SOCIABLE!!!!

That's a cry often heard in Halifax pubs, and everyone's supposed to toast when they hear it, so if you have a drink handy (doesn't have to be alcoholic) feel free to take a swig. Now then, Halifax. Still here after about 5 weeks, and I'm not looking forward to picking up my backpack again after so long. It looks so happy there on the floor, I don't have the heart to disturb it. But it's almost time to get moving again.

I was just about to head off on the Salty Bear tour around Nova Scotia when I last wrote. We left from Halifax, a fully packed van with 14 people (with one more joinig us the next day), and we headed off to Cape Breton Island, which makes up about the top quarter of Nova Scotia. The first days was spent travelling mostly, and was filled with lies upon lies as we had to fabricate stories about ourselves in a get-to-know-you game. We took it very seriously so there were some pretty pointed interrogations and we'd continued to suspect each other of telling more lies long after the game was finished. If it did ever finish. We did stop off for lunch at Boston Pizza - something of a Canadian institution, and to toss a football around on a beach somewhere in L'Acadie (the Acadians were some of the original French settlers in Canada, who were deported and then came back and resettled). We had time for a quick hike up a hill near where we were staying at Club Cape Breton (as we came to call it) before returning for dinner and a night around the campfire. There were some experiments with marshmallow cookery and we discovered that Fabiana, a petite little Swiss girl in our group, could speak in a really creepy deep voice (much deeper than any of the guys could mange I have to admit) which sounded a bit like she was possessed. And when I tried to match her I found I can do a pretty good imitation of Gollum (precious!). So that's handy to know, in case they ever do get the Hobbit movie off the ground, could be in with a chance.



Day 2 was spent driving the Cabot Trail, through the National Park at the top of Cape Breton Island. We did quite a few hikes that day, the best being the Skyline Trail which had a great view along the coast. And I was lucky enough to spot my first moose here, I was by myself when he appeared out of the trees but was joined by two other girls in our group, so we were the only ones who got to see a moose on the trip. He was pretty big, and crossed the pathway just ahead of us so we got a really good look at him. Unfortunately he only had stubby little antlers, even though they should be fully grown at this time of year, so he was either still young or might have already lost them (they regrow them each year). On our way back to Club Cape Breton our driver Matt put on some local Nova Scotian music and started teaching us Barrett's Privateers, a sea shanty style song which gets everyone singing when it's played in the pubs here. We had to pick up Ben, our final passenger, who I think was a little bit bemused to find us all heartily singing along when he hopped in the van, and was then subjected to a full interrogation as he fed us even more lies. That night saw the inaugural Club Cape Breton Dance Party and the debut of DJ Wayne, picking the tunes to get everybody shakin' their groove things. It went off, with the Anne of Green Gables hat passed around with wild abandon and made-up games of Twister (we didn't have the spinner so we made up our own commands (left elbow blue, forehead green and so on) just to make things more amusing for the spectators.



Day 3 saw us off on the ferry to Prince Edward Island, whicheven though it's only a relatively small island is a separate province. It's very rural and quite charming - lots of well maintained old buildings and farmhouses - and is famous for being where most of McCain's potatoes are grown and Anne of Green Gables is set. We stopped in Charlottetown for a wuick look around in the afternoon, and spent the night at Cavendish on the north coast, right on a very pretty red-tinged beach (all the soil on the island is red because of the high iron content). That night saw another wild dance party (with DJ Wayne on the decks again) we all went out on the lawn at midnight to wave some sparklers around (provided by English Dave) for some reason.



When things finally wrapped up it was up in the morning for a bike ride, which we found quite funny given half of us hadn't touched a bike in years (myself included - I'd forgotten how uncomfortabel the seats can be). We went for a quick ride around the Cavendish area, some of us stopping along the way to check out the Anne of Green Gables house. Not me though - we had some readings from the book throughout the trip and I really think she may be the most annoying fictional girl in the world - so I went down to the beach with some of the others. Afterwards it was off on the long drive back to Halifax via the Confederation Bridge, which is really long and connects PEI to the mainland. That night we farewelled some members of our crew who were only doing a 4 day trip, so most of us went to the Halifax Alehouse to give Barrett's Privateers a spin in public - we were probably the most enthusiastic bunch there when they finally played it around 2am, and the second it finished, our duty done, we grabbed our jackets and were out the door.





Day 5 and we were headed south to Peggy's Cove, a popular little fishing village famed for it's picturesque lighthouse. It was very wet and windy when we were there so we spent most of our time huddled in the gift shop unfortunately, but it was impressive to see the ocean being whipped up by the winds. Next it was on to Mahone Bay and Lunenberg, two historic towns along the coast - lots of really nice heritage buildings here and quaint little churches. Very pretty places to just wander around. We then headed inland, stoping for a brief afternoon hike by a lake, finishing up in Annapolis Royal on the oppoite side of Nova Scotia (it's quite a small province). After catching a very pretty sunset over the river we headed out to our accommodation for the night, an old farmhouse which was somewhat rustic (a little bit too rustic some thought, but once you shook all the dead flies off the mattresses it was fine). DJ Wayne had to keep things a bit more chilled out that night, despite our initial plans to rock the farmhouse energy levels flagged early so most people settled in to watch hockey, sit around the campfire or were treated to more readings from Anne of Green Gables (I swear that girl needs a good slap. She's so annoying).



On our last day we looked around town a bit, including the fortifications at Fort Anne. Then it was off to the Gaspereaux Valley for a wine tasting at the vineyard there. They had some nice wine, the maple wine in particular was delicious, a very sweet dessert wine sweeted with, you guessed it, maple syrup. Then it was off to Wolfville for lunch, another nice little town where we assembled an enormous collection of tables on the pub patio for a delicious lunch. Afterwards we headed to Blomidon National Park, on the shores of the Bay of Fundy which has the greatest difference in tides on Earth, with a change of about 17 metres. It's very pretty coastline, rolling farmlands stopping suddenly at reddish soil cliffs and huge stretches of mud at low tide. Walking right out to the water's edge you can see the tide coming in if you watch carefully - pretty much every wave comes in slightly further than the last, it's kind of weird to watch actually. And then it was back to Halifax at last, where I've been ever since.





Quite a few of the Salty Bear crew stayed around for a few days afterwards, which meant we of course had to have farewell drinks as each person departed. Luckily there's no shortage of bars in Halifax and plenty of live music. Most of my time has been spent at The Lower Deck listening to Signal Hill, a great cover band who play lots of old favourites as well as some great local songs (including Barrett's Privateers every time, which I now know all the words to - hurrah!), so we'd usually at least start each night there.



There's been quite a few people who've stayed on the last few weeks, Emily, Cielle, James, Ben and Matt (our driver) from the Salty Bear trip, Kamila, John, Mel and Alexandra from the hostel here and even Sandra, who I met back in Calgary and we'd always persuade to stay just a few more days until she finally escaped again last week. So it's been great having a little bunch of people to hang around with all the time, and really settle into in a place in a way I haven't since I left Vancouver right over the other side of the country. We've been busy doing all sorts of things, checking out the museums (on the nights they're free usually), the Halifax Citadel, regular walks around nearby Point Pleasant Park, a few expeditions over to Dartmouth on the other side of the harbour, we attended a Remembrance Day ceremony the other weekend, and went to my first hockey game (i really quite like hockey, it was a lot of fun - our time won too, wooo!).









But the main highlight had to be Halloween. Since most of us come from countries which don't really celebrate it we decided we were going to make the most of it, so there was a lot of hunting around for costumes the day leading up to it, and I was getting slightly panicky because I wanted to be a cowboy and couldn't find a decent coat until the actual day itself (I did though and it was awesome). It was cool to see the houses decorated up with their pumpkins on the porch, and the groups of kids trick or treating. And to dress up ourselves of course.



Once we were all costumed up we went and met a bunch of locals for this game called Manhunt, which is esentially hide and seek, although we found that if you hide too well you just get cold from sitting around too long. Afterwards Sandra, Cielle, Ben and I thought we might have a crack at trick or treating ourselves. It was very exciting, we carefully selected our first house because they had a lot of pumpkins out the front, and the door was opened by a very nice lady who was only slightly surprised to find a fully grown cowboy, pirate and vampire on her doorstep, several hours after all the kids had finished and gone home for the night. She gave us chips and candy though, and pointed out that it helps if you bring a bag with you, but we explained we were new at this, and the copious pockets of my coat were big enough to carry our haul. We tried a few other places (at one we were actually older than the people who answered the door, which was slightly awkward - they gave us lollipops), but I wanted to go back to the first place and get my picture taken with the nice lady who gave us chips. The others thought that might come across as stalking, but luckily when we passed her place again she was outside putting out her jack'o'lanterns so we ran over and ambushed her. Got my picture and we ended up cahtting to her, explaining where we were all from, as the rest of her family, extended family and even friends arrived in the driveway so we ended up chatting to all of them for a while, before excusing ourselves so we could join the hostel pub crawl.



The bars in town that night were packed with people in costume, there were about 10 people all night who didn't bother (and frankly I don't think they should have been allowed in at all), so it was a great evening. We finally rolled back to the hostel at around 3:30 (which has been a bit of a trend in Halifax, I've barely ever made it to bed before 2 in the whole 5 weeks) - I wanted to get full use out of my costume to be honest, and was even persuaded by the others to wear it back to the costume shop in Dartmouth the next day. Not that I took much convincing.



Almost forgot, some weather news - we had our first snow the other weekend. We've been lucky enough here that it's been quite a bit warmer than the rest of the country, but winter's finally catching up with me. And after two summers in a row this year I'd forgotten how cold 0 degrees is. It's really cold. And snow doesn't always just cascade softly to the ground, it can be quite vicious and smack you in the face and get in your eyes. But it was exciting to see it again. The weather's been strange the last few days though - 15 degrees, we've all been complaining about how hot it is. Oh and we nearly got hit by Hurricane Noel the other week. Wasn't a hurricane anymore by the time it hit us - was just a big storm with lots of wind (up to about 100km/hr) and a bit of rain but we stocked up on emergency snacks and stayed in all night playing bingo and cards. Wild times.



So that's been Halifax. It's been a lot of fun and is definitely one of my favourite places in Canada - I'm going to miss it when I leave but it's time to get moving again next week. I'll be heading back west to Ottawa, Montreal and Quebec City before travelling down to the States to have a look around thereand spend Christmas in New York, which should be lots of fun. Already got my fingers crossed for a white Christmas, so here's hoping.

Leaf Peepin'

Well, I've completely crossed Canadia now, right to Halifax, Nova Scotia on the Atlantic coast. I've covered a fair bit of territory since I last wrote, travelling through 5 provinces checking out the fall foliage as I go. The change of seasons over here in the east is one of the main things I wanted to experience during my time in Canada so I've been having a great time.

But back to Winnipeg first, where I last wrote. It was an okay place - to be honest I wasn't there for long and didn't have great weather so didn't really do that much. The highlight was probably the free breakfasts at the hostel (I'm pretty easy to please sometimes) but I did enjoy what I saw of the city - it was pretty much the gateway to the west back in the frontier days and some of that still shows in the old buildings dotted amongst the highrise. Oh and there was a really cool storm there which towered over the city, still lit faintly by the sun after it was dark down at ground level, but was completely silent as the lightning was so high up.



Toronto was my next step, I flew this leg for a change, even though it felt a bit like cheating since I'll be crossing the rest of Canada by land. I had to get there for a trip I wanted to do though, and it was nice to get a different perspective on the landscape - seeing all the lakes covering eastern Manitoba and Ontario from the air is pretty impressive (everyone back home wondering where all the water is, it looks like the Canadians have got it all). The trip was up to Algonquin Provincial Park, a really pretty place of rolling hills and lots (and lots) of lakes and rivers. This was my first good look at the fall colours, it's amazing to look out over the forest canopy and see a patchwork of greens, reds, oranges and yellows as far as you can see. It was a good weekend, did some hiking and canoeing, but you'd need a lot longer to really appreciate the place. But with only a few weeks to see the best of the fall colours I wanted to cover a big area so couldn't stay too long in any one spot. I think this is really the best time of year to see this part of the country. It would be nice any other time of year, but during the fall it's every bit as spectacular as somewhere like the Rockies.



Back in Toronto I caught up with my friend Laura, a Torontonian I met in New Zealand last year (we went up to Fraser Island earlier this year when she passed through Brisbane). She's just arrived home after her own year of travelling so we were swapping stories about our various exploits while she showed me around some of the nicer areas of the city, like the Toronto Islands and the Beach neighbourhood (there's a really, really good ice cream shop there). I'd already seen all the big attractions when I was here 2 years ago, Niagara Falls and the CN Tower, so this time around I was just checking out the city in general. It's okay, similar to New York in many ways, but I've been spending a fair bit of time in cities lately and they all start to feel the same after a while. I did like that ice cream shop though. And their city hall is cool.



From Toronto it was on to Montreal, and being in Quebec that meant into French Canadian territory. After spending so long in Canada and feeling quite at home here it was quite strange to be somewhere which still has all the same shops was still dramatically different. I don't know much French but I've been picking up some tips from various people I've met on my travels - my pronunciation is still pretty dodgy but with help from my new friend Priscilla (who I met on the Algonquin trip) I'm finally getting the hang of the 'r' sounds so it sounds less like I'm trying to cough something nasty up now. I didn't end up using much though, most people you encounter can speak English anyway, and while I could say a few basic things I couldn't really understand most of the responses, so there didn't seem much point starting to talk to people in French just to tell them you didn't understand as soon as they answered. And one of the key phrases I did learn in advance (Je ne parles pas Francais - I don't speak French) I hardly ever actually used because it just seems slightly illogical to say you can't speak a language, in that language. It makes me feel dishonest. Threw it out there a few times though, just to look more cultured.





I did like Montreal, it's one of the more attractive Canadian cities (Vancouver's still my favourite though), particularly the Vieaux Montreal, the old quarter of the city, which has some really attractive heritage buildings. Even better though was my visit to Mt Tremblant, a small village and nearby ski resort in the Laurentian mountains. The forests here were just gorgeous, and I spent several happy days walking through the forests leaf peeping, although with the amount I was doing it probably more like leaf ogling. It was definitely one of the highlights of the trip though, particularly the hike to the top of the mountain itself.







It was back to Montreal briefly after that, and then on to the Maritime Provinces. I stopped by Fredericton in New Brunswick just for a day to check it out. It was a nice little town, has that typically north-east American kind of feel to it with lots of old houses, tree-lined streets and church steeples all over the place. And that brings me to Haifax. Immediately took a liking to it when I arrived yesterday afternoon - it's been raining a lot lately and cleared up just as I arrived so I went straight down to the waterfront, which looked great in the late afternoon sun. It's really nice to be back by the ocean again too, to have that smell of salt in the air. And to be back on an east coast again, which my internal sense of direction is more used to I think. I'm heading off on a tour of the area for the next week or so, after which I have no real definite plans. I've heard good things about this part of the country though so I'm sure I'll be hanging around for a little while at least.

Well, I've been to Paradise...

...and now I've been to me as well.

Some people say we travel in order to find ourselves. Looks like I've got that out of the way. Welcome to Wayne everybody, located just outside Drumheller in the Alberta badlands. As you can see it's not exactly a bustling metropolis. In fact some describe it as a ghost town, although I prefer the term boutique myself. Or fun-size even, like those little Mars bars you get. Apparently I was a pretty big mining community back in the day, but things have quitened down a bit since then.

Wayne was the highlgiht of a 2 day trip around the prairies I went on after leaving Banff, finishing in Calgary. Ostensibly the main reason I chose it was to visit the Royal Tyrell Museum of Paleontology, as the badlands are one of the best sources of fossils in the world. But Wayne was a pretty good bonus, and I was waiting very excitedly to get there all day. The museum was fantastic, seeing pretty much all of the most famous dinosaurs I used to read about as a kid, T-Rex, Triceratops, Allosaurus, Stegasaurus, I was in geek heaven. They don't let you help out on the digs any more though which I found a bit disappointing, would have liked to do that.



The landscape's probably about as big a contrast to the Rockies you can get, looking out over the endless plains and gentle hills of the prairie you could hardly believe there could be anything as big as mountains out there. But every now and then you'll come across some dramatic feature of the badlands, winding canyons and river valleys carved out of the plains by the meltwaters of glaciers, banded with the remnants of ancient sea floors. And hoodoos too.





We also visited a place called Head-Smashed-In Buffalo Jump, used by the Blackfoot people to hunt buffalo. When the buffalo herds would gather in the right place, they would sneak up to them disguised as wolves and scare them into stampeding. They'd channel them towards certain spots where the buffalo couldn't see the cliffs ahead and would fall over, with obvious results. The museum there's really good, built into the cliff itself, you start at the top and work your way down just like the buffalo. But using the stairs. It's really interesting, but quite sad seeing how white people's arrival affected the area. The buffalo used to cover the plains in their millions, a single herd could take days to pass by. Now there's barely any left because they were recklessly slaughtered, people would actually shoot from passing trains and leave them to rot. The Glenbow Museum in Calgary also tells a lot more about the history of the Blackfoot, a depressingly familiar story of how the population was decimated by disease, alcoholism and generally screwed over by the arrival of the Europeans. Like New Zealand a lot of native cultures are starting to make a bit of a resurgence so hopefully things will get better for them over time.



Calgary itself is quite a nice city, I had planned to go back into the Rockies but felt I needed to take a bit more time in Calgary so stayed there for about a week and a half. It actually reminds me quite a bit of Brisbane, with it's setting along the Bow River (the same one which runs from Lake Louise and Banff), but there's enough grassy hills around town to remind you that you're near the prairies. The city always looks particularly nice in the late afternoon sun, with the yellow grass on the hills and the trees turning gold as fall sets in.





It's very modern though, and I'd really like to experience something a bit more of the old West, as this used to be real cowboy country. That will have to wait until next year though, I'd quite like to be here for the Calgary Stampede as well - it looks like a lot of fun. But now I'm heading east pretty quickly so I can catch the fall in Ontario and Quebec, where it's probablty the most spectacular. So here'll be less landscape shots of mountains from me for a while, but more macro ones of various coloured leaves to look forward to. Like this one.



I wrote most of this on the bus across the prairies from Calgary to Regina, capital of Saskatchewan (Regina rhymes with angina, so you have to be a bit careful using it in conversation - if people haven't heard of it they can completely misunderstand you. If you catch my drift.) It's an 11 hour trip and flat all the way so while I did enjoy the scenery I didn't think I'd be missing too much while I was writing. It's a pleasant enough town not much there in terms of attractions really but it has quite a nice small town kind of feel, and I was quite happy just wandering through it's streets and around the Wascana Centre parklands. There's a few lakes there which at the moment are pretty crowded with Canada Geese flying south for the winter (well, generally south, most of the time they seem to be going in any old direction). That's pretty cool to see. Saskatchewan is also known as the Land of the Living Skies, and I have to say the sunset I watched didn't disappoint. I had a good spot, on about the only hill in Regina (I could see another one off in the distance but I think it's just outside the city) it's maybe 20m high, if that.



So I spent a pleasant few days there, arrived in Winnipeg today and after a few days here will be flying to Toronto so I can go on a trip up to Algonquin Park, hopefully spot me a moose and do some leaf peeping.

(Oh and in case you're wondering, Paradise is in New Zealand, not far from Queenstown and Glenorchy. They filmed part of Lord of the Rings there. Like pretty much everywehre else in NZ)

The Rockies!

Yep, made it to the Rockies, so lots of mountain photos to go with this blog. Last time I wrote I was in Revelstoke, from there I went to Field, a tiny town of about 300 people in Yoho National Park. It's in a really beautiful valley along the banks of the Kicking Horse River (named after a horse who kicked some guy in the head), with a great little hostel which is pretty much brand new. It's only small, only fits about 40 people so it's like having your own house for a few days. Being the Rockies it's generally a good idea to have a hiking partner, due to bears (on some trails it's even illegal to travel in a group of less than 4), so I was lucky that I'd already met Tom (from the UK) in Revelstoke. Our first challenge was actually getting to the trails, they're all at the end of long access roads which usually adds at least an extra 20km if you want to walk it, so we had to try our hand at hitch-hiking - I'd never tried it before (and won't be making a habit of it, it's kind of boring and you have to deal with a fair bit of rejection, which gets a bit depressing), so I was pretty impressed with myself when the very first car I signalled pulled over. To tell us they were full. You know, thanks and everything, but why bother? Anyway, we only had to try it a few times, enough to experiment with a variety of techniques though, looking hopeful, pleading, sad, tired etc - we had quite a dramatic range by the end of it all, and had even gotten quite picky about exactly wchich cars we would accept lifts from (no Chryslers thanks, they're ugly). Our record pick up time was about 8 minutes, which I thought was pretty good, but most of the people passing by were there to hike themselves and they're generally pretty nice people so it wasn't really that difficult.



So first stop was the Yoho Valley, with Takkakaw Falls (which means 'it is wonderful' in the Cree language) - they're the second highest in Canada and an impressive sight. From there we hiked up over the Yoho Pass and down to Emerald Lake, which was a pretty good day's walk, with a great view coming down towards the lake. The next day we just went back up to the falls and wandered around the valley up there. It's kind of funny, whenever you first set out on a hike you tend to have bears very much in mind (despite Australia's reputation for dangerous animals there really aren't many that will just leap out of the forest and attack you, so it take some getting used to) - even thought they're not generally a problem in Yoho you still have to make plenty of noise to let them know you're around. So you tend to talk UNUSALLY LOUDLY, to the point where you're shouting things at each other like, 'WOW, THIS IS REALLY AMAZING, IT'S SO BEAUTIFUL HERE - AND SO PEACEFUL!!' Or you wander around clapping and yelling whenever you approach a corner. It feels a bit ridiculous but you do get used to it, and once you've walked far enough you still go through the motions but you can't spare much energy to be worried about bears.



Afterwards Tom had to head off to Vancouver, but I was able to get a lift with a couple from Belgium who were heading out to a place called Lake O'Hara. It's a specially protected area - there's a bus (usually booked out well in advance) which will take in a limited number of people to a campsite or you can hike the 11km access road in there, which we did. That was a nice enough walk in itself, but Lake O'Hara itself was just stunning. We had perfect weather that day, and I don't think I've ever seen anywhere quite so beatiful before, and the others agreed that it was probably the nicest place they'd seen so far in all their travels.



We hiked a loop trail which climbed from one side of the lake, past 3 perched lakes to glacier-fed Lake Oesa, which sits at the base of some truly stunning mountains. From there we crossed some scree slopes beneath the cliffs of Yukness Mountain to the Opabin Plateau, which features a string of another 4 lakes which also feed into O'Hara, and then back down to O'Hara itself. The whole day was absolutely amazing, everywhere you looked was a picture-perfect vista, so I took pictures of them all obviously, but they don't come even close to doing it justice, there's just no way to communicate the sense of awe you get in place like that in a tiny little photo.





Once we got back down to the lake we just lay on the jetty taking in the view for about an hour, listening to a guy practising on the fiddle. Not a bad way to spend an afternoon. And best of all, you can get the bus back down without a reservation so we were spared the 11km downhill walk.



After Lake O'Hara, it was on to Lake Louise for a few days, which while not as spectacular as O'Hara is still quite pretty. I hiked up to the Plain of Six Glaciers beyond the lake, which is pretty impressive (it's got six glaciers).



I also went up to nearby Moraine Lake in the Valley of the Ten Peaks, as the first time I came to Canada it was mostly hidden by clouds and it's a pretty iconic landscape. So I was lucky to have decent weather, saw all 10 peaks, and was there early enough to have the lake mostly to myself for a while before all the tour buses arrived. Will get back there at some stage as there's some really good hikes I'd like to do but it's one of those places you need a large group because of the grizzlies.



So that brings me here to Banff. I like Banff a lot, while it can get pretty crowded in the middle of summer it's not too at the moment. It's in a really beautiful setting along the banks of the Bow River and surrounded by some really nice mountains - Cascade and Sulphur Mountains, and my personal favourite Mt Rundle, which I've photographed from just about every angle. There's plenty of nice hikes accessible from right in town too, so I've done just about all of those - along the Bow River, out to the Vermilion Lakes, the Hoodoo Trail and up to Tunnel Mountain.



Banff's also a pretty good place for wildlife spotting - for elk in particular which often hang around town to get away from the wolves and bears out in the rest of the park (and who can blame them really). I've seen a few elk around town here, just passed another one on my way back to the hostel tonight actually and there's a young buck who I've seen around a few times. Yesterday though I was walking out to Sundance Canyon and I came across two big bull elk grazing beside the trail, was very careful walking past them (and to be honest I let some other people coming the other way go past first just to gauge what sort of mood the elk are in). They didn't seem fussed to have anyone around though, and we were all careful to keep as much distance from them as possible. So I had a look at the canyon and headed back down the trail, where I had to pass them again. Now around this time of year they're actually in rut so the males in particular can be quite aggressive - they're actually the most dangerous animals in the park. I got a great photo of me (very slowly and carefully) walking past one of them.



You can see he's looking up in this pic, right after this he wandered over to me and started following right behind me, pretty much right behind my shoulder. Now he was probably taller than me, not even counting his antlers, and started making this kind of clicking noise. I didn't know if he was curious, angry or horny and only one of those was going to have a happy ending. I was also painfully aware that I'd recently had a brownie and had wiped some crumbs off on the back of my pants and was hoping he wasn't smelling that, but luckily he lost interest and I went on my way unmolested, but it was quite exciting for a while.

It wasn't really scary (although I'm well aware it could have been serious if he'd decided he didn't like me after all) - I'd nearly had a heart attack a few days before when I was walking up the road to the hostel and saw a black shape on all fours rummaging around in the bushes right beside the road. It's a good thing I didn't have bear spray with me, as I probably would have given him a good dose right before I noticed his baseball cap and realised it was some guy picking up trash or gardening or maybe just doing it to give people like me a nasty shock. I mean really, what sort of person crawls around in the forest wearing dark clothing in known bear territory? You're just asking for a pepper spraying.

Anyway, don't want to end on a negative note, so here's a photo of Mt Rundle (he's got some fresh snow on) to wrap things up. I do like this mountain.

Heading east... to the west

The Wild West that is. But first I suppose I should let you know what I've been up to the last few weeks. I headed down to Seattle at the end of July with Markus (Germany). It's a nice enough city, different to what I expected though, more like San Francisco than Vancouver. The mountains are a lot further away (Mt Rainier always looks nice to the south though) and I thought the waterfront would be more of a feature of the city. The weather was quite hot too which is a bit unexpected for a place as notoriously rainy as Seattle.



We started with some shopping at an outlet mall, it's always good to get new clothes when you're on the road, you get so sick of wearing the same stuff all the time (although if people keep pinching my t-shirts that's not going to be such an issue - at least they're only taking the old ones with holes in them). Afterwards we felt we should do something a bit more manly, so it was off to the Museum of Flight to watch the Blue Angels (the US Navy stunt jet team), who were in town practising for an upcoming airshow. The airstrip they were using was right beside the museum so we had a really good view, and then watched their afternoon flight from a hilltop park's water tower, where we could see them all around the city. They're amazing to watch and the noise as they roar past is pretty incredible as well. We went back the next day to check out the museum itself and for some more Blue Angel action, and (completely by accident, sort of) wandered onto a top level balcony so scored one of the best viewpoints in the place. We weren't really supposed to be there but luckily no one spotted us and asked us to get back downstairs until after they were done so it was all good.



It was all very educational in Seattle, as we also went to the Experience Music Project and the adjoining Science Fiction Museum (the EMP is probably one of the funkiest museums in the world, there's not many where you walk around tapping your feet the whole time - lots of stuff on the history of grunge, Jimi Hendrix and a live jazz band). Did the Seattle Undeground tour as well, which takes you, well, underground, to the original street level of the city - it was all built over after a big fire in the early 1900's levelled pretty much the whole city. It was interesting to hear the history but it was pretty much just at basement level, I'd hoped it would go down a lot further through dark tunnels, old sewers and we'd get to wear helmets with lights and stuff. Oh well. We stayed just across the road from the famous Pike Place Market, so watched them throw some fish around and visited the very first Starbucks store, where we learned the lady in the Starbucks logo (she's actually a mermaid) used to be topless, she must have gotten shy now that she's appearing all over the world. She also appears at the top of a tower on the Starbucks Centre, a big building which I guess is their corporate headquarters. Now I actually don't mind Starbucks (big fan of the frappuccino's) but the general effect is kind of... well, evil looking, they only show her from the eyes up on every side of the tower, so it's like she's keeping watch over her vast empire - it's all a bit Big Brother (in an Orwellian way, not the TV show).



But we escaped the clutches of the Starbucks lady and made it back to Vancouver, just in time for the finale of the Celebration of Light fireworks, which was phenomenal (and Canada won the competition which was good). Some of the other people we'd met (Ms Swiss and her newly arrived brother) suggested we head up to Whistler, so the 4 of us pitched in to get a proper hotel room and stayed up there for a few nights. Whistler's a nice little town, the main village is all pedestrian only which is nice. It's mainly a ski town but in the summer attracts lots of mountain bikers. We had a few rainy days so we spent a lot of time in the hotel, watching DVD's, making pancakes and just generally enjoying having normal beds and a nice bathroom. We did do some hiking though, and caught the gondola to the top of Whistler Mountain for a quick hike and the BBQ buffet (which was really, really good, especially the pork).



It was back to Vancouver one last time then, did the Grouse Grind a second time, visited Lighthouse Park and looked around Stanley Park and Granville Island a few more times. We also had a few more farewell dinners as everyone headed home or to keep travelling, which we would usually have at The Old Spaghetti Factory (remind me to tell you about them some other time). I finally left Vancouver (which is definitely one of my favourite cities in the world so far) on the 18th of August, and it was quite strange and a little bit sad to be on my own again after spending so much time with the same people. But that's the way it goes I suppose and it gives me even more reason to visit Europe soon to catch up with everyone and see what's so fantastic about this crunchy bread the Swiss keep talking about.



So first stop after Vancouver was Penticton, in the Okanagan Valley, an area well-known for it's fruit growing and vineyards. Penticton's in quite a nice setting, in between Okanagan and Skaha Lakes, and the countryside reminds me a lot of the Otago region of New Zealand, but with a more Western feel (they've got bears and rattlesnakes around). The weather was kind of gloomy most of the time so I took the opportunity to catch up on some work, but would always go for a walk at the end of the day when the sun would drop beneath the clouds for some really nice sunsets. The town itself wasn't as nice as I'd hoped, I thought it would be smaller and a bit more rural, but the trails around the lake were pretty nice. Kelowna was the next stop, further up Okanagan Lake, and it too was quite nice but not somewhere I felt I had to spend much time. Went for a walk up Knox Mountain in town (and copped a few blisters as I wasn't wearing the right shoes. Only meant to go get some breakfast but as I often do saw the mountain and couldn't resist going for a bit of a wander) but otherwise didn't do much. The hostel there was simed at more of a party crowd too, was full of lots of people who'd get completely drunk which caused them to constantly shout to each other (most of them were Australian too, there must be something we can do to stop all our bogans getting out of the country, it's embarrasing). Penticton was much more civilized, it had a nice little lounge so we'd sit up till late with people from Canada, Spain, France, Ireland and NZ, just talking about anything and everything.





So that brings me to Revelstoke, which I'm really enjoying. It's a small town in the Columbia Mountains, on the banks of the Columbia River and it's so nice to finally be amongst the mountains. Just been doing some hiking around here, down by the river, out to the nearby Revelstoke Dam, and at night there's been free music in the town square for their Railway Days festival. Went to that last night and it was great, sitting out under the stars listening to some good old fashioned fiddlin', with the freight trains and the 'ding, ding, ding' (ice cream man! ice cream man!) of the signals serving as the backing music, it all felt very Canadian. So I'm here for a few more days, then off to the Rockies and Yoho National Park, and the only thing greater than my excitement is the fear which my camera feels at the prospect.