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."