...Whistler to Watson Lake.

Im going to keep this short as the last one only had information in it that was interesting to me (well, it's a month condensed into a few paragraphs, I'll be short-ish..)

Just as an aside, I had considered calling my blog "It's not that I need to see the world, but the world needs to see more me". However, for fear of it being misconstrued as over-zealous self-indulgence, I've gone for the less egomanic title. Then again, surely a blog is just over-zealous self-indulgence. As if the world cares..

Ok, so. Whistler is a small resort town north of Vancouver. It's an odd little place with a young and transient population who think that exteme sports is something you do before breakfast, lunch, dinner and between drugs. It's a pretty place with looooads to do if you're into skiing in winter and mountain biking in the summer.

So, mountain biking was done. Spent two days doing cross-country and a day doing downhill. as can be seen here. In fact refer to daves flickr feed for a regular pictoral update. He can upoad pics from his phone if there's GSM coverage or wifi.
Also attended my first illegal rave in Whisltler up a the side of a mountain in a forest. It was quite splendid.

Whilst in Whistler, we sprayed Dave and Alice's car in the colours of the A-team van. This seems to have aided aerodynamics, toughness and sex appeal. This is what she looks like. She's a 1988 Chevy Astro with a 4.2 lite engine that still struggles up hills and is only 6,000km away from a quarter of a million. No joke. We passed the 240,000 km mark a few weeks back.

We got on the road after Alice and Dave's emotional departure from their apartment in Whistler. It was their home. And a damn fine home. Out first port of call was Gibson's Landing where "the Beachcombers" was filmed. The town is stuck in a time-warp. People seem to be avoiding the last three or four decades, writing them off as myth. I've never seen so many flower-clad boat-houses and velouria shell-suits in my life. Also, Charlene (the van) developed a sickness there that cost 140 dollars to repair so we couldn't get to the "moon-something hostel" that boasted drumming circles and nightly bon-fires.

Not all was lost in Gibson's though. Our waiter directed us to "Secret Beach" which was a shallow stone beach a small trek from the road. This is where we camped and sat up looking at the stars by camp-fire.

Next stop was Powell River. We thought it was the biggest hick town we had seen. Perhaps it was. But it was nothing in comparison to what we would go on to see. The only thing worth
mentioning in this town is drinking on the peir, that i found out my Lomo was leaking light and any photos I had taken with it were gone and we did find the most beautiful cafe. It was called Local Loco's. If you are ever in that part of the world, it's unmissable.

Then Onto Okeover Arm. Sea Kayaking. We were out for about 5 or six hours kayaking on a fjord. We went out to a tiny island and rested for a while. Saw loads of seals and even chased a shoal of herring and watched as they jumped from the water. After a freaky night in a BC parks campsite (there was alot of wild-life around us in an extremely remote area. big wild-life. I heard a few twigs and branches snapping around me in the dark as I was cooking. There was definitly some large animal about) we trekked aorund Savary Island. Pop. 90. Saw Bald Eagles, deer and garter snakes. I was amazed at how fast teh snakes can move!

from Savary we went to Vancouver Island and stayed in an odd hostel in Courtenay. So we moved on quicky to Tofino, the surfing capital of Canada. Quite a beautiful place. On the first night I ended up making new and intoxicated friends around a camp-fire on the beach which also involved trekking into the woods with a waning torch and draggin fallen trees out for the fire. It was my first time seeing the Pacific, I felt a celebration with strangers was in order. When that all got a littel macho it was about 4am so I decided to wander bakc to the van for some sleep (odd concept, I know). As I neared the end of the beach that we were camping near someone let off a cheapish looking firework which reminded me of the crappy little fireworks that remove fingers annually at home. I was reminded of home. It was a pathetic but oddly charming firework, charming because it reminded me of a mischief that was simply a rite-of-passage for any irish youth. And sure enough when I got to where the firework was let off it was a load or Irish, Scots and English up to their eye-balls on MDMA. What a co-incidence! So I partied with them for a bit. I seem to remember being attacked by some hyper-active girl on the beach (I woke with sand in my month) who's husband was from Tallagh and attending secret "raves" which involved Paul, a Glaswegian setting up an iPod and speakers in an empty lot and having us dance to Barry White.

Then we surfed. It was great. Off to Ucluelet then. Lots of lovely walking. And a deer.

Then to Victoria, the main city of Vancouver Island. It would be a great city if it weren't for the amount of homeless. They're ok, they don't pester you like them bastards back home but it's just that there is such an abundance of them. Victoria is the closest we've come to a vibrant European feel to a city. Recommended. Then a night in Vancouver. Unfortunatly Dave's laptop was stolen this night from the van. Dave's works from his laptop and all his work and records are all on that laptop. Any back-up of the records he made were shipped home the cheapest, and therefore, slowest way possible. So no getting them either. He managed to buy a new one second-hand the next day and make-up for some lost time. So the internet is safely in his hands again, where it belongs.

On from Vancouver to Kelowna, the wine-region. The Okanagan valley surrounds a lake and has quite an arid, hot climet in the summer. The vineyard we did a tour of (Summerhill) fed us some shite about putting the wine in a specially-poured concrete pyramid to clarify it. Apparently the sacred geometry allows this miracle to happen. ARSE. We tried the wine, drove to the nearest liqoure store, bought cheaper wine and got drunk on the lake beach. Not Dave though, the was driving. If you end up in the Okanagan valley, buy some fruit. It's amazing.

From there we drove to Revelstoke, where we Drove up Mt. Revelstoke and hiked the last snowy bit, visited a Rail Museum (bitchin'..) and went to a logging competition where we saw people throwing full-handled axes at targets and an actual pie-eating contest for kids aged 10-14. I couldn't believe my eyes. This shit actually happens. There were other catagories but I think the hysteria of our laughter was making the contestants uneasy. And those axe-throwers were acurate. There was also "lil miss Revelstoke" walking around. Bizarre!

After Revelstoke, Field. Tiny town. Check out Yoho National Park on google earth if you are bored some day. there'e no internet or mobile phone coverage in this area but it's beautiful. We walked up Paget Peak (2560m) the first day and walked 11km to lake O'Hara (2034m) the second day and trekked around it. What an amazing part of the world. It was the first of a few UNESCO protected areas we passed through, the next being Banff. Banff was fun. I left the other two to thier own devices and went to discover what the night-life of Banff had to offer. I got talking to a mid-thirties couple who insisted that they buy my drink and after I got talking to two girls who suggested that we continue drinking at their hotel where we ended up sneaking into a hot-tub and drinking warm vodka until the wee hours.

Stick with me here, I'm getting close to the present.

We drove through Banff National Park, also UNESCO protected and the most amazing scenery I have ever come across. I stared for 300 miles open-mouthed out my window. I even got to see the Athabasca glacier which is part of the vast Columbia Icefields. Onward to Jasper. Where we were supposed to go mountain biking but were let down by the weather. I know it looks ok, but it was pissing rain and we had to cook under a tarp. We did manage to see a "naturally formed bridge", the Maligne Canyon, and an interesting tree.

On from Jasper to Grande Prairie where we went abruptly from the snowy Rockies to thousands of square miles of flat. just trees and flatlands. We drove through loads of shit little towns that are devoid of culture and history as they were only built in the last 90 years or so to facilitate oil eploitation etc.. these were

Grande Prairie
Dawson Creek - home of "Mile 0" of the Alaska Highway
Fort St. John - the last place of GSM moblie phone network until Alaska.
Fort Nelson
Watson Lake - Where I am now.


So. To conclude this post. Canada is amazing. The People are great, they're friendly, REALLY helpful and genuinly interested in you. They Also take a great amount of pride in their country and rightly so, it's beautiful, vast, breath-taking and has one of the warmest welcomes you'll encounter. Truly worth a visit in your lift-time.

Just watch out for bears. moose. elk. cougars. coyotes. etc...