The Big Whacky World Adventure (Sabbatical)

This will have some short entries from my 2 year sabbatical that will invoke me visiting NZ, Canada, UK and what ever other places I eventually go to... as yet, I havent started making any entries, but as I get time I will...

Went for a day trip to Banff yesterday. Hired a car (Pontiac Sunfire.. brand new, only 1400km on the clock.. super sweet!) and took a drive. We did a walk up to the Ink Pots in Johnson Canyon.. very nice. The water in the Ink Pots is so very cold. I wish I had have bought my water treatment stuff with me. I would have been so nice to drink from. The only thing that stopped me was all the algae in parts of the ponds. Generally, its not a good idea to drink from that mountain water, unless you treat it first.

It was a really hot day.. it must have got up to about 30 degrees. In the dry, its a different heat, than the normal tropical heat of Brisbane that I am used to, but it wasnt too bad.

Then we went to the Sulphur Mt Gondola in Banff. Excellent views from the top of the whole area. We should get some nice piccies out of that. We still havent developed any photos whilst we have been here. That includes the water proof camera. Soon, soon.

Then we went to the Hoodoos. Bizzare formations of rock, formed by limestone that has cemented sand.. then the water has washed away all the sand around the area untill the stuctures are left standing alone on the hill side.

The we went to a Tex-Mex resturant and bar called Magpie and Stump. Very nice. We had a relaxing meal outside, followed by yummy ice creams from Cows on the mainstreet.

We were going to go to the hot springs for a dip, but decided that the springs in Fairmont were enough and it was time to go home.

Driving on the otherside of the road aint much of a problem.. you just have to remember that you (the driver) must be close to the centre line.. no worries.

Anyway, lets do a recap on what I've done since that last entry in May

• Went to Vancouver Island and did the Seagull Bus tour. Lots of fun. Met a band called Nonetheless from Port Alberni in Nanaimo. They're going to send me a demo of their stuff, since they didnt have any CDs to buy. They sounded pretty cool. The Cambie at Nanaimo is a pub first, hostel second. Tofino was nice. Did an excellent walk at Meares' Island. Real rain forest.. really wet and muddy. Way cool. Did all the usual tourist stuff.. a walk at Long Beach, Cathedral Grove (for the big trees, although Meares' Island had a few big trees of its own), the "Bog" and some other walk in the Pacific Rim park. Then we went back to Vancouver.
  
  
• Grandville Island Markets are cool. The fresh pasta they sell is the best, although some places there cant tell the difference between a pretzel and a bagel. Went to Whistler.
  
  
• Whistler was sunny, but it really is a tourist town, in a really bad way. The day trip up the gondola was $22+tax. We gave it a miss. Even the Gondola ride at Sulphur Mt was on $19.95 inc tax and it was much better than Whistler. We walked around alot, but all the activities were a little out of our price range. At least we had our own room, with cable. Sweet! Back to Vancouver.
  
  
• Then to Kelowna. The Kelowna Internation Hostel (FIH) is a really fun place. Its the people that make it so. Did a bit of a wine tour with some of the people that had cars. Ice wine is really yummy. A really fun few days... then to sunny Penticton.
  
  
• Well, not so sunny. In fact, without the sun, it sucks. Truely, so check the weather report before you go, or just dont go until late July/August. We did do the old train trail via mountain bike. That was okay, exept it was raining. Cathy got a mild asthma attack, so we had to get a ride back to Penticton. She was okay after that. I think it was just the biking up hill, and that the seats kept slipping down, making it very hard to ride without a whole lot of huffing and puffing. Penticton sucked so much, we went back to Vancouver for a couple of nights.
  
  
• And then we went to Kamloops. Kamloops, Kamloops, Kamloops, what to say about Kamloops. Its dry, the water is not always safe to drink from the tap, some people who live there do not know where the post office is and cant give decent directions for the bus route... They dont have that many. For such a small population, they certainly have some very bizzare looking people. Very short people.. (like 4 foot nothing) and some very unattractive people. I think the ugly stick runs riot in that town. Anyway, it was just a stop over and a storage place for our proper destination.. the Berg Lake Trail at Mt Robson. But first, we had to go to Jasper.
  
  
• We're doing most of Canada via the Greyhound Bus on a 60-day pass. Its the best and cheapest way to travel if you want to go from A to B and see everything else in between, short of hitchhiking. One of the side effects of travelling this way is sticking to the bus timetable. So we had to get a ride to Japser, then double back to Mt Robson, otherwise we would have had to get off the bus at 4:00am. No thanks. Anyway, Japser HI was really busy. A bunch of kids were going through on MTBs, so it was a bit nuts. Thanks God it was only one night. We had to two worst snorers in the dorm. The one closest to me had the regular engine/chainsaw thing happening. I had to get up and get some ear plugs just before 2am, or I was not going to get to sleep at all. The guy closest to Cathy had this gargle snore deal going on. She wanted to poke him with a stick and make him swallow whatever he had in his mouth. Luckily she found her ear plugs, but I dont think they helped a whole lot. Anyway, next day was the bus ride to Mt Robson.
  
  
• We arrive at the visitors centre at about 12:15pm, registered and were on our way to the Berg Lake Trail head by about 1:00pm. The Breg Lake Trail is a 23 km track with about 7 campsites along the way. You can walk to the top, you can camp if you register, you can catch a helicopter to the top also. The only way out, though, is to hike. Anyway, we were in for the long haul. We had just about everything, except for a few bags of crap that we had stored at Kamloops.
  
  

  The first night was spent at the Kinney Lake site, about 7km from the trail head. We had to walk to the trail also, so that was about 10km all up. With all the bags on our backs, that was enough walking for the day. Kinney Lake is a beautiful blue green lake with mountainous backdrops, really something, and by far the best lake we have seen so far in Canada. I dont think that Lac Moraine or Lac Louise would top it. We new we had a big day the next day, so we had an "early night". I should point out that it doesnt really start to get dark until 9:30pm, and even then the twilight hangs around for at least another hour. You've also got to stick all your food and smelly stuff in stuffsacks and hoist them up the bear poles. The rodents (squirrels and stuff) are getting a bit smarter. They are either able to scale the smooth aluminium (or aluminum, as the North Americans say it) surface of the main pole, or they jump from the trees.. either way, they try to eat through the stuff sacks and into your food. We had our triple wrapped in cheap garbage bags.. I think they got to the second level and when they saw a third, they gave up. Dirty little crappers.

  The next day we started for the Berg Lake site. It is 21km from the trail head.. so only 14km for us to walk for the day. "Easy" you may say, but it wasnt. Normally, with a pack, you can expect to move at 4km/hour. We managed to do a crappy 2km/hour to get from Kinney Lake to Whitehorn (only a small change in elevation and a 4km walk) and the same speed from Whitehorn to Emporer Falls (another 5km from Whitehorn). There are some really steep switchbacks to climb, and you dont realise how steep they are until you walk down them. Luckily, Cathy and I had some quality Leki walking poles. Dont go hiking without them... they are fantastic when used correctly.

  Once a the Falls, the walk to Marmot Basin and then to the Berg Lake site was really easy... we managed to pick up the 4km/h. I have some photos from the last time I was in Canada on this web site, so take a look. We had a great clear day, so we actually got some piccies of the top of Mt Robson. We're due to get our photos developed tomorrow, so I may be able to scan some in and put them on the site. In the meantime...

  Berg Lake was really nice. The next day we had a day off. So we started walking to the Robson Glacier, but got almost all they way and it started pissing down. It also didnt look as good as it did when I was there, so we turned back and had a quite day of relaxing and sleeping and reading.. like you do. I got to practice a little with juggling batons. Cool. I wasnt any good, and even the rocks I tried to practice with didnt go very well. I guess I'm used to lighter materials for juggling. When I settle I might pick some juggling batons up. I couldnt be bother walking around with them at the moment.

  Minor highlight for me.. I also met a dude from Edmonton who was a programmer for Bioware (Baulders Gate and such). That was kinda cool. "So what do you do?" "I'm a programmer." "What type of programming, if you dont mind me asking" "I work for Bioware" "The Bioware" "Yep" "Cool". Makes a difference when you meet someone who's work makes it around the world. My stuff only makes it to Australian stockbrokers.. big deal. He was a UI programmer.. cool, nonetheless.

  Anyway, next day was all about getting to the bottom. What a sonofabitch! 21km all the way to the bottom and you realise how steep those switch backs really are! Luckily for the poles, it was more like a graceful fall for me. Cathys shoulders started to ache at about Whitehorn, and we still has quite a ways to the bottom. Anyway, on the way down, I started thinking.. (dangerous stuff that), and I thought this would be as good a time as ever.

  When we got to the trail head, I proposed to Cathy.

  Mid proposal, mid bended knee and all, some guy asked us if we wanted a lift to the visitors centre. Of course we said yes, and that we would be with him in a moment. And, of course, Cathy said yes as well.

  We stayed down the bottom in the campground for the night, thankful to have hot showers (as opposed to no showers for the past three nights). The next day we caught the bus back to Kamloops.
  
  

• Kamloops aint all bad. I had a way cool time doing some indoor rock climbing with the Moose run group that were passing through that night. Our room was a shambles as we dried our tent and sleeping bags out.
  
  
• The back to Kelowna for the night and then to Lake Louise. Its nice. Go there. We did the walk and we relaxed for a bit. I cant remember it all too clearly. Then to Calgary.
  
  
• And that all pretty much catches me up to the entry for 03/07/2001.

Today, we saw Shrek. Piss funny, you should see it!

Well... Its been sometime now, hasnt it. I dont think I've made any diary entries in all that time. Nevermind.

Calgary. That's were we are at the moment. The Calgary Stampede starts on Friday. I've got tickets to the rodeo on Saturday and to the Chuckwagon races on Sunday... It should be alot of fun.

For the long weekend just gone, we went to Fairmont in B.C., with my hosts for the week, Danielle and Rod. Fairmont, itself is quite small and doesnt get a mention at all in the Lonely Planet, but they did take us to some really natural hot springs in the area. Most hotsprings are controlled by a resort or something, and you have to pay to get in, but these hot springs were really natural.. sitting beside White Swan River (or something like than), coming out of the side of the mountain. You could sit in one of the lower pools and be nice a warm and dip your hand into the cold cold mountain river flowing beside it. Or you could go to one of the higher pools. They were really hot! I mean, my skin started to go red as soon as I hopped in. I could only stand about 5 minutes of it. Now I know what it is really like to sweat underwater. I dont think I would enjoy Cairns in the summer.

Lets see.. what else. Banff.. Banff is nice. A bit of a tourist town, but I think most of the towns and cities in the Rockies have to be, or they'll die. Whilst we were in Banff, we went white water rafting on the Kicking Horse River. You have to go out to Golden to do that, but most places will pick you up for a bit of extra money ($10). The KH has three bits.. the Head, the Upper Canyon and the Lower Canyon. The Daily Trip, which consists of the Head and the Upper is the best. There are no grade IVs in the head, and a few in the Upper, but the Lower is quite short and not worth the money, even though it has more grade IVs. Apparently Australia has some good white water, but the Zambesi (spelling?) is the best. Apparently, you'll only flip the boat three times on a good day. We didnt flip at all, but we did get the oppurtunity to swim in the grade II and III rapids. Very cold and very cool. Wet suites, helmets and if you get a choice, take the woolen sweater!

Today we are in Vancouver, and have been for almost a week now. The weather has been great.. (because thats want you want to read... a weather report). Tomorrow we are off to Vancouver Island and will be there for about a week. That should be fun. We're doing a Seagull Bus tour.

Whilst we have been here, we have been doing a shitload of walking. Today we walked to English Bay, then to the Aquarium at Stanley Park and then a walk to Gastown, Chinatown and then back to the hostel. After that much walking, your muscles being to complain a bit, especially my knee. I guess its all training for Mt Robson.

Cathy and I have done our planning for where we want to be for the next month. We have planned journies and made bookings for accomodation up to 26 June 2001. Tonight we're going to start planning backwards. Start from Toronto and do it all that way. Booking accomodation is a big problem here. You really have to book as soon as you know where you want to go, and well ahead, too.

I think that is something about NZ that I really liked. You didnt have to book too far ahead for the smaller places (about a week or so), and the places were quite nice for the money you payed. For example, the Funky Green Voyager in Rotorua. Its a really nice place, made even better by the great owner and for a private double room (with double bed), it was only NZ$42 a night. When you're in a hostel and you want a private room, all you really want is a double bed. A sink is nice but not necessary... as long as the shared bathroom has plenty of sinks (i.e. at least two), then its all cool. In Vancouver, we're staying in the Downtown HI. Its about CA$56 a night. Again, you get the double bed, a sink, a table and two chairs... Maybe that's expected... I mean, this is Vancouver.. gateway to Asia, etc. I just don't think its quite worth the money, but given the number of backpackers hostels in Canada, I'll have to take it. In the International YHA in Auckland, we payed NZ$69 a night. We got our own bathroom, but I think I would have like to have a cheaper stay and use the shared bathroom.

HI in Canada really do have a strangle hold on the hostelling market in Canada. In some places, like Lake Louise and Kamloops, they are they only hostel available. For the population, NZ had much more hostel accomodation available. I reckon if it was done right, a few of the major towns and cities could do with at least 100 more beds available in the form of 2 or 3 more hostels each.

I've never stayed in a YHA in Australia, but I hope they are not that bad... and are worth the money.

Today we are in Auckland, and whaddya know, its raining. Not too hard, but just enough to make it annoying. We had a gander at the Markets on Victoria Street West, but they arent much to look at. So we're doing email and stuff instead.

Tomorrow, we're off to Vancouver. That will be a long flight I'm not looking forward to, to much, but it will be with British Airways. Maybe it will be ok. Hopefully they cater for long Western legs.

We have a group shot of group that we went black water "rafting" with in Waitomo, but I'm not going to scan them in and put them on the site until I get the ones developed that were on the waterproof camera. Hopefully they turn out ok, but I have a feeling that they are just going to be dark.. oh, well. I guess its a waiting game.

We mailed all our stuff that we didnt want to take with us to Canada today... books, wine, photos, postcards, etc. Quite an expensive exercise. Lucky we're only in NZ.

I did some quick calculations last night. We're averaging $150AUS a day. Not too bad. Why does the Australian Dollar suck so much? I hope prices in Canada will be okay, but I've got a feeling that a dollar is a dollar.

We arrived in Te Anau today. Its a small place. Not alot to do. Glowworms, ATVs and lots of walking. We're going on the Milford Sound tomorrow. We're going to try to push our glacier walk one day forward so we can drive from Queenstown to Franz with a very short stop at Fox.

I messed up a bit today. We walked into town, with our packs to get the bus to Te Anau. Unfortunately it was due to pick us up at the YHA, not the Station. Short panic and a call was made. not a problem after that. It picked us up from the station anyway.

Books are expensive!

We had a "proper" tea tonight. Chicken, pasta, broccilli and bread. Nice.

Useless information

Music Purchased

Tool : Lateralis (CD) - I had not even heard any of the music on it yet.. but since I had all the other ones, and an overdose of Phil Collins (courtesy of NZs Classic Hits - the only radio available in the middle of nowhere), I just had to have it... all i got to do now is get it on to MD.