bridge we crossed, the gorge went down 51m. It sure was an amazing sight. There was all this greenery growing either side of the gorge and if you really leaned over you could just see the water gushing down below. Scientists have worked out that during Winter, water takes 88 hours to run through the 16km underground caves and tunnels, however, during the summer months, when run-off is the highest, the water only takes 12 hours.
The Maligne canyon meets up with the maligne river which then runs through Medicine lake, through to Maligne Lake. Medicine lake was the next stop and it was an action-packed area. We saw a mummy elk with its little babies and then about 10m down the road we saw a BEAR! A real grizzly! Just 10m away from the car, digging around in the dirt, so cool. I was a bit scared but it was just happy loping around. And then another couple of metres down the road we saw a mountain goat! And then another couple of metres down we saw a moose! Wildlife galore! It was like Winter Safari! Such an epic day.
The Maligne Lake is 97m deep and 22km long and it is surrounded by mountains and when we went there, there was snow all around the edge of the water. We crunched our way through, finding bear prints (perhaps) and making our own tracks. It truly was an amazing sight. The water was as still as glass and there was stillness to the air that is hard to describe. It was so serene, nothing to be heard, and the enormous mountains surrounding us. When we were in Vancouver, we just couldn’t believe how familiar it felt. It really seemed like we could’ve been anywhere. But today, nestled in those mountains, standing by that lake, there is nowhere else we could have been. Today, with the bear, the snow, the moose, the elk, the icicles glistening from pine fronds, we were in Canada.
Lots of Canadian love, T and Z.
BACK IN CANADA
With Crystal’s brakes fixed we were all set to leave Marysville, Washington State, and start our road trip to the Rockies. We readied ourselves for another probing (bad choice of words) at the US-Canada border. We already had some beers but we needed some hard liquor. And at as little as $15 for a 750mL bottle of Smirnoff who could say no? Obviously we would have liked to stock up to the max, but the border crossing limits were very specific; only 1.14L per person. This limited us somewhat. So we joined forces and bought a good line-up of vodka, gin, white rum, spiced rum and two types of bourbon. (And mum you’ll be happy to know we haven’t drunk it all. Yet..) But what about the beers? They would surely cut into our beverage allowance... Robyn and I therefore graciously took it upon ourselves to deal with the problem. Such selfless people that we are.
We then got up to the Canadian border, (Robyn and I a little bit giggly) with a wait time of two minutes as opposed to the two hours coming through the other way. We steeled ourselves for a barrage of questions and accusations.... and were waved through, basically welcomed with open arms! They didn’t even check the alcohol! Well, there was a stern customs officer, but he was Canadian, which is different to stern Americans. We softened ours up and in no time, he was giving us tips on the most scenic route to get to Fernie.
Ah back in Canada. If I knew the Canadian national anthem I would sing it. I love the different coloured maple leaves, floating to the ground. I love the reasonably portioned meals (in America we were still stuffed if we only ordered half sizes). I love the way people say “eh” a lot. But really, America was great. Sure we didn’t see much, just popped into Marysville for a few days, but everyone was super friendly and Walmart is great.
So on the Thursday we stayed just out of Vancouver and on Friday we drove through Squamish (or in the native language Sḵwxwú7mesh. And yes, that 7 IS meant to be there). We checked out the Shannon Falls which were really beautiful, there was a really nice walk you could do right up close to the falls. After Squamish we continued up to Whistler which was nice but it was such a miserable day that we didn’t stay very long. We had lunch and a little look around and then headed back on the road. Unfortunately the gondola was closed, probably due to weather, so we couldn’t ride up to the top which was a shame.
After Whistler we continued along and into cowboy country. That’s what it looked like to me, anyway. There were massive rolling green plains, the big mountains surrounding us, leftovers of old railway tracks, I could just imagine gun-toting, steed-riding pillagers riding through. We went through lots of pretty little one-street towns, and the whole way, massive lakes were snaking their way along through the mountains.
It was our plan to stay at Lillooet but upon our arrival we saw it was a very small town with limited places to stay and not much going on. Lillooet was beautiful, however, it was like a town all in a row, perched on the edge of a big canyon. We decided to carry on to the next town, which Adam said was a bit bigger. It was probably another hour in the car when we stumbled across Kamloops. I say stumbled across, and that is literally what happened. We were just cruising along and then BAM! out of nowhere, this massive town appeared! It had been hiding in the mountains and it had everything! Tim Horton’s, McDonalds, KFC, the sights were endless! We ended up staying at the Hospitality Inn and there was an Indian Restaurant next door. We shared butter chicken, lamb vindaloo and some rice and naan bread and it was so delicious.
After an early 7am wake-up and an abysmal Macca’s breakfast we hit the road again. The weather was so much better than the day before, clear, sunny skies. We couldn’t wait to see some sights. We came to Clearwater and drove to the nearby Helmcken Falls. The lady at the information booth said it was about an hour’s trip to get out there so we debated whether or not too do it, as we had a long slog to Jasper. We ended up going to see the sights and we made the trip round trip in just over an hour because we were hooning in good old Crystal. It was a good thing we made the trip as the falls were absolutely incredible. The crystal clear water was gushing down the falls into the pools 130m below. With the lush trees either side and the mist billowing off the falls, the sight was breathtaking.
We had a delicious lunch at the Clearwater bakery and cafe and then it was back on the road. Soon enough the mountains surrounding us began to have a dusting of snow on top and we knew we were getting closer. It was exciting just to see the snow-capped peaks jutting out from the clouds, as it’s been around 5 years since Zane or I have seen snow. There were even a few times that the light rain falling on the windshield looked particularly snow-like and Robyn and I got really excited but I think we may have been jumping the gun. There were sleety-like snow splodges, but nothing snowflake-y. Then, at 4:23pm Alberta time our first official flakes fell. It was so exciting, we wanted to do the official ‘first flakes’ celebration but as we were cruising down the highway at 110km per hour we couldn’t quite pull over to dance around and catch snowflakes on our eyelashes and tongue. So we all decided we’ll wait until we have nice big fat floaty flakes and dancing is appropriate. Plus, Adam prefers to dampen our first snow encounter, calling the precipitation “slein”, a cross between rain and sleet but whatever. Either way, Robyn and I will always remember our first snow(like) encounter.
We got into Jasper Friday night and it is such a beautiful town. Pretty little cobblestone and wooden houses, tree-lined streets, mountains in EVERY direction. We had a great dinner, splashed out and paid around $25 per main each, as opposed to the $5 per main each that we have become accustomed to. It was worth it though, Robyn and Adam had steak, Zane had barbecued ribs and I had grilled Mediterranean chicken. Yum.
So we had the most amazing day today. It didn’t start off too amazing though. Zane woke up at 7:30 and I woke up at 8:30 and we both must have thought, oh we’ll all wake up soon. We all woke up at 10:30. That is a late start. After showers and breakfast, we finally set off for our adventures at around midday. But we still managed to fit a lot in. We were going to do a climb up the Edith Cavalle Mountain but it closed yesterday! Fancy our luck. Oh well, plenty more to see and do. We were instructed by the nice information booth lady to check out Maligne {pronounced may-leen} Canyon and the surrounding lakes. The nice information booth lady also warned us that it was bear season and a few had been spotted recently in nearby areas.
Segue: For a few weeks I’ve been doing this blog and I’ve really been enjoying it, I find it quite therapeutic and it’s a great way to chronicle experiences and thoughts that might otherwise be forgotten. So I’ve gotten into the habit of incorporating the word ‘blog’ into my daily vernacular. This isn’t good when you’re travelling with people like Zane and Adam, who have jumped on the fact that the word blog also rhymes with a word that colloquially means to defecate. You can imagine my conundrum. Here I am talking about seeing something exciting and looking forward to blogging, or discussing all the various showers we’ve encountered, different pressures and nozzle heights and whatnot and maybe making a shower blog... you can imagine how it quickly turns to ahem... toilet humour, and let me tell you – I like to blog a lot!.
Anyway we were talking about the possibility of seeing a bear. I was the only one blogscared of seeing one, the others were super keen to see a massive grizzly. Robyn said how it would be an experience worthy of blogging about, I said I’d probably blog myself right there and then (hey, if you can’t beat them...).
So off we went to the Maligne Canyon. It’s a steep-walled gorge of limestone bedrock. At the first bridge we crossed, the gorge went down 51m. It sure was an amazing sight. There was all this greenery growing either side of the gorge and if you really leaned over you could just see the water gushing down below. Scientists have worked out that during Winter, water takes 88 hours to run through the 16km underground caves and tunnels, however, during the summer months, when run-off is the highest, the water only takes 12 hours.
The Maligne canyon meets up with the maligne river which then runs through Medicine lake, through to Maligne Lake. Medicine lake was the next stop and it was an action-packed area. We saw a mummy elk with its little babies and then about 10m down the road we saw a BEAR! A real grizzly! Just 10m away from the car, digging around in the dirt, so cool. I was a bit scared but it was just happy loping around. And then another couple of metres down the road we saw a mountain goat! And then another couple of metres down we saw a moose! Wildlife galore! It was like Winter Safari! Such an epic day.
The Maligne Lake is 97m deep and 22km long and it is surrounded by mountains and when we went there, there was snow all around the edge of the water. We crunched our way through, finding bear prints (perhaps) and making our own tracks. It truly was an amazing sight. The water was as still as glass and there was stillness to the air that is hard to describe. It was so serene, nothing to be heard, and the enormous mountains surrounding us. When we were in Vancouver, we just couldn’t believe how familiar it felt. It really seemed like we could’ve been anywhere. But today, nestled in those mountains, standing by that lake, there is nowhere else we could have been. Today, with the bear, the snow, the moose, the elk, the icicles glistening from pine fronds, we were in Canada.
Lots of Canadian love, T and Z.
Tuesday, October 12, 2010
THE US OF A
On Sunday morning we packed up all our belongings into Crystal the car and headed off for the US of A. “Only two hours to Seattle,” Adam said, “only a quick drive” he assured us. So there we were, squished into Crystal, Zane and I in the back all snuggled up against the door on the right-hand side as we had to put down a seat to accommodate for our massive haul of skis and snowboards and whatnot.
It started off great, sing-a-longs and root beer. And then we got to the border crossing. Where we waited. And waited. Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaand waited. Like, forever. I understand in this day and age security is really necessary, but all I’m saying is, it’s hard not to be frustrated when you’ve consumed 2 litres of root beer and you can’t move your arms more than twelve millimetres and the only radio station you can find plays non-stop country and it’s hot and you’re cranky. We were cruising down the highway at an epic speed of about 1 km per hour. Eventually however, we got to the crossing (cheers rang out across the range) and the obligatory stern American was there to glare at us and demand the answers to lots of questions.
Who are you? Where are you going? How long are you in the States for? All this stuff for three days?
After the interrogation at the crossing we were ushered into an office for Visa checks and fingerprinting. After we were all printed up and on the system, we were free to get back on the road. Straight after our release our top priority was food. I was hankering for some nice big juicy ribs or chicken wings or something terribly Yankee and Fattee and oh were my prayers answered at Bob’s Burgers and Brews. Zane and I both had the Western Bar-B-Q Burger, a calorific fat-fest of a 6 oz slab of meat, 3 slices of bacon, crispy fried onion rings, cheese, salad, ranch and barbecue rib sauce. Oh Yeah. Just thinking about it gives me heart palpitations.
When we got to our hotel we decided that, rather than lug all our ski and snowboard stuff up to the room, we’d just leave it in the car. That was until Adam looked on trip advisor and read a recent review from a gentleman that had his work vehicle stolen from the car park of the same hotel not once, but twice. Nice. Having said that though, the hotel has been really nice, and I haven’t felt unsafe at all, and we’ve been walking to nearby take-out places for dinner at night. Luckily no one has tampered with Crystal.
Yesterday we got some retail therapy at this massive outlet shopping town where all these brands were on sale for at least 50% off. We got our shop on. In moderation though. We all got nice Winter Freezing-Fernie-proof jackets. In the afternoon, Zane and Adam went to the Boeing factory. There they have the biggest building IN THE WORLD based on volume. In it they make one 737 every day. Soon they will be accredited to make the new 787’s and they will be making one every three days.
While the boys nerded it up with planes, Robyn and I continued our assault on the shops. After a tough day, we were ready for a beer. We asked a lady in one of the shops for directions to the nearest bar and she pointed us in the direction of another Bob’s Burgers and Brews. “It’s just next door” she said, “really close”. Yeah, we’d heard that before. Nonetheless, our thirst propelled us onwards to Bob’s. After 15 minutes of stumbling through the wilderness, a casino appeared like a mirage in the desert. But it was not to be. We went in singing ‘hey big spender’ discussing how much we’d have to bet before we’d be offered free cocktails. We walked out approximately 2 minutes later, having been kicked out by surly bar staff that wouldn’t accept our Aus ID. Obviously, in our haste to get to the shops, we’d neglected to pack our passports. We were getting desperate. And thirsty. Another fifteen minutes later we stumbled into Bob’s, parched like the desert, only to be turned away, yet again, thirsty. Devastation. I tried to look on the bright side. At least we looked youthful. So we sat in Bob’s, drinking our Diet Dr. Pepper, eating our chicken wings, and knitting.
Thankfully, when we caught up with the boys, they were thirsty as well so we sent Adam into a Bottle-O (he looks the oldest) and he soon returned with 2 six-packs of Bud for $13! Amazing.
Tomorrow, we’re going to get Crystal’s brakes fixed and then hopefully we’ll be ready to go to Fernie! Can’t wait to get our SNOW ON OH YEAHHHH.
Love, T and Z.
On Sunday morning we packed up all our belongings into Crystal the car and headed off for the US of A. “Only two hours to Seattle,” Adam said, “only a quick drive” he assured us. So there we were, squished into Crystal, Zane and I in the back all snuggled up against the door on the right-hand side as we had to put down a seat to accommodate for our massive haul of skis and snowboards and whatnot.
It started off great, sing-a-longs and root beer. And then we got to the border crossing. Where we waited. And waited. Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaand waited. Like, forever. I understand in this day and age security is really necessary, but all I’m saying is, it’s hard not to be frustrated when you’ve consumed 2 litres of root beer and you can’t move your arms more than twelve millimetres and the only radio station you can find plays non-stop country and it’s hot and you’re cranky. We were cruising down the highway at an epic speed of about 1 km per hour. Eventually however, we got to the crossing (cheers rang out across the range) and the obligatory stern American was there to glare at us and demand the answers to lots of questions.
Who are you? Where are you going? How long are you in the States for? All this stuff for three days?
After the interrogation at the crossing we were ushered into an office for Visa checks and fingerprinting. After we were all printed up and on the system, we were free to get back on the road. Straight after our release our top priority was food. I was hankering for some nice big juicy ribs or chicken wings or something terribly Yankee and Fattee and oh were my prayers answered at Bob’s Burgers and Brews. Zane and I both had the Western Bar-B-Q Burger, a calorific fat-fest of a 6 oz slab of meat, 3 slices of bacon, crispy fried onion rings, cheese, salad, ranch and barbecue rib sauce. Oh Yeah. Just thinking about it gives me heart palpitations.
When we got to our hotel we decided that, rather than lug all our ski and snowboard stuff up to the room, we’d just leave it in the car. That was until Adam looked on trip advisor and read a recent review from a gentleman that had his work vehicle stolen from the car park of the same hotel not once, but twice. Nice. Having said that though, the hotel has been really nice, and I haven’t felt unsafe at all, and we’ve been walking to nearby take-out places for dinner at night. Luckily no one has tampered with Crystal.
Yesterday we got some retail therapy at this massive outlet shopping town where all these brands were on sale for at least 50% off. We got our shop on. In moderation though. We all got nice Winter Freezing-Fernie-proof jackets. In the afternoon, Zane and Adam went to the Boeing factory. There they have the biggest building IN THE WORLD based on volume. In it they make one 737 every day. Soon they will be accredited to make the new 787’s and they will be making one every three days.
While the boys nerded it up with planes, Robyn and I continued our assault on the shops. After a tough day, we were ready for a beer. We asked a lady in one of the shops for directions to the nearest bar and she pointed us in the direction of another Bob’s Burgers and Brews. “It’s just next door” she said, “really close”. Yeah, we’d heard that before. Nonetheless, our thirst propelled us onwards to Bob’s. After 15 minutes of stumbling through the wilderness, a casino appeared like a mirage in the desert. But it was not to be. We went in singing ‘hey big spender’ discussing how much we’d have to bet before we’d be offered free cocktails. We walked out approximately 2 minutes later, having been kicked out by surly bar staff that wouldn’t accept our Aus ID. Obviously, in our haste to get to the shops, we’d neglected to pack our passports. We were getting desperate. And thirsty. Another fifteen minutes later we stumbled into Bob’s, parched like the desert, only to be turned away, yet again, thirsty. Devastation. I tried to look on the bright side. At least we looked youthful. So we sat in Bob’s, drinking our Diet Dr. Pepper, eating our chicken wings, and knitting.
Thankfully, when we caught up with the boys, they were thirsty as well so we sent Adam into a Bottle-O (he looks the oldest) and he soon returned with 2 six-packs of Bud for $13! Amazing.
Tomorrow, we’re going to get Crystal’s brakes fixed and then hopefully we’ll be ready to go to Fernie! Can’t wait to get our SNOW ON OH YEAHHHH.
Love, T and Z.
Sunday, October 10, 2010
Saturday, October 9, 2010
THANKSGIVING!
Today Zane and I went to historic Gastown, it's down by the water and it was Vancouver's commercial and shipping hub back in the late 1800's. John Deighton, "Gassy Jack" as he was known, perhaps due to his rumoured flatulence problem, set up a saloon in the area in 1867 and the area is now full of eclectic shops, cafes and pubs.
One of the main attractions is the steam clock, the first of its kind in the world. Every four and a half minutes steam powers one of the steel weights up to the top of the clock, and the steam winds the weights and causes the clock to chime on the half hour.The steam comes from underground, courtesy of Central Heat Distributions Ltd and the clock weighs over two tonnes and costs over $42,000.
Zane and I had a real coffee (soy flat white - splurge day!) and cheesecake in an organic coffee shop and had a little look around the shops. We had lunch at 'The Old Spaghetti Factory', where Zane pointed out that they had not only salt and pepper shakers on the table, but parmesan cheese as well. "Yeah I think this place does a few pasta and Italian dishes" I replied earnestly, soon to have it brought to my knowledge that we were at the SPAGHETTI FACTORY. Duh.
Zane and I both opted for the $8 lunch special which was a beef burger with chips which would have been perfectly fine had it not been preceded by the included bread and salad or soup. The salad dressing options alone took more than three minutes for the waiter to describe... too many choices. Nevertheless we managed to finish most of the food and waddle home.
As this weekend is Thanksgiving, we thought we'd surprise Robyn and Adam with a true Canadian roast turkey dinner and pumpkin pie for dessert. They've just got home from buying a car. A white Ford Explorer called Crystal. The name originated because when I first saw the car, I misread a word on the numberplate as Crystal, instead of Coastal, and the name was decided. Adam hates the name and I think he dies on the inside every time I say it, but I think it far surpasses in coolness any name that he has suggested, such as Bob, Bruce and Butch. Rocky is a better suggestion, as our maiden expedition will be through the Rockies but we'll just have to wait and see. Crystal Rock or Rocky Crystal might have to be the compromise.
As it's thanksgiving, I have compiled a list of things that we are thankful of...
- The ability to travel
- Our travel buddies
- My awesome turkey roasting skills
- Cheap beer ($10 a 6pack!)
- Friends and Family (whom we miss!)
Lots of love and thanks, T and Z
PS: Posting some photos of our first drunken night out.. Good $4 mojito times
Today Zane and I went to historic Gastown, it's down by the water and it was Vancouver's commercial and shipping hub back in the late 1800's. John Deighton, "Gassy Jack" as he was known, perhaps due to his rumoured flatulence problem, set up a saloon in the area in 1867 and the area is now full of eclectic shops, cafes and pubs.
One of the main attractions is the steam clock, the first of its kind in the world. Every four and a half minutes steam powers one of the steel weights up to the top of the clock, and the steam winds the weights and causes the clock to chime on the half hour.The steam comes from underground, courtesy of Central Heat Distributions Ltd and the clock weighs over two tonnes and costs over $42,000.
Zane and I had a real coffee (soy flat white - splurge day!) and cheesecake in an organic coffee shop and had a little look around the shops. We had lunch at 'The Old Spaghetti Factory', where Zane pointed out that they had not only salt and pepper shakers on the table, but parmesan cheese as well. "Yeah I think this place does a few pasta and Italian dishes" I replied earnestly, soon to have it brought to my knowledge that we were at the SPAGHETTI FACTORY. Duh.
Zane and I both opted for the $8 lunch special which was a beef burger with chips which would have been perfectly fine had it not been preceded by the included bread and salad or soup. The salad dressing options alone took more than three minutes for the waiter to describe... too many choices. Nevertheless we managed to finish most of the food and waddle home.
As this weekend is Thanksgiving, we thought we'd surprise Robyn and Adam with a true Canadian roast turkey dinner and pumpkin pie for dessert. They've just got home from buying a car. A white Ford Explorer called Crystal. The name originated because when I first saw the car, I misread a word on the numberplate as Crystal, instead of Coastal, and the name was decided. Adam hates the name and I think he dies on the inside every time I say it, but I think it far surpasses in coolness any name that he has suggested, such as Bob, Bruce and Butch. Rocky is a better suggestion, as our maiden expedition will be through the Rockies but we'll just have to wait and see. Crystal Rock or Rocky Crystal might have to be the compromise.
As it's thanksgiving, I have compiled a list of things that we are thankful of...
- The ability to travel
- Our travel buddies
- My awesome turkey roasting skills
- Cheap beer ($10 a 6pack!)
- Friends and Family (whom we miss!)
Lots of love and thanks, T and Z
PS: Posting some photos of our first drunken night out.. Good $4 mojito times
Thursday, October 7, 2010
!
VANCOUVER!
We have been in Vancouver for four days now and we are having an amazing time. We have been employing the strictest of budgets; we steal sweet treats from the included continental breakfast, to tide us over through morning tea, we’ve been drinking drip coffee (only $2 a cup!), we’ve been sniffing out all the cheap eats (haven’t yet paid over $10 for a meal!) and we haven’t even been drunk yet! That’s 3 nights of non-drunkeness! That is very rare, especially when the four of us are together! And I haven’t even bought clothes (except for a $25 leather jacket from an op shop but come on, how could I resist?).
We’ve been having a great time, just exploring the city, we had a great day on Tuesday, checking out Stanley Park, I think we walked almost 15kms. It was a great day though, and we walked home through historic Gastown and had a few local Granville Island beers (beers over here come in ‘sleeves’, they’re a bit bigger than a schooner and as cheap as $1.60 on special! Amazing!). Last night we went over to Granville Island to check out the night markets.. which were closed at 7pm.. night markets whateverrrr.. having said that, we were too busy having beer and YAM FRIES (they call sweet potato yam) and they were delicious. Better than normal fries. Wings are next on the agenda, and some maple syrup. On our first day here we had a Canadian Maple donut from Tim Horton’s (did you know it’s Justin Bieber’s favourite restaurant?) and it was pretty good but we haven’t had any real syrup yet. I have picked a few maple leaves though, to press and keep as bookmarks..Oh I’m such a Nana. My scarf is going well BTW.
OK well it’s beer time.
Missing Australia and, strangely, Vegemite, BUT I have YAM FRIES to see me through ohh yeahhhhh
Love, T and Z
We have been in Vancouver for four days now and we are having an amazing time. We have been employing the strictest of budgets; we steal sweet treats from the included continental breakfast, to tide us over through morning tea, we’ve been drinking drip coffee (only $2 a cup!), we’ve been sniffing out all the cheap eats (haven’t yet paid over $10 for a meal!) and we haven’t even been drunk yet! That’s 3 nights of non-drunkeness! That is very rare, especially when the four of us are together! And I haven’t even bought clothes (except for a $25 leather jacket from an op shop but come on, how could I resist?).
We’ve been having a great time, just exploring the city, we had a great day on Tuesday, checking out Stanley Park, I think we walked almost 15kms. It was a great day though, and we walked home through historic Gastown and had a few local Granville Island beers (beers over here come in ‘sleeves’, they’re a bit bigger than a schooner and as cheap as $1.60 on special! Amazing!). Last night we went over to Granville Island to check out the night markets.. which were closed at 7pm.. night markets whateverrrr.. having said that, we were too busy having beer and YAM FRIES (they call sweet potato yam) and they were delicious. Better than normal fries. Wings are next on the agenda, and some maple syrup. On our first day here we had a Canadian Maple donut from Tim Horton’s (did you know it’s Justin Bieber’s favourite restaurant?) and it was pretty good but we haven’t had any real syrup yet. I have picked a few maple leaves though, to press and keep as bookmarks..Oh I’m such a Nana. My scarf is going well BTW.
OK well it’s beer time.
Missing Australia and, strangely, Vegemite, BUT I have YAM FRIES to see me through ohh yeahhhhh
Love, T and Z
Sunday, October 3, 2010
THE TIME HAS COME...
Bags are packed, alarm has been set, vaccines have been injected and scripts have been filled. Not exaggerating about medication, we have four hundred and seventy-six anti-malaria tablets, two different types of antibiotics, and we have been injected with no less than six vaccines each. Pretty sure our medical expenses have paid for our doctors’ next holiday.
Our final week in Brisbane has been epic. Zane clocked almost 700kmon our trip to Kingaroy via Buderim, then back to Brisbane via Toowoomba. And now, less than seven hours before we start our travels to Canada, I’m enjoying gelato and a nice glass of wine after Thai food for dinner yum.
It’ll be a few days before we’re settled and blogging again, so we should have lots of fun Vancouver-y stories to tell, but for now, I don’t have much so I’ll tell you about the night we met…
Fear not, this isn’t a soppy story about how Zane and I courted back in ’05 (but FYI Milton Bowling Alley – love at first strike), no, this is a story about how we met our travel buddies.
It was way back in ’09, first night of Race Week on the island and our mutual friend Carrie had invited us onto the Denison Star (Hamilton Island’s Cruise and Dine boat) as they were taking photos for the new brochure. Not being able to say no to a friend (or free alcohol) we readily accepted, got all prettied and met up with Robyn and Adam, a couple we’d seen around the island but didn’t really know. A few hours later we were the best of friends, funny how copious amounts of wine does that. As we stumbled down Front St, Robyn stumbled a bit too boisterously, falling over in front of Popeye’s Fish and Chips store. Being the caring, first-aid-aware member of the group, I immediately took it upon myself to run, whooping siren noises and yelling “ERT on scene” into the fairly busy fish and chips store, where I acquired their first aid kit and delivered the very best care to poor Robyn. After a band-aid, a beer and a “you’ll be right”, we carried on into the night, without further ado, the night ending rather spectacularly with Zane going over to our new friends’ house, staying 10 minutes, vomiting, and leaving. Best buds forever. Fast forward to a few months ago and, because of that night and perhaps my drunken diagnoses, Robyn had to get part of her hip-bone chipped off and put into her wrist as the broken bone was disintegrating and causing her serious pain. Whoops.
The moral of the story is… Don’t trust me with medical business when I’m getting my beer on, friendship can survive vomit and broken bones, and we are going to have so much fun in Canada I can’t wait.
Talk to you soon from Vancouver!
Love, T and Z
Oh, PS. Learnt how to knit today. Coolest thing ever, not joking. Feel even more like a Nana though.
Bags are packed, alarm has been set, vaccines have been injected and scripts have been filled. Not exaggerating about medication, we have four hundred and seventy-six anti-malaria tablets, two different types of antibiotics, and we have been injected with no less than six vaccines each. Pretty sure our medical expenses have paid for our doctors’ next holiday.
Our final week in Brisbane has been epic. Zane clocked almost 700kmon our trip to Kingaroy via Buderim, then back to Brisbane via Toowoomba. And now, less than seven hours before we start our travels to Canada, I’m enjoying gelato and a nice glass of wine after Thai food for dinner yum.
It’ll be a few days before we’re settled and blogging again, so we should have lots of fun Vancouver-y stories to tell, but for now, I don’t have much so I’ll tell you about the night we met…
Fear not, this isn’t a soppy story about how Zane and I courted back in ’05 (but FYI Milton Bowling Alley – love at first strike), no, this is a story about how we met our travel buddies.
It was way back in ’09, first night of Race Week on the island and our mutual friend Carrie had invited us onto the Denison Star (Hamilton Island’s Cruise and Dine boat) as they were taking photos for the new brochure. Not being able to say no to a friend (or free alcohol) we readily accepted, got all prettied and met up with Robyn and Adam, a couple we’d seen around the island but didn’t really know. A few hours later we were the best of friends, funny how copious amounts of wine does that. As we stumbled down Front St, Robyn stumbled a bit too boisterously, falling over in front of Popeye’s Fish and Chips store. Being the caring, first-aid-aware member of the group, I immediately took it upon myself to run, whooping siren noises and yelling “ERT on scene” into the fairly busy fish and chips store, where I acquired their first aid kit and delivered the very best care to poor Robyn. After a band-aid, a beer and a “you’ll be right”, we carried on into the night, without further ado, the night ending rather spectacularly with Zane going over to our new friends’ house, staying 10 minutes, vomiting, and leaving. Best buds forever. Fast forward to a few months ago and, because of that night and perhaps my drunken diagnoses, Robyn had to get part of her hip-bone chipped off and put into her wrist as the broken bone was disintegrating and causing her serious pain. Whoops.
The moral of the story is… Don’t trust me with medical business when I’m getting my beer on, friendship can survive vomit and broken bones, and we are going to have so much fun in Canada I can’t wait.
Talk to you soon from Vancouver!
Love, T and Z
Oh, PS. Learnt how to knit today. Coolest thing ever, not joking. Feel even more like a Nana though.
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