The Ogopogo, lake country and the lost ipod

The trip back from the Rockies seemed much faster than the trip there.  Even the distance in between towns was so much shorter.  In part this may have been due to it being beautiful spring weather, rather than the snow, fog and ice of the trip up.  It was a relief the distance between towns was shorter, as I forgot to buy petrol when we stopped for lunch at perhaps the prettiest location for a McDonalds that I've seen - the golden arches framed by white mountains.  But, fuel light flashing dangerously, we made it to Sicamous for petrol (gas).

We turned off the Trans-Canada Highway at that point, and headed south, down towards Kelowna.  Almost immediately, as the mountains decreased in size, we were in lake country.  Our destination for the first night was Kelowna, a pretty town on the shores of Lake Okanagan, famous not only for its wine and stone-fruit growing district, but for the Ogopogo monster.  The Ogopogo is a relative of the Loch Ness monster, and we were hoping for a sighting.  Alas, the only sighting we had was this one, by the shore (see picture above).   It was a really beautiful area, huge lakes that ran the length of mountain valleys, and with the season changing from winter to spring, all the fruit trees (cherry, peach and others) were in full blossom.  The region, and Kelowna in particular, are very popular summer tourist spots and we saw many gorgeous little cottages around the edges of lakes, right on the beaches.  This picture (below) is of Lake Okanagan, taken right from the shore in the city centre - perhaps we've snapped the Ogopogo coming up for air?  Can you see it perhaps?

We had a very good pizza in Kelowna, from Bordello's Pizzeria downtown who did us takeaway though they were more of a nice restaurant.   One of us was anxious to get back to the motel and 8pm 'Discovery:  Truth' on cable TV ("it will be the last time I get to see it Mum! we're leaving the country tomorrow and you won't get cable!").  No, I won't get cable, even more adamantly than before this trip, having experienced it most everywhere we've been and seen the addictive effect it has on Angus.  I take particular exception to his penchant for 'Air Crash Investigation', under the circumstances.  Though Discovery: Truth this night had a hilarious segment with this South American guy describing, by imitation, the werewolf transformation that happens to seventh sons in his remote village.  His imitation, clearly done with the most serious intent, was an absolute pearler.  I was doubled over in laughter as the man / imitation werewolf began his snarling and howling, and the presenter / investigator of 'Destination:  Truth' was covering his mouth with his hand to hide his laughter as the camera cut occasionally to him during this demonstration.

The next morning, we drove the four or so hours back to Vancouver, aiming to return the car by 2pm and get to the airport to check in and clear security for our Air Alaska flight to LA.

As we approached the city (we were in Abbotsford, part of greater Vancouver but a separate 'city') I decided to take a short cut, and leave the Trans-Canada Highway (which we were back on).  It seemed to me we could easily avoid going right back into the city, and could instead cut across Surrey to Richmond and the Airport.  You'd think I'd have learned.

This added about an hour to the trip, as we negotiated dreadful peak hour (school pickup time perhaps??) traffic, taking many more shortcuts to try to get to less congested roads.  We didn't actually get lost, or not for very long anyway, but it was still a very bad idea to have had.   As we approached Richmond to return the car, Budget rang to say they had found the Ipod Touch we'd left in another rental car in Vancouver (a long story, but I'd been very angry with Budget for all their hidden charges, so took a stand and returned the car I had hired for a week after just one day, in favour of Enterprise, whose car we took the Rockies trip in).  Apparently they had it at their head office in, guess where, Richmond!   So I tried to find it before we returned our Enterprise car.  But at 3.29pm we still couldn't find it, and with the fuel light flashing dangerously again, the Budget office closing at 3.30 and a plane to catch, we turned around and just took the car back instead.  The very kind Budget guy called us to see what had happened to us as we weren't there, and said he'd arrange to post it back to us.  I felt much better towards Vancouver Budget after this, which is why I haven't written really bad reviews of them on Trip Advisor for their unethical and rip-off charging practices.

And to make my warm feelings towards car rental companies even warmer, Mohamed at Enterprise, Vancouver Airport branch, waived the additional two hours hire fee that I was due to pay for being 2 hours late with the car.   Even after commenting that "wow, you've covered some miles" as he checked the car over.  It was a brand new Mazda 3 with 16km on the clock when we took it, and we returned it at around 1875km.    So we left Vancouver feeling that luck was all going our way.

Which kind of continued at the airport, where we were not charged excess baggage fees - but we were questioned in US customs and immigration, which you go through before leaving Canada!  I hadn't expected that, so hadn't declared our Okanagan apple on the customs form, planning to eat it before we left the airport.  They were understanding of this though, and said we could keep it.  And told me to be thankful it wasn't an orange, as we wouldn't have been allowed to take that through.  There are limits, you know.   And to next time tick the box saying yes, I did have fruit or food product.  Duly noted.  We enjoyed our juicy, crunchy apple in the departure lounge, officially in the US on Canadian soil, as we waited to board our flight to LA.

Lake Louise: Being swedish, snowboarding and Le Chateau

We reached the little village of Lake Louise, over the border in Alberta though we didn’t see any sign notifying us that we had crossed the provincial border.  I found no memories at all came flooding back, of my previous visit in 1988, working at the Lake Louise Inn.

This time we continued 3 km up the hill towards the Lake itself, and the famous Chateau Lake Louise.  Our destination was immediately before the Chateau - a small hotel called Deer Lodge.

It was a beautiful, 1930s lodge, built originally for summer recreational activities in the region (hiking, etc) but was ‘winterised’ in the 1980s or thereabouts.  And winterised very well, too:  it was so hot in our room, we had to open the window - which then made it freezing.  On the second night we worked out that just leaving the windows open a tiny crack and snuggling under doonas was the way to go.  

The rooms were small and very basic indeed - just two single beds in our room, with a small desk and a wardrobe, and not much room to move.  We did have an ensuite as well.   There was only one TV in the whole place, and that was down in the basement games room, along with the computer and printer, pool table, and cards tables.  Upstairs was a guest lounge with roaring (gas) fire, complete with mooseheads mounted on the wall, a formal restaurant, and a casual bistro all with incredible views of Mount Fairview.    All was very casual indeed - we walked around all of these places in socks most of the time.  And sat in the lounge reading by the fire in the evenings, though both nights we fell asleep pretty early, having had huge days.

The highlight of the lodge though was the hot tub on the roof, in the shadow (well - if there had been sun) of Mount Fairview.  On our first afternoon there we used it, venturing out onto the roof into the absolutely, literally freezing cold, while it was snowing heavily.  Already in there were three french and spanish women, and two chinese women.  Angus commented that he thought the french and spanish ones might get drunk - he was not far wrong there, as they were stowing away the champagne.  He thought the Chinese ones were probably the more sensible ones, but I commented that their rapidly lightening 4-litre red wine cask might belie that assumption.  We had good chats with all of them, anyway - Angus telling the French ones that to rub cold snow on their bodies while they were in the hot tub would add 12 months to her life span and take 12 months off her appearance.   He did it himself, leaving the tub to get snow to rub on his body, steam rising from him like he was a freshly served steamed lobster dinner,  then coming back in - like the scandinavians do with saunas.  He thought this, along with snowboarding, was a highlight of the whole trip.

Another part that was really fun was driving up a mountain with ACDCs ' Long Way to the Top' blaring.  It just happened to be on a local radio station at the time.

And he did have another day snowboarding, completing Level 2.  He just loves it.  Lake Louise ski area is a much smaller resort in terms of amenity, than Whistler with its big, sophisticated village.  Lake Louise ski area really just has one large building, containing a cafe, ski school, ski rentals, and toilets etc.  But the surroundings are the thing here.  It is just exhilerating to whizz down a mountain, a thrill in itself, amongst these.

In the evenings, both nights, we walked the 5 minutes up the road to the Chateau Lake Louise, for dinner.  It was very grand indeed, but we found a saloon bar and a club lounge on respective nights so it didn't break the budget.   I had a brilliant salad at the Glacier Saloon.  We also bought a copy of an old 1930s Canadian Pacific poster, an art deco style drawing, which was of the view from the window we were at in the Club Lounge, overlooking the frozen lake.  (Angus pictured here walking on the lake).

I took even more photos here than I did of the Grand Canyon, I think.  Every time I turned a corner the view seemed more magnificent than the one I'd just photographed.

It seemed very fitting, or balanced, to be here near the end of our trip, after the Grand Canyon near the start.

Angus is feeling a strong need to come home, though he's clearly enjoying himself as well.  He's done amazingly well, with such a hectic schedule and little downtime making us both very tired.   I think he wants to get back to a routine, and a place he knows he belongs in.

We left Lake Louise for the long drive back to Vancouver (2 days drive) in perfect spring sunny weather.  It seemed a much quicker trip, too, than getting there was - on day one, anyway, where we made it to Kelowna.   As it wasn't snowing, we had quite different views from those on the way there, and the roads were much safer.    

As we roared down through the mountains U2s 'Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For' came on.  That was quite a powerful one to hear then, as I pondered the approaching return home, hoping I'd remember the feeling of these mountains, and how they help give me such a good perspective.  But still not knowing quite what I'll be doing once I get back, which is both exciting and a little unsettling.

Mountains

Way back when I wrote about the Grand Canyon, it was very difficult to find words to adequately describe it.  The Rocky Mountains are the same - one keeps coming up with the same words, words that have become so cliched now that when something really warrants them, they are not enough.  Words like 'majestic', 'splendour', and especially 'awesome'.   And I don't like using lots of words when a simple one or two does a much better job.

As a little experiment I asked Angus to come up with a poem about our surroundings, as we drove into the Rocky Mountains.   We talked about how poems need to use only a few words to say what you want to say about something, so they need to be carefully chosen and used.  He quickly came up with this:

"Mountains, mountains, mountains.
Majestic as they are."

Majestic was the word that immediately came to my mind, too.  I think of all the overused words we could have come up with that one comes closest to describing the Rockies.  I like the simplicity of his poem.

Then I thought surely, many others must have come up with something poetic to describe this part of the world.  I'm still looking at that one, but there is a book of poems caled Rocky Mountain poems, by Canadian Ralph Gustafson, that I'm trying to get hold of.  I can't find the poems themselves on line, just reviews with limited quotes.  But I will find them.  I might even have a go at one myself.

It feels very fitting to be ending our North American adventure here, after (nearly) beginning it at the Grand Canyon.  There's a balance in that.

En route to Lake Louise we were delayed 2 hours just west of Revelstoke by avalance control blasting:  all cars had to stop while this was done.  It was quite exciting hearing the mortar fires, though we didn't see the avalanches.  We got out and went for a walk, starting off on the Hemlock Grove boardwalk which was 'closed' (as were most hiking and camping grounds, at this time of year) but were soon waist deep in snow.  Sadly the camera battery was flat so we couldn't take photos of this or our eventual approach into the Rocky Mountains.  The ones here were taken on the way back, or after we got there.

We went through avalanche tunnels, alongside the Rocky Mountain railroad track and its tunnels through the mountains.  We passed beautiful, turquoise glassy lakes and half frozen streams, the frozen areas piled several feet high with snow.  A herd of mountain goats grazed by the side of the road, traffic slowing as it passed them.  It was all so beautiful, especially the mountains themselves, that I got butterflies in my stomach.

We got to Lake Louise some 6 hours after leaving Salmon Arm.

Our Lake Louise adventures will have to wait til my next entry as we need to get back on the road now.

Driving to Banff

We left Vancouver today for the last leg of our Canada trip.  We're going to Lake Louise and Banff, particularly the former where we will stay here, at Deer Lodge.   Which isn't the Lake Louise Inn, where I worked for a week or two in 1988, as one of the housekeeping staff (I just can't refer to myself as a maid, I really can't.  And I wasn't much of one, anyway.  In fact it would be insulting to maids to do so, even if I could bring myself to do it).  

Tonight, we're at Salmon Arm, which is a beautifully situated little town on the shores of Lake Shaswup, and surrounded by snow capped mountains (not as big as the Rockies will be, but they're getting bigger and bigger the closer we get).

It's taken us nearly five hours to get here, up the Coquihalla (No 5) Highway from near Vancouver.  This was a very high road, up through mountains, and it was snowing for a bit of the way.  Heavily enough for it to settle on the road, so I drove very slowly with my all-season tyres (luckily other cars were taking it slowly too).   We had been advised to take the Trans-Canada Highway (No 1) instead, though it takes a little longer, but the condition report flashing up on a screen before the turnoff / decision point said that both roads were 'Bare'.  I assume this means bare of snow (and not the other sort of Bear a hopeful Angus misheard me say, and nor was it any reference to Bear Grylls, whom we've both been keeping an eye out for, lurching out of the Rocky Mountains back to civilisation, and asking us for a lift).  So I opted for the quicker route.  But as other signs warn, conditions can change quickly in the mountains.  (Added later:  I heard the next morning two feet of snow fell on the Coquihalla yesterday!  Glad we made it through).

Tomorrow, we'll drive another four hours to Lake Louise, through the Glacier National Park (and Revelstoke, where an avalanche killed three people three weeks ago).

We saw a billboard on the way into Salmon Arm advertising the Holiday Inn Express, and what caught Angus's eye was the mention of a waterslide and pool.  So, deciding he could do with some comfortable physical activity after a day in the car, we went and got a room there, and it's lovely.  The pool and slide are fantastic, and very heated (indoors).  Also very crowded, but Angus enjoyed it a lot.  I had planned on having a spa and relaxing after the long drive and heavy concentration, but it was not a quiet relaxing atmosphere, with screams of excitement coming from the slide and pool nearby (many from my child) and lots of toddlers with their parents in the spa.

Oh well.  Back to our room (after a quick nip out to get some dinner - I was starving!) and ended up with KFC - our concession to Good Friday was not going for pepperoni pizza, and sticking to white meat (though not much of it really).

I didn't take many photos on the drive up today, as it wasn't really safe to stop much (one doesn't stop for photos in an area signed as 'Avalanche Area'.  I will tomorrow though, this scenery is among the most beautiful on the planet.

Vancouver's lower east side - a tragedy

Driving home from the Vancouver Island ferry, we missed our turn off and ended up on the east side of town, instead of the west.  This was okay as we could see downtown, and the grid system of roads makes it an easy place to navigate.  So we found Hastings Street, which I knew would take us downtown.  I've mentioned before the problem of homelessness in Vancouver, and panhandling etc - I knew homelessness was a big issue here.  In large part, because it's the warmest city in Canada - if you are going to be homeless anywhere, you'd do it here as there is less chance of freezing to death.

Having worked in public housing and homelessness service delivery (as well as policy) and having lived in big cities, and just spent time in New York, I thought I would have a pretty good idea about what the seedier parts of town might look like here.  But I was shocked.

At 8pm, there were hundreds of people, dressed in rags, with matted hair and pushing shopping trolleys with their belongings - those who had some belongings or who weren't in wheelchairs and unable to push a trolley - along East Hastings Street with its dingy no-star hotels and takeaway food shops half-heartedly lit up.  It was one of the most depressing sights I've seen, and like something out of a movie set in a post-holocaust New York.  This went on for blocks and blocks, and at one end before it started to look a bit brighter, there was a small soup kitchen handing out food.  They weren't being swamped though.

Yesterday, we caught a bus to Chinatown and got off a few blocks away from our destination.  It didn't look like a great part of town, but as we walked toward Chinatown I realised we were in fact on the lower East side of town.   Quick sideways glances down alleyways revealed lots of scuttering movements, like lice on a child's head, as people moved in and out of doorways, again dressed in rags.  A few attempted to panhandle on a main street (which was near deserted, except for us).   A few others congregated for a smoke outside a very down-at-heels pub.  

It was very, very scary and we moved fast through that area.  I might have expected to feel a bit fearful in some parts of New York, including the subway, but this was much worse than that.

I don't have any photos because a) I didn't want to stop for any reason, b) I didn't want to be mugged for the camera and c) it would have been very invasive.

One homeless man called out to us as we entered the area, and walked past his 'spot'.  I ignored it but he called out again and this time I realised he was telling me I'd dropped something.  I had, so thanked him and picked it up.  He didn't ask us for money at all.  So I felt a bit guilty for making assumptions about him.  It reminded me of when George Clooney's character says in Up in the Air, "Always stereotype, it saves time" in that it such an assumption was probably wise, and I can just feel pleased it wasn't proven.   Another, further along, told me "it's not raining" as I had my umbrella up.  But no-one in that area asked us for money.  I think they save that for the busier and more salubrious parts of downtown.  I was very worried about being mugged, though, and made a point of meeting eyes, and looking behind us if anyone approached from behind.

Now I understand why Vancouverites bemoan the problem of homelessness.  And to think this is happening in a country with one of the best social welfare systems in the world, highlights the extent of the problem.   They already do have a lot of social housing projects, including the city buying up a huge number of the cheap hotels and renting them out at an affordable rent, with security of tenure.  And there seem to be a lot of mental health, drug and alcohol, and other community services all around.  I guess part of the problem is the influx from the rest of the country.  The demand is so great.

When we got to Chinatown, just a couple of fairly small blocks away, it was completely different and safe.  Another world.

But - when we got the bus home again, there was a couple who looked very much the worse for wear, obviously off their heads on drugs, on the bus.  We tried not to look at them for fear of prompting violence - it might have been Ice, I think, judging in part by their sexual behaviour as well as what they were saying.  But they were very loud, and very interesting to watch and listen to, actually.   I felt sick watching them kissing though (which was in between loudly abusing each other, with very colourful language).  It was a relief when they got off.   I had to try to make some age appropriate explanations to Angus who was fascinated, of course.   On the bus on the way in, we'd had a horrible experience too, when a man sat down next to me who had the most incredibly strong stench of stale urine about him.  I very nearly got off the bus, and I was seriously struggling not to vomit, it was that bad.  I'm not one to vomit lightly.  Angus noticed it as well, and was very good about not making loud remarks.  He subtly put his shirt over his nose and mouth.   I expressed some sympathy for the man, to Angus.  We wondered whether he was homeless and had lost control of his bodily functions overnight, and had nowhere to shower and no clean clothes.

So while Vancouver is one of the most beautiful cities in the world, it has a very, very ugly side.

Vancouver Island, pot and potage

We took off to Vancouver Island for a few days late last week, ignoring the fact that two people had been found murdered on a popular walking trail there, in two separate incidents over the past week.  We weren't planning on hiking.  

We rented a car from Budget downtown, who engage in very aggressive 'upselling' - and when I googled it I found other reviews suggested the same experience.  Anyway, I took out some insurance cover I later found out I didn't need, and which cost 1.5 times the car rental cost.    I won't be doing that next time, in fact I'm looking for deals with other companies for our Rockies trip next week.

Anyway -we drove out to Tsawassen to get on the ferry to the Island.  Tsawassen was very easy to find - the roads are well signed here.   We got into a huge lineup of cars - we wondered how so many cars would fit on the ferry, large as it was.  But they all did.  The ferry is almost like a cruise ship (without cabins).  It had a buffet section, a cafeteria, a gift shop that sold clothes, business stations (but no wifi), a special lounge you had to pay extra for, televisions, kids play area, and lots of other comfortable seating areas.  It has two levels for passengers, two or three for cars.

Most importantly this trip travels through some of the most beautiful scenery in BC, winding in and around little islands covered in fir trees (or other very northern hemisphere trees), some with smoke rising up from the chimneys of little wooden cabins, some with small towns - a collection of little wooden cabins.  You could see the forest streams through the trees, on some of them - the ferry went that close.  Perhaps the serenity and beauty of the trip was enhanced by the fragrant wafts of pot, from the joint being smoked by a man sitting just downwind of me on the deck (its legality in Canada is 'ambiguous' according to Wikipedia).  Most of the trip we are travelling along the US (Washington) coast.  My phone sent me a welcome to the USA message en route.

An hour and a half of cruising, and we arrived in Sidney, Vancouver Island and drove 30 minutes to the capital of British Columbia, Victoria.  This is a beautiful old harbour city, but small, with no big buildings and lots of old buildings, like Parliament House and the Fairmont Empress Hotel.  It reminded me a little of Ballarat.  It takes great pride in its 'Britishness' but this seems to have been toned down a little since my last visit 20 years ago, where I remember much more prominent Union Jacks and 'high tea' events.

We went to the Royal Museum of British Columbia, which was excellent - Angus declared it the second best museum he's ever been too (surpassed only by the Melbourne Museum).  We learned about the first nations people of the area and how they used to live, the logging and fishing industries, and what it was like to live in a town there 100 years ago.  Great interactive displays.

There's also a great park called Beacon Hill Park, which, like Bunny Hollow, reminds me (though I've never been there) of what a Heath might be like in London.  It's called Beacon Hill Park.  It has massive boulders, green soft grassy knolls, daffodils everywhere, and people just sitting in isolation at odd spots around the park, hidden in nooks and crannies created by boulders, reading or studying.

I could tell it was a government town:  I eavesdropped on a conversation at breakfast in a coffee shop, which was all about which fund to take and return some funds from - consolidated revenue (or CRF, as they referred to it), or some other source?   Brought back memories....but without any sense of missing it!    And many of the people at the restaurant at dinner (which wasn't that memorable, despite being a very popular spot - Pagliaccis) had a public service look about them.

To catch the ferry home we drove a few hours north on the island, up to Nanaimo.  (It's helpful to bear in mind Vancouver Island is as big as the UK - it isn't like Stradbroke Island, as I'd naively thought before planning the trip in any detail).  We passed through a gorgeous fishing town along the way - Cowichan Bay.  It's very small, and like some Irish seaside villages in appearance.  It is simply a collection of shops and houses spread along a road, which one approaches coming down a hill and round a bend, and suddenly it's there.  Drive one minute, and it's gone.  Many of the small, colourful clapboard dwellings are built over the water, and connected by a series of piers or boardwalks, where boats are also moored.

The town has a great cheese shop - Hilary's cheese, next door to an organic bakery.  We stopped there for lunch, where I had french cabbage soup with roquefort, and Angus had split pea soup.  We really enjoyed our lunch, on a grey and foggy day overlooking the sea and fishing boats in a warm, cosy little shop.   I bought some cheese, one made there by Hilary and one brie from Quebec, to take home.

Vancouver Island was very beautiful and I wish we could have explored more widely - to the surf coast, and the town of Tofino over there, for example.  But with limited time I decided that we can see wild surf beaches at home.

Mermaids?

I just had to share my amusement at these hilarious TV shows Angus has taken to watching here on cable TV.  There's a channel, OLM, which devotes itself to ghost-hunting, mystery-solving, UFO chasing and the like.  Tonight, one of these 'amazing stories' shows had a story investigating mermaids which apparently have been sighted in Papua New Guinea.  The presenters earnestly told us about the area, the fact that stories of these legendary creatures go back at least 100 years, in these parts.  They spoke to locals, and asked them questions:

Q.  So what colour hair did she have?
A.  Black.  She havum black hair (in Pidgin, not an exact transcript)

Q.  Can you describe anything else about her?
A.  She not pretty, she big and she have face likum dugong (ditto).  But her tail different.

HELLO!!!

Angus had the good sense to burst out laughing, with me, so I'm feeling okay that he's developing some discrimination in assessing his information.