Day 49

Heading back from Salt Spring via two ferries to Vancouver, it was time to return Jaffa to Mini Canada and prepare for our respective flights home to New Zealand and Montréal.

Nancy and the canola crops through Jaffa's rearview mirror.

As I've noted previously, showing a car regular TLC sometimes sounds a bit airy fairy if you think of it as just another inanimate object. As someone who's divested himself of virtually all his material possessions, it's ironic that those who possess a lot of them seem to treat them with the least respect. I on the other hand, am not only happy to have Jaffa washed and vacuumed out of respect for her, she was also still the property of Mini Canada who had lent her to us in the first place. Thus, returning her in as near new condition as possible is just common courtesy.

As a Kiwi, making a mobile outdoor fireplace from an old washing machine drum and a lawnmower base, really struck me as great "do it yourself" ingenuity.

But whether you concur with my philosophy or not, Jaffa had taken us over 19,000km's without incident and threaded us through a window in the great weather diversity of a Canadian summer with a 99.3% roof down record. We did in seven weeks what most people do in a year, me driving on the unfamiliar side of the road, and completed our voyage all in near perfect condition. Was it due to statistically quantifiable (but incredibly long odds) luck, or was it due to karma, protective angels or the hand of God?

Jaffa getting in good with the Big Guy.

The one advantage I have over those who believe I live in a fantasy world is that in my world, anything is possible. Don't believe me? Watch the children around you laugh and play their way through life if ever you need convincing that there are greater things at play in the machinations of this world than we know.

Thank you Mini, thank you Canada!

In March and April of 2011, Nancy and I will be touring New Zealand to meet the people and view the country from a great Kiwi (New Zealand) icon, the deck. Kiwis love the outdoors, love to have barbeques and love to entertain. And what better place to do that than the open alfresco nature of a deck (terrasse).

Until then, I hope some of you take up the opportunity to see the amazing country that is Canada. Remember tomorrow never comes, love and laughter - Shaun

Day 48

Following Prince George, we continued south to the Okanagan Valley and Kelowna; a veritable playground for  water sports enthusiasts. Even we, who chose to go horse riding, took the "ride and swim" option - it seeming both a pleasant way for us to escape the valley's dry heat and a more humane way to ride horses when it's approaching 50 degrees in their corral (in the sun).

Peter, "Lucy", Shaun and Nancy

Of more entertainment to me though was watching a young boy called Thomas partake in the same activity. The day prior he'd been out adventurimg on ATV's with dad, today it was mum's turn to take him horse riding. He looked very cute in his snake skin riding boots.

We tented the night at a sparse but quite adequate campground, dining in our usual culinary style just metres from the edge of Lake Okanagan. Despite the setting sun, there were still many keen boaties out wave surfing and biscuiting, the sounds of laughter adding to the balmy nature of the evening.

Departing before nine the next day, we were heading for Whistler to take the gondola ride across to the Blackcomb skifield. But prior to that we had some 420km's of new territory to cover, including a section down highway 99 and an impressive valley to Lillooet, now utilised by BC Hydro for power generation. Arriving at the Whistler gondola ticket office at exactly 5pm, it had unfortunately just closed. Although I suspect we missed a spectacular trip, everything happens for a reason. So after refreshments at one of the local establishments, we hit the road, now deciding to make for Vancouver.

 

Although Vancouver was technically our final destination, we had no intention of stopping there just yet. The next morning we drove and walked around Stanley Park, arguably the nicest, well appointed all round park I've been to anywhere in the world. And one well utilised by locals and tourists alike.

Getting lost or at least experiencing many occasions of deja vu was an integral and fun part of this whole trip, needless to say, driving back through Vancouver from Stanley Park we got lost - again, driving back around on ourselves - again! But eventually we found our way to the ferries at Tsawwassen and sailed over to Victoria.

A series of sculptures based on the laughing face of the artist, Yue Minjun.

The primary reason for going to Victory, besides it being a very clean and pretty provincial capital, was to visit the Butchart Gardens. I'd been there over Christmas to see them in all their snow and festive light glory, but figured they must be even more spectacular in the
summer. And we were not disappointed.

 

Taking one final short ferry ride, we left Vancouver Island to overnight in a gorgeous B&B on Salt Spring Island - Monivea

This afforded us the opportunity to take the short walk up to Reginald Pt in Fulford Harbour  where we watched the sun go down over Camembert, a baguette and a Pinot Gris. Another one of life's precious moments seared into long-term memory by a dipping sun.

The sun watching us . . .

. . . us watching the sun!

Day 43

The last 450km's of highway from Watson Lake through to Whitehorse is a glorious piece of road. Not only is it fast, wide and well surfaced, the scenery is wonderful, especially over sunset when we travelled it. Even more impressive is the way it got built - in 1942 thousands of US Army personnel laid nearly 2500km's of highway in less than nine months. I'm not sure of the original road quality, but it was an amazing feat all the same.

If I am to venture back to Canada with the express purpose of seeing more of one particular province, it will be Yukon - outstanding. Unfortunately our stay was all too brief, eventually heading back out of Whitehorse along the same stretch of smooth, fast and scenic Alaska Highway as we used to get in.

Before reaching Watson Lake and the Sign Forest again, we turned off south down highway 37 with the idea of seeing different part of BC. However, our first obstacle came just 100m's into highway 37 at what we took to be a queue for more road works. A few minutes later the

queue moved off and we waved to the lollipop man, bringing up the rear as the tail end Charlie. Just a few clicks down the road a small lake took my eye so I hit the picks and spun Jaffa in amongst the coverage of the willows for an impromptu picnic lunch. Half an hour later we were back on our merry way noting the proximity of the forest fires venting their carbon sink tonnage into the stratosphere.

A few photo op's later and we came across a pick up with orange flashing lights. We both pulled over, leaning out our respective windows to chat.

"Are you guys from the forestry department?" he inquired.

Whereupon Nancy and I were thinking, what the? We're in a convertible red Mini with the roof down, do we look like forestry workers? 

"No we're just travelling through" I replied.

It transpires that the queue we'd been in 35km's back up the road was for a forestry escort through this particular fire hot spot. The pilot vehicle leads the way and no overtaking or stopping until the other end of the escort area. It's just a pity they never thought to tell the people in the queue instead of making the assumption everyone in it was either local, au fait with such procedures or had at least watched, read or heard the news about forest fires recently. Being in none of the above, we had fallen outside the standard deviation of their bell curve and now become apparent reason for these two poor guys to cop a berating from over their RT as to who we were and why we were where we were if we were not forestry workers.

So we had to turn around, go back to the start and wait 45mins for the pilot to have his lunch before returning. Having said that, highway 37 down from the Alaska Highway is a fantastic road and definitely one we're glad we ended up taking - albeit three times. We tented in a small camp ground at Lake Dease which, by the way, has the nicest long-drop toilet/washroom I've used anywhere in the world.

The following day was set to be a decent drive of 900+ km's down to the city of Prince George. But not before we inadvertently went straight ahead at an intersection when we should have turned left. This detour took us to Stewart some 60km's out of our way but passed some great glaciers and waterfalls - again well worth the shortish diversion.

In Stewart I got talking to a lady at the liquor store when buying wine for dinner. She said I would kick myself if I'd come this far and not gone down the road to Hyder to see the bears feeding on the spawning salmon. What she neglected to tell me was that Hyder was in another country - Alaska, USA to be precise. 

So having inadvertently given our forestry pilot vehicle the slip, inadvertently ended up in Stewart 60km's off our path, we now ended up inadvertently in Alaska watching bears fish. But once again, it's well worth the effort if you get the chance. Heading out of Hyder, then Stewart we made our way back past the glaciers and waterfalls of 37a to rejoin highway 37 heading for Kitiwanga and a stop for dinner.

Dinner was a roadie classic taking place on a picnic table inside a children's playground bathed in early evening sunshine and no insects. It consisted of pasta with mushrooms and tuna, along with a baguette, brie, balsamic and olive oil dip and a nice Australian red.

There are moments in time that attain such a simplistic crescendo of perfection a person can measure the quality of their life by them - and this was one, thanks Nancy.

After dinner, despite an already full day, we still had some 500km's to go to get to Prince George. When we left Kitiwanga it was 28 degrees, nearing Prince George it was down to 5 degrees and I was very thankful for my icebreaker gear which along with Jafa's heated seats were keeping my quite toasty despite the lack of roof and relatively frigid air temperature.

In Prince George we gave Jaffa a bit of TLC, washing and vacuuming her before getting her an oil change and a tire rotation. Many people treat their cars as if they were an inanimate object. Personally I prefer to treat them with care and respect. The idea being that I look after them off the road and they look after me on the road - and I've never been let down, ever!

If you find yourself cussing and cursing the things around you, funnily enough you'll get things to cuss and curse them about. But if you care for and respect the things around you, you'll get things worth caring and respecting. And the same ethos applies to people, pets, partners or jobs.

Day 40

It's over 1500km's from Edmonton to Yellowknife and although I once drove 2200km's in one stint (except a four hour ferry), I was much younger, much more stupid and freely admit that the last 250km's seemed all up hill due to sleep deprecation. Thus I wasn't  too keen on such a long haul in one go again even when sharing the driving. So we split the trip roughly in half and made easy work of it over two days, staying amongst the very friendly folks of Manning, just north of Peace River.

And there's plenty of wild life to view en route too.

Yellowknife's a friendly enough place, basically at the end of a 600km cul-de-sac. Although in winter, the ground freezes over giving a further 2100km's of access for trucks supplying the oil fields and diamond mines and any ferries in the region are replaced with ice bridges.

We had three reasons for adding Yellowknife into the itinerary:

1) It didn't seem right to say we were crossing Canada by just hugging the US/Canadian border - so we added in this stetch north for extra variety and because, well, because we could! (So long as what you wish to do doesn't adversely effect another person, "because you can" is all the justification you'll ever need to do anything.)

The Wildcat Cafe's a bit of a local institution and worth a visit for breakfast, lunch or dinner.

2) The daily temperatures in Yellowknife over last winter were often colder than the North Pole. In fact, in the winter of 2007/2008, Yellowknife had nine days with a high of -40 degrees and they have a record low of -53 degrees Celsius, compared to New Zealand's comparatively balmy -22.

3) And finally, it's a common place for tourists to go to see the Northern Lights.

We discovered when departing Yellowknife that we were a bit ahead of schedule, although quite how we got ahead of something that doesn't actually exist is a mystery in its own right. Anyway, originally we weren't going to two Canadian provinces:

1) Nunavut because it has no roads and "Jaffa" can't fly even with the best of intentions.

2) Yukon, because we thought it a bit out of the way.

And a bit out of the way it is. In fact, it's another 3000km's for us to go from Yellowknife to Vancouver via Whitehorse, Yukon. Why? I've told you why. Because we can, carpe diem my friends. Canada's a fantastic country, I urge you once again to get out and enjoy it.

Since taking the TV down off the lounge wall four years ago to paint, I haven't watched, read or listened to the news. It's probably the primary reason I maintain such a happy disposition. Initially I thought I'd turn into some sort of reclusive current affairs eunuch, but by and large I seem to maintain a functioning grasp of reality. Although reality's the construct of the mind so perhaps I'm not well positioned to comment upon my own grasp. Anyway, as a result of my news reclusivity, I've only recently become aware Elvis is dead. No just kidding. I've just learnt about the scale of the forest fires in British Columbia.

I come from the largest city in New Zealand, Auckland, and it's 665km's by road to our capital, Wellington. So the 100,000 hectares of forest lost to fire in BC this season alone is a staggering figure to me. 100,000 hectares or 200,000 football fields is enough space to make a road from Auckland to Wellington a mile wide.

Day 36

We overnighted in Calgary before heading to the Rockies.

Hoping for a clear day, not just because we wanted the roof down, but because apparently seeing the Rockies rise majestically out of the Earth from a distance adds to their inspiring allure. Unfortunately fine rain reduced visibility from afar although no where near enough to force the roof up. As there were no foothills, when you enter the Rockies from Calgary, you enter the Rockies proper. And the great thing about the view from a convertible is that it's completely unimpeded - you see everything.

If you scoured the dictionary from aardvark to Zurich you might find sufficient superlatives to describe the Rockies. Alas I have neither the vocabulary nor the penmenship to do this justice. But a picture says a thousand words, so if you can't get there yourself, try these.

This shot was taken atop the actual moraine which created the lake and gave it its name - Lake Moraine. It's another 30mins drive from the more famous Lake Louise, but well worth the time because, personally I think it's the more spectacular.

Exiting the Rockies from Jasper we headed to Edmonton for a sticky beak around the West Edmonton Mall. It may no longer be the largest in the world and it may be showing its age, but with an indoor wave pool, pirate themed bumper boat pool and ice rink, it's still very cool. You can't help but think it would be a great place to go as a family during the winter time when it's minus 30 degrees outside.

This shot shows a whole flotilla of kids on yellow tubes awaiting the next set of waves in the wave pool. Behind them is the waterslide tower with its own pools off to the right.

A funny thing happened to me in one of the restrooms here. I was washing my hands and there was a little boy about six years old doing likewise. He was furiously pumping the soap dispenser into his right hand. Once full, he added his left hand and went on making himself a small lake of pearly pink surfactant. Most amused, it was about this time I asked him if he thought he had enough, to which he replied:

"Mom said to use lots of soap!"
"Well I think she'll be happy with that lot son."

I smiled and left him to his bubble bath. You just gotta love kids, their logical innocence is an inexhaustible source of delight.

Soon after this episode, I was indirectly confronted with a far more serious yet heartening example of love and compassion from a child. Just a few days ago eleven year old Aashar Mahood was orphaned when his grandfather, parents and two sisters were killed in a head on collision in British Columbia. Rather than being stricken with grief as could be expected, he told the Edmonton Sun he wanted people to remember his family as loving, caring people who would help anyone. One wonders how much grief the world could have been spared in Ireland and the middle east if such mature compassion was prevalent in its leaders and clergy.

"Where is the love? There is the love."

Day 30

Frank Herbert said you can move a planet with a big enough lever. OK, so what about prising two kids off the couch when enjoying summer holidays playing Wii in air conditioned comfort? The alternative being 30 humid degrees, whilst clearing a season's worth of crusty hay and cow dung out of the barn. Well it wasn't as hard as one might think. Whilst their parents were out, Tyler and Hayley were our hosts and as their guests, I asked to be taken to the barn to clean it out. So as to be accommodating hosts, they indulged our strange request somewhat to the surprise of Kelly, their dad, when he returned.

Tyler (our host for the morning), Jake (the Golden Retriever), me and Kelly, Tyler's dad, the owner of the farm and a family friend.

Nancy, Hayley (junior host one), Shaun and Tyler (junior host two) amongst the canola of their dad's farm just north of Regina in Saskatchewan.

Naturally Jaffa made short work of recruiting two more future Mini owners.

"Life's a journey, not a destination." 

It was with that in mind that God made the prairies. If you get bored crossing them it's because you're focused on the destination and not the journey.

We stopped to play "hide and seek" . . . . .

. . . . . . but with Jaffa it should really be "where's Wally."

. . . . . of course hiding Jaffa isn't anywhere near as hard as hiding this behemoth, even if he is green!

They say Alberta's so flat if your dog runs away, you can see him running for four days. But not the Badlands near Drumheller. One minute you're driving through a sea of wheat and canola the next you drop down into a valley straight from the Jurrasic period.

Day 27

Departing Niagara, we were en route primarily to visit some friends just outside of Regina in the middle of Saskatchewan. This would have been over 2500km's even if we'd gone the short way via Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota and North Dakota. But this is a trip across Canada, not the USA, so we went the long way via Sudbury, Thunder Bay and Winnipeg.

And not satisfied with that, we inadvertently got off highway 17 adding a further 350km's to our course, ending up in Timmins - home town of Shania Twain although she wasn't there when we called by. Ironically she has a property in my country, so perhaps she's in Wanaka enjoying a southern hemisphere winter. However everything happens for a reason, thus the detour proved fortuitous because to get back on course to Thunder Bay we took highway 11 and had a most bizarre day of encounters with big things.

After the big detour in the big province of Ontario in the big country of Canada we found:

- the big flying saucer at Moonbeam

- the big moose at Hearst along with a massive Irish Wolfhound who stopped to play

- the huge wood pile in a place we can't recall

- the big Longlac (Long Lake)
- then there was the big snowman in Beardmore

- the big stop sign in Thunder Bay
- another big dog in Thunder Bay
- and finally the big bright full moon that night

In Thunder Bay we met yet another young Mini fan. Funnily Blair hailed from Yellowknife and was heading to Halifax with his family, the converse of our plans.

We were warned that the prairies were long, flat and boring. Well as a piece of advice, two out of three isn't bad I suppose. The prairies are long and they are flat but they're far from boring. But I guess that depends upon your approach. It's a bit like the old saying "Some people walk in the rain and some people just get wet." Admittedly we strayed off the beaten track a bit every now and again, but some of the scenery is just outstanding. The colours of summer and the way clouds cast certain areas into shade makes for constant variation - that's assuming you're prepared to look and occasionally stop and smell the roses.

All cars have a personality if you give them one and Jaffa's no different. Here she makes like a lioness stalking prey in the on the African Savanna. In reality we're just some lost tourists crossing the Canada prairies on another long lonely highway - and what great fun it is.

I should take this opportunity to say that I've lost count of how many Canadians have said they've never seen their own country. Please, to all Canadians, you have a fantastic and beautiful country, get out and see it. It's never too late and nothing's impossible.

Day 23

Our next stop was Ottawa, the nation's capital. And a very nice place it was too, once we got out of Jaffa and could walk around the parks, canals and buildings. I mention my preference for walking in Ottawa because all the one way streets, no left turns and no right turns make you wonder if they didn't let Mr McGoo and Wily Coyote loose one weekend to do their road marking. Wily Coyote was a big fan of straight line speed, this explains all the no turn signs, Mr McGoo was blind, which explains their randomly erratic placement. All that aside, the area around the parliament buildings and canal is very pretty and a nice place to explore on foot.

Tall buildings are generally a fascination to most people, so a stop to see the CN Tower in Toronto was inevitable. Here Nancy and I were partaking in a morning cup of Joe courtesy of our favourite Café in Montréal, Café Olympico. (No there's no satellite Oylmpico in Toronto, we made our own.)

Travelling on the Toronto city highway network is an illuminating experience, although perhaps not for the faint hearted. Try it around peak hour (apparently 0000hrs to 2359hrs), find a 2+ pax only lane, get in it and hold on because in a convertible Mini with the roof down you're like a coin being sucked up in a vacuum cleaner. Once you're in and can't get out, whatever speed the traffic does at the time is what you're vehemently obliged to do. For us this was well, well, well above what the road was signed for. What makes it even more exciting than the cyclonic jetstream of air being sythed over the windscreen and about the roofless cabin is that on one side you have a stationary concrete lane barrier and on the other side you have three, four, five or even six lanes of traffic going over 100km/hr slower than you.

If you're going to see tourist attractions in Toronto, you may as well make the effort to go the extra few hours south to the US border for Niagara Falls. All I'd ever heard about Niagara is that the falls are impressive and the township is cheesy - I wasn't wrong or dissappointed on either count. The falls are awe inspiring and the town is glitz, noise and colourfully cheesy. We had a great night, drinking, people watching, dining (cheese pizza) and just enjoying the carnival atmosphere of the place.

The other night in Quebec the Black Eyed Peas asked "where is the love" and I mentioned I'd keep an eye out for it. Wonderfully, it's actualy all around if you take the time to look. But so as not to risk appearing intrusive or crass like the paparazzi, I'll write about such occurrences when I can but not photograph them necessarily.

Whilst I was seated at a bar overlooking Clifton Hill in Niagara, a young mother sat in a wheelchair - for what reason I'll never know. On her lap sat her young daughter and behind them both was dad, pushing them up the hill, all were discussing where to go next and what to do. It was, from all outward appearances, a young family beset with a challenge most others will never face, but they didn't seem at all fazed by it. 

There is the love!