Post Travelling Murmurings

Now that I’m back though, it almost is quite hard to fit in again. I’m really glad to be back and to see everyone, but it’s very difficult to express what my time in Canada meant, even to Richard.

In many ways Canada was one of the most important, and probably the most fun episodes in my life, but in a way that’s difficult to adequately sum up in words. I went through such a huge range of emotions throughout my time, from the sheer joy and happiness of being there with so many people who I could truly call my friends, to some of the most difficult emotions I’ve had to deal with when I lost two friends. That’s why I’ve found it difficult to fit straight back in to my mind, as I know it can be boring when people go on and on about their travels, and so I’ve tried not to do this, instead just reducing the whole experience down to the phrase “Yeah, it was really fun”, or “It was an awesome time”. This, of course, is belittling the whole experience, but perhaps that doesn’t matter cos I know what it was like, and it really is a lit easier saying that than going into huge detail about it.

But it has been slightly difficult talking to people since I’ve been back in a way. As I’ve said before I’ve tried very hard not to go on and on about the last 9 months and the experiences I’ve had, and I have been slightly self conscious about not doing so. But it is hard, after all, no matter how regularly you see people, you normally chat about what your life has been like and what you’ve been doing since last time you met. Of course, in my case my entire life has been the collection of experiences in Canada, and that even if you have a more general chat about the state of affairs in the country, again I have no idea and can only talk about what was happening in Canada. I guess it’s my own fault for feeling self conscious about. Perhaps people are willing to listen to me chat about it, and do want to know more about what life was like, even in life was way more mundane than they might expect.

I guess it is quite easy to think that the life I’ve been leading is more exciting than it probably was. As I’ve told numerous people my life was still mostly going to work, enjoying the weekend and going out with friends for a few drinks every now and again. Of course it’s always going to look more glamorous when it’s just seen through carefully hand picked photos sent home, and some equally carefully chosen words written in the blog. In many ways it was just like life back here, just somewhere different. Again though, I think I’m belittling my experiences. It was normal life, but I think you can describe it as a very special normal life. I really am lucky to have been able to have done it.

I may have no money now, and desperately need a job, but the rest of my life can be spent chugging along if necessary. I have a feeling though that before too long, something, somewhere will be calling me to go away again. Perhaps another snowboarding adventure before my knee’s pack up? Who knows, but whatever happens, I’m sure it’ll be fun!

The Last Hurrah

After getting to Toronto, I knew it was only a small matter of time until I could actually get to Guelph, and I could say a thankful goodbye to the confines of a bus seat.

First drive through Guelph on the bus, and I was very impressed. As I’d said before, this side of Canada certainly seemed a whole lot more like England. The general landscape was rolling and green, and was definitely reminiscent of Norfolk. The actual town of Guelph was pretty similar to a typical English town, complete with a proper old looking church and English style parkland.

I wasn’t quite sure what to expect for my time in Ontario. I knew that my friend Claire who I was staying with had taken the week off as some of her annual holiday, so I had a feeling we may have a fair amount organised, and we sure did!

Almost as soon as I’d got off the bus, I was whisked away to Claire’s house, and with a quick turn around (Just time for a shower – aaah, my first wash after 3 days on a bus!) we were out the front door again and heading down to the local bar to meet up with some of Claire’s friends. This was the first round of introductions in what proved to be an amazingly sociable week, and it was almost overwhelming meeting so many people, especially cos a fair few were drunk as skunks (Especially one guy whose name I can’t remember, but I seem to think he was Afghanistani!). Luckily everyone I met were pretty cool people, and so it wasn’t too much effort to fit in and get on with them!

It really was a pretty crazy week as it turned out. I knew I had relatively little money left, so it was a case of trying to get as much done for as cheap as possible. Luckily this entailed lots of stays at friend’s houses, and thankfully little money changing hands.

It was quite a different experience this week, compared with the time I’d spent in Whistler. This time it really felt like I was “travelling”. In Whistler, I was there, I was working and I felt like a local, whereas here I felt I was doing what is expected of you as a traveller – meeting lots and lots of new people, and sharing random experiences, such as watching people you’ve known for only 2 hours snort cocaine from a cd case, share a boat ride and a fishing lesson from people you’ve only known for a similar amount of time, have huge slabs of meat cooked on a bbq, sit round a bonfire, surrounded by the smoke of the wood and the numerous joints being passed round, be a guest at someone’s birthday party who again you’ve only know for a few hours, and have a genuinely fantastic night out, listening to an accomplished but unexpected reggae band!

I think in a way it was quite good to round the trip off in this way. When leaving Whistler, although I was obviously excited to be heading across the other side of the country and meeting up with Claire again, I almost felt I wished I could just head straight back home, so I could just settle down and get some normal living done again! However, I think this would have been a little bit of a waste, and I’m glad I had the chance to carry on experiencing new things right up until I left. After meeting so many people in this last week, and just seeing a different part of Canada, it rounded things up nicely, and at least me feel like I had seen the country, rather than just visited one place and stayed put there.

The Marathon Trek

All that was left in Whistler now was the last few days of packing and preparing for the trip. And of course the obligatory party! As it was Matt's last day as well there was a party arranged, and it happened to coincide with karaoke night in the Crystal Lounge. What a happy coincidence. As is traditional, the first half of the evening was spent drinking slowly but steadily to ensure that sufficient lubrication was achieved. Suffice to say that point was achieved, and a fine rendition of the Backstreet Boys "I Want it That Way" was performed. This was then followed by a multitude of fine dance positions in Tommy Africa's, then outside on the street, then a customary post club snack (Why won't they open a Pita Pit over here!).

Luckily my bus wasn't till 3pm the next day so I had plenty of chance to chill out and recover from my hangover before leaving. There were tearful goodbyes as I got on the bus, not sure what the next 3 days sitting on a bus would involve. Basically I was just thankful to get my board bag on the bus so I could move around a bit more freely.

Although, of course, this wasn't really the case on the bus, as it was pretty crowded, and there was no chance to stretch out! Probably the most frustrating aspect of the first leg of the journey was that I got on the bus from Vancouver at 6pm, which meant it was getting dark by Chilliwack, and therefore the bulk of the mountains were travelled past in the darkness. Another frustration that I had to deal with was the fact that the bus stopped about every hour or so. In terms of being able to get out and stretch my legs this was fine, but it meant that trying to get settled or get any sleep was more or less impossible. It also meant that we'd be stopping in the middle of the night for meal breaks, for example stopping in Revelstoke for an hour. At the time however, it was 4am, and if you can imagine there is very little to do in a ski resort at 4am in the summer! All I can say is thank god for Tim Horton's!

On the whole, however, the bus journey wasn't actually as bad as I had thought. Perhaps the worst aspect of the journey was the lack of space. Especially when the people in front of me kept insisting on putting their chair all the way back into the reclined position. Still, the actualy journy was quite good fun. I had been warned that I would be amazingly bored once I headed east of Calgary and out across the plains. But, I actually found it fascinating in a way. The sheer vastness of the area is impressive, not least cos I was driving through it for over a day. It was a nice evening on the way through, and the late evening golden sun warming the grain elevators and harvested fields made it very pretty. Also, the further east the bus drove, the more I noticed that in some ways the towns were becoming more and more reminiscent of English towns, predominantly due to the increased number of older buildings.

This was especially the case as the bus left the plains and got into Northern Ontario. THe landscape changed again and in some ways was reminiscent of a rockier and slightly hillier version of the Broads! THe towns began to feel more like a late 19th, early 20th Century English town, and it all felt a little more familiar.

The main difference driving across this area was the sheer size of Ontario. We crossed the Manitoban / Ontario border late afternoon on Thursday, and to be honest I presumed the predicted arrival time in Toronto of 6pm Friday must be wrong! But we were heading through the province for ages.

One thing about this trip is that it did seem to make time go quicker. I can remember when we reached Saulte Ste Marie, probably with about 4 hours to go, it really did feel like there was a only a brief 10 minute journey left to go!

Soon enough though, I was in Toronto, and probably the longest (In terms of time) continuous journey was over. After about 6 hours sleep over the last 3 days I was delighted to be able to get off the bus, and just stretch out, knowing that I didn't need to get back on in another 15 minutes!

Taking the Island by Storm

Well, not exactly, although there was a bit of a storm blowing in when I was heading across to the island. The day started off with tearful farewells, as I was leaving Whistler with Amelia. Although I was returning, this was Amelia's farewell to the mountains before a train trip to, ultimately, Toronto.

But I was only heading to Vancouver Island, on the search for trees. The itinerary for the first day involved travelling Whistler to Vancouver, Vancouver to Horseshoe Bay, ferry to Nanaimo, and then bus to Port Alberni (Very important - when buying a bus ticket to Port Alberni, be careful how you pronounce it. I nearly got sold a ticket to Albany, New York!).

It took a while for Vancouver Island to impress me. It was raining as we left Horseshoe Bay, was blowing a gale on the journey to Nanaimo, and once there was kind of grey and miserable. This made the particular part of Nanaimo we were driving through perhaps even worse than it was. Although it really was just a collection of strip malls, fast food chains and tacky motels, and the bus station that looked like an ideal place to get mugged if you were into that sort of thing.

I found myself still sitting next to a guy who kept telling me that he hated most people, apart from the Scottish, Irish and Kiwi's. Thankfully my beard was looking particularly red that day, so he was convinced I was pure Celt! Passing through the small town of Parksville, we stopped at the bus station to pick some people up. A guy who'd been drinking on the bus the whole time got off to have a cigarette, only to find a random old guy pick up his case from the hold and try and walk off with it. The drunk guy promptly grabbed his case and pushed the old guy. This then prompted the bus driver to shortly after kick the guy off the bus due to being "Concerned about his conduct with relation to the old man"! This prompted the guy sitting next to me let out a little chuckle about once every 5 minutes about it till reaching Port Alberni, an hour or more away!

It wasn't until we turned away from the east coast, and towards Port Alberni that things started to improve. Suddenly the bus was heading through mountains, with lakes and beautiful trees passing alongside. Passing at very high speed I must say, and more than a few times I could be found gripping to the side of the seat fearing that we'd soon leave the road and career into the lake! The driver wasn't hanging around.

Just as the sun came out, we dived in between the trees on either side, and saw signs advertising Cathedral Grove, the main reason I was stopping over in Port Alberni. Cathedral Grove is a stand, on both sides of the highway, of old growth Douglas Fir. Looking from the bus the size of the trees was amazing. I'm sure I didn't see the biggest of the trees, but they seemed unfeasibly tall from the bus.

Now was the crucial part. I hadn't yet figured out the best way to get myself back to Cathedral Grove from Port Alberni. In the guide books, and on the websites that I'd looked at, it had described the grove as "Just outside Port Alberni". I was therefore thinking perhaps I could just walk back, or maybe hire a bike or something, or perhaps even catch a bus. As I sat on the bus expecting to see Port Alberni appear round the next bend, I soon realised that walking or cycling wouldn't be an option, not least as we climbed up, and then down some pretty serious gradients, at least more serious than I'd be willing to climb or cycle up! I then heard the news that there were no buses that would take me there. Bugger!

However, my spirits were raised when I was informed by my landlord for the next two nights (An aging hippy called "Wolf", who had spent about 15 years being a lifty in Australia, New Zealand and Europe, and also lived without electricity or water for another 10 years in Indonesia!) that hitch hiking was amazingly easy there, and that I'd get picked up for sure!

Or so he said. The next day I headed out in the general direction of the grove, heading out to the edge of town, deciding that this would be the best spot for picking up a lift. Firstly, it was about 5 kms to the edge of town, and it took me a while to get there in the amazingly humid heat. Secondly, once I was there I proceeded to stand there and try and hitch for a couple of hours, when I found out that Vancouver Islanders weren't quite as generous as I'd anticipated. I returned, vanquished, had a look through town and returned to the hostel, ready to get out of Alberni, and get to Tofino.

Following another terrifying bus ride along narrow lakeside roads, I got to Tofino, and was impressed straight away! It had the vibe of a Cornish surf town, not one like Newquay or Bude, but one of the ones that hadn't been developed yet, although it was certainly pretty crowded, and I knew for a fact that the town was booked solid, only managing to get into the HI hostel in the games room on the second night dur to it being so crowded.

Tofino is surrounded on both sides by water, with the beautiful Pacific beaches to the west, and wonderful views over the Browning Passage to hundreds of islands. The first night I was there, I just sat outside the hostel, and watched the sun set over the water. I was trying to read a book and listen to music, but was unable to cos I had to keep paying attention to the beautiful sunset, and a friendly cat!

After a good nights sleep, I decided to head out to the Pacific Rim National Park, with my aim being the Rainforest Walk. I had set out with two girls to get there somehow, but due to a combination of one not speaking English, and the fact that it looked as though hitch hiking was probably going to be done, I decided not to continue too far with them. Instead I hired a bike, hopped on and off I went. Of course, once again, what I didn;t realise was the distance involved. The rainforest trail turned out to be 25km away from Tofino, and after numerous stops and side routes I reckon I'd probably cycled 60km. It was pretty good though, and I saw one of the rarest ecosystems in the world, a temparate coastal rainforest. It was quite interesting, with some superb old growth red cedars and hemlocks, and some pretty strange sounding birds. The clouds soon came in though, and I managed to get back in shortly before it started raining. Luckily, the clouds drifted off just in time for another spectacular sunset spent down on the beach.

It was now time to move on. I'd been told I couldn't make the journey from Tofino to Whistler in one day. Facing the prospect of staying in Vancouver for an evening, which would be both annoying and more expensive than I'd planned for. Luckily though everything went to plan, and I made it back to Whistler that evening, ready to plan the next stage.......

Snowboarding will not be available for the forseeable future........

The end of the season was nigh. In many ways I was actually almost glad that I had broken my board. It meant that I couldn't work on the glacier for the last few weeks of the season, which, by all accounts was a blessing in disguise. I was beginning to get a little fed up of working on the glacier, as although I was on the slightly less labour intensive t-bar, I still had to do quite a bit of work each day to salt the lift lines and put up fences, which I had had enough of through the winter and spring!

Working on the glacier became even worse as the snow continued to disappear. Apart from anything else the riding gradually got worse, with more and more of the glacial ice appearing from underneath the snowpack. This meant that the public park was getting smaller and smaller. Admittedly this situation was made slightly better when the camp of champs closed down, and the public park moved onto their patch. Anyway, no matter how good the riding was, because of the disappearing snow it meant that the snow on the lift line out of the glacier had disappeared. This meant that the only way out was a sizeable hike up the cat track, and for those working on the glacier, there was little or no chance to go for any food.

So I was glad to be lower down the hill for the last week. I was generally chilling out on the lifts, having a laugh with the guests and generally taking it easy. Probably just as well each day was pretty easy, as it was during that week that for some reason I decided to sign up to work every single day!

I had decided that I needed to try and get that little bit of extra money, and I wanted to try and get a free Crankworx t-shirt, so I decided to volunteer for parking / customer service duties for the event. Of course, as things turned out, I didn't get a t-shirt, but I did get the fun of standing around in the car park, choking on dust all day, baking in the sun! What fun. Actually it wasn't too bad, as I did each day with friends so I basically stood, chatted and waved my arms a bit!

I was going to have the entire Saturday off, but when I ran into Shaun, suggested doing a night function, I jumped at the chance. Night functions have to be the easiest way to get some money. I sat around, ate the food, and read some magazines, until about 1am when I got to chat and laugh at the drunken wedding guests as they stumbled there way out into the late night. Luckily no one vomited, but the number of glasses that I got hold of was incredible!

This left only two days worth of work left, which passed uneventfully if quite amusingly! I even got roped into another evening function on the Magic chair, which involved two groups of 8 people plus bikes in 3 hours! Sometimes it seems that people are desparate to pay you overtime!

So that was the end of my working life in Whistler. I must admit, although I was happy to be able to live a life of relaxation for a week or so, but the time did feel a bit empty. I think there was a mix of reasons, primarily the fact that without work, there was no snowboarding to fill my time, knowing that I was leaving soon and the need to finish my packing, and the fact that a lot of my friends had left. Although I was happy to have this little bit of extra time to explore Vancouver Island, to spend with my friends, and finally travel to Toronto, I did feel that I wished I could just head home there and then, and avoid all this extra hassle in a way!

But, I'd booked tickets, it was all finalised. Off to Vancouver Island I go......

The Home Stretch

Well, I'm now writing this from the safe confines of my parental home back in rural Norfolk. My time in Canada has now come to an end. I've had an amazing time overall, and I managed to squeeze quite a lot in between my last blog entry and my return journey home.

I don't fancy writing all the happenings in one big go, mainly because it'd take too long, but in order to jog my memory in future years, I'll be writing an episodic account of events.

Starting with.......

The End of a Good Board

They say all good things must come to an end, but I had no intention or desire for it to end this way.

I am talking of course about my beloved Venue Onyx 161 snowboard that I bought in January and have lovingly shredded away on for the 6 months following it's purchase. I had been wondering what to do with it for a while, as the tail had delaminated pretty badly, and I knew that I didn't sort it out with some epoxy or something soonish it would begin to get waterlogged and would in time affect the performance of the board. I was also to get the board generally serviced, a nice wax and a good base grind. However, I am now saved the hassle as it is now unfortunately slightly less than fully intact.

The event was to be my last snowboarding action here in Canada, give or take 1 or 2 days working on the glacier. Given that we have now entered the last week of fun up here on Blackcomb mountain, there had been a bbq bash for us lifties. The plan was to kick everyone off the glacier at the normal time (Round abouts 3pm), but keep the lifts running so that the lifties could come up and play with no lift lines, no waiting in a line up for the kickers or anything like that.

All day I had been sweltering in the heat of the village working on the lift from the valley, the Wizard Express. I had tried to cool down by consuming 4 slushies during the day, and running numerous times through the sprinklers placed outside the Day Lodge. So when 3pm came round, my replacement arrived at the bottom, I could grab my board and head up, pretty excited about having some fun up there!

I got to the top and donned my snowboarding boots, and looked in anticipation to a wide open glacier, admittedly beginning to be slightly short of snow, but with numerous kickers and rails to try out, and no people to be seen, save for my colleagues already up there.

With a sense of excitement I strapped in and headed down the cat track towards the glacier. It had been a while since I'd snowboarded, and the deep slushy snow was making it difficult too make fine adjustments to my progress. However, got down the first pitch, steered around the hairpin left hander, to cruise down the next portion of the track before I could drop into the jumps. I was on my toe edge, and to the left hand side were steep walls that I could make a slashy turn on, as if bouncing off the lip on a surfboard (Probably - it's not as if I've ever managed to stand up on a surfboard, but there you go!). I did this a couple of times, gradually gaining more speed. Then I slashed a little too hard, the nose caught in the snow and stopped, while my considerable weight and momentum kept going forward. Unfortunately this was slightly too much for the board, and I heard a dreaded crack from beneath my feet. I looked down, and could see that the nose of the board had folded up, and that the core had snapped.

I decided to carry on to try and ride it to the bottom of the slope. This proved to be very difficult, as, especially with the slushy conditions, everytime I put any weight on the edge, the board folded and put me down in the snow on my backside, which was twice as bad cos I was just wearing a t-shirt and shorts.

So that was how the story of me and my board came to an end. We had numerous good times. We shared our first runs through the halfpipe, our triumphant runs through the park getting bigger and bigger air, shared the increasing confidence I had on a snowboard to just point it straight and still feel in control, numerous days in powder proving that you really could do it all on a single board rather than different boards for different conditions, and of course accompanied me round a selection of BC and Alberta's finest snowboarding resorts.

I didn't let this upset ruin the evening though. I headed down into the glacier, and decided to be the photographer for the evening. A number of the other lifty's are really good boarders and skiiers, so I managed to get some pretty decent photographs.

Once the snowboarding was done, the lifts were turned off, and the bbq was fired up. We were allowed to raid the fridge for beer and juice, and the burgers were big, juicy, tasty and most of all free. The ride down the lifts was entertaining to say the least with 30 or so lifty's drunkenly riding chairlifts and buses to get down to the base, before once again heading to the old favourite, Merlins.

It really does have it's perks being a lifty sometimes. In whatever type of job could you have a staff party at 2200m up, a glacier all to yourself to ride however you like, and then a free bbq, with amazing views across the Coast Mountains unitl the early evening. Even on the way down the lifts at 8pm, it was still more than warm enough to sit in shorts and a t-shirt. The views to they valley on the way down were stunning again, and it really was quite a magical evening.

Man, I'm gonna miss this place.

In Search of a Ghost Town

I think yesterday was one of the toughest amd most tiring days I've had since being out here in Canada! Sheany had been taken to a place on the edge of Green Lake by a guy with a 4x4, which was once a small logging community on the shore of the lake before being abandoned somewhere between 1930 and 1950, depending on what you read! Being my normal curious self, I decided to head there, camera in hand to attempt some arty ghost town shots!

I looked on the only available map we had, and I saw the Parkhurst loop, a trail that branches off the Green Lake Loop, around the ghost town. On the map it didn't look too long, and it appeared that I'd be easily able to get back to Emerald Estates from the end of the trail, in order to get a bus back.

I figured it wouldn't take too long, and so, due to a spot of drinking the night before, I waited until around 230pm before I ventured outside. The first thing I noticed was the heat. I'm pretty sure it was above 30degrees, and the sun was beating down without a cloud in the sky. I caught the bus to Alpine Meadows, and started the walk from there, heading to Nicklaus North Golf CLub, from where I could pick up the Green Lake loop.

When I got to the trailhead, the first thing I noticed was that it probably wasn't going to be quite as easy as I thought it might be. Still, I had a full bottle of water, and I thought I was prepared. The trail started off, with a sharp narrow climb, with a loose rocky surface, and dense vegetation encroaching on either side. I carried on a little further, and the path changed from a narrow steep climb, to a wider steep climb. I got to the top of this climb, sweating profusely, minus my shirt, thinking that this will be a good work out for myself!

Well, it surely was. I was about to find out that this climb was one of many along the road. Everytime I thought "Surely we're descending to the lake side now", we turned away from the lake to start climbing and ascending over another rocky bluff. My water was getting warmer and warmer and the combination of walking up or downhill on loose rocks, or walking in the sand on the flat sections was making my legs tired, and I really hoped I'd be getting somewhere soon! The only consolation along the trail were some spectacular views over the lake.

The trail did end up descending, as it joined a river, then descended further to the valley floor, and joined another river, and figured that this must be the Green River that flows out of the lake to the north, and that I must have gone too far. I decided therefore to almost double back on myself, following the train lines that I knew ran along the shore of the lake. Thankfully this was the right call, and I soon found another sign to Parkhurst and the Green Lake Loop. However, I was getting slightly confused as the trail kept disappearing, and I had to just guess that I should carry along the train tracks.

Eventually I saw a trail heading into the forest from the tracks, and thought I may as well give it a try. At long last I had managed to stumble into Parkhurst! I had a nose around, taking some photo's around the area, of the collapsed houses and the abandoned 1940's trucks.

After a while I decided to head back, given that it was now about 730pm and I'd been hiking pretty much non stop! I got back to where the trail had descended to the valley floor, deciding not to take the same route back, but to head to Highway 99 to Emerald Estates, and catch the bus back. Of course what I hadn't counted on was that I had to walk about 4kms north to cross the river and get to Highway 99, before turning back for Emerald. This meant that I was absolutely knackered and drained, I'd run out of water, and was now about 5 or 6 km's from Emerald, which was in turn a further 9 or 10 km's from Whistler Cay!

I started walking back, before thinking I was really tired and thirsty and that it'd take me all night to get back home. So I decided to give hitch-hiking my first ever try! After about 15 minutes of walking and not much luck - not too many people head into Whistler from the north at that time of night - a guy in a Mini convertible felt pity on me, and stopped to pick me up! After a pleasant chat on the way back in about the state of the North American tourist industry, and the plusses and minuses of living in Vancouver, he dropped me off at the supermarket and I went off to buy about 10l of liquid of various descriptions!

So today, I'm trying to chill out, the temperature outside at 35degC, which is why I'm staying in this lovely air conditioned internet cafe as long as possible! Bring on the winter again!

Time's Drawing to a Close

Time is getting on, and thoughts have well and truly changed to my departure from Whistler, followed soon after by my departure from Canada.

It's a strange mix of emotions at the moment. I'm having as much fun out here at the moment as I ever have been. The job is going well, I'm still making new friends, the sun is shining, and it's all good. However, at the same time it does in a way feel like I'm playing out time now until I leave. I'm really looking forward to hitting the road again, hopefully hooking up with my contacts in Victoria (Vancouver Island) and Toronto, and generally having a bit of a look around, and, shock, horror, being an average tourist again for a while! At the same time, I'm also looking forward a lot to getting home. I've got so much to look forward to when I get back in Blighty. I'm looking forward to seeing my parents, Pete and my other buddies, my bro and my nephew. I've got the wedding to go to, the Scottish family holiday, all my friends up in Aberdeen, so I think I'll still be having fun when I get back!

It will be very strange to leave here though. In a way that perhaps I haven't before, I really feel like part of the community. I know all the long time Whistler residents would argue against this, perhaps saying that the "Itinerant" workers that come through each year are perhaps no more local than the family up from Florida to have a look at the mountains. However, these workers, people like me and my friends, are the people who predominantly make up Whistler in one way or another. We are the people who you have most contact with on a day to day basis, as the long term residents generally have the better paid and more permanent behind-the-scenes jobs, not serving you the food, the drinks or operating the lifts. It is perhaps for this reason that when you're around somewhere for such a long term, in what is really a relatively small community you get to know everyone whether you work with them or not. This is definitely the case moreso here than in a regular town, as everyone is here for the same reason - to have fun in whatever form it may take! Because of this it'll be strange when I'll be back in blighty where there aren't so many like-minded individuals.

So I now have less than a month until I leave Whistler, and in fact less than a month before I'll be in Toronto I think. I'm going to try and make sure I get the most out of the time remaining. I've signed up for some extra work shifts, not just because the money would be nice, but also to get involved in Krankworx, the big mountain bike festival, which should be pretty good fun when it rocks up next week.

The drawing in of time also prompted me and some friends to have a spur of the moment road trip. For the bargain price of $70 (About 35 quid) I'd booked a full size sedan, something similar to a Chevy Impala or a Buick Allure, basically similar size and prob the US equivalent of a Vectra (Apart from the fact that, this being North America, they come as standard with a 3.5l V6!). When I got to the hire place they gave me a choice of cars, including a Chrysler PT Cruiser convertible. Well, the sun had just started shining after a week or two of miserable weather, and so it somehow seemed very appropriate to take this upgrade and hop into the ragtop!

It was quite funny, seeing my friends faces as I picked them up, the radio on and the top down! We hit the road, stopped at the first gas station and bought a Beach Boys cd to play, and it all felt so right! We were ready for a mammoth trip that covered over 700kms, and over 10 provincial parks in one day! It really did turn out to be a great day. Our route was basically a loop of South western BC (It can be seen on this web page:http://www.britishcolumbia.com/Maps/?id=55)

The scenery was stunning and the weather really played along. The drive to Lillooet was fun, and a lot easier than when it was carried out in the winter. From Lillooet to Lytton more or less was fascinating, with the semi-arid desert landscape. The Fraser valley was attractive, if not quite as stunning and fearsome as the guidebooks had lead me to believe! I think, though, that this may well be because I really am being spoilt for beautiful scenery here in BC! The only unattractive portion of the trip was the 50kms through the outlying suburbs of Vancouver on Highway 1. This was mainly due to a lack of changing scenery, and a traffic jam! Once to Vancouver though the scenery picked up once again. The sun was beginning to get low, the view over the city was good, but not as stunning as the journey up Howe Sound towards Squamish. I'm sure I've said it before in this blog, but the drive along Highway 99 (The Sea to Sky Highway) really is one of the most stunning drives ever! Another few provincial parks later, and we were back in Whistler, taking just over 12.5 hours!

Then it was straight to Merlins for a lifty rounds night. It always pays to get to these events a little bit late, especially if you're looking to boost your ego! As everyone was quite well lubricated, when I walked into the bar a huge cheer went up and high fives all round! Always a good feeling! I tried to get away that evening pretty early after only having 1 drink, as I'd decided to drive home. This was somewhat foiled firstly by meeting some friends who wanted a ride home, one of whom had a bike. The only solution to fitting the bike in was having the top down with the bike in the back seat! Then when I got home, Sheany came out to look at the car, and then insisted that we had a quick cruise round Whistler with the roof down!

Anyway, it was a great day, but now the weekend (A four day one this time!) is over, and I'm back at work. Had a good time today though, so I'm hoping this week should be good. Only another 10 days of work or so, so time to make the most of it!