Blair took us to the airport to begin the last leg of our journey. Sad to say goodbye to him, he has been very good to us while camped in the 27th storey apartment, but he will be home again in January. After flying out of Vancouver at 8.00pm on Wednesday 24th September we headed into the west and 14 hours later safely landed in Auckland, at 5.00am on Friday 26th September. Those times are 33 hours apart so somewhere we were short changed....such is the pleasure of jet airline travel.
A short trek and wait in Auckland and then we were on our way to Blenheim, one hour twenty south. There at the airport was Hayden holding a sign saying "Lawrence", perfect, great to see him again. Sadly our trip has finished.
But in our last blog we need to say some thank you's.
Firstly to those that generously opened their doors to us. Grant, Bea and Jada in Sydney where we were introduced to geocaching! When we returned for my Dad's funeral, Simon and Anna in Hamilton were wonderfully hospitable, to us and our two boys for the best part of two weeks before we got flying again.
My sister Sally in Chiang Mai where she moved out of her bed for us which was beyond the call of duty. Michelle in Prague provided us with a wonderful base to explore this old city and spend some time with her and Ondra, what a neat couple. Claudia and Thom in Austria, and your girls, what great times. I am so pleased that Netherlands won their first game of the World Cup....what a treat we were put on. Carla in Lisbon - you were so good to us, as you have been to both our boys over recent years. You left us your flat when you went away, you wouldn't let us not sleep in your bed and the fiasco around getting to the airport is something we won't forget for many a year. Thank you.
In the United Kingdom we were especially spoilt. In Scotland, Helen and Moira put us on a great fuss. It was so comfortable staying with you, we were very much at home in Dundee and over the course of six weeks we kept coming and going and you always made us so welcome. We really do hope that we can catch up with you again very soon. Further north in Scotland it was great to stay in the old "Smithie" with George and Shona for a couple of nights and heart warming to have your family around for a meal together.
In London Mike and Merima were brilliant. We enjoyed your company so much and one day hope to see you in New Zealand again, maybe your girls will come visiting with a backpack in a few years. Thank you also for the GPS...saved us a fortune in petrol and disagreement in direction.
In North America we flew into Iowa City, not top of the tourists itinerary but near the top of ours. Brian and Lesley were wonderful hosts and we had a good look around their patch of the World, great fun. On to Canada and Vancouver where Blair and his flat mate were especially generous to us. Somehow Blair had convinced Jan that his parents would be bearable for a few weeks......and she bought it! Thanks Jan, we really appreciated sharing your home on the 27th floor above Vancouver. Thanks to Blair for giving us his bed while he camped on the sofa.
While in Vancouver we were able to catch up on some of Diana's relatives. Unfortunately the Lawrence family tree is a bit of a fizzer however if you marry the right girl.......well, Diana has whanau on both sides of her family tree. We had a fantastic time meeting a family of Fisher's whom Blair was fortunate enough to spend Thanksgiving with last year. It was most appreciated that someone had sent out an all points bulletin and got the family under one roof for us to get acquainted. Thank you very much Jim and Lisa - the superb local salmon was a treat. And to Bryn's family...what a night. Delectable smoked steak from the BBQ, mini lemon tarts and I counted 5 bottles on the table - without corks.....we were a bit slower the next morning but thoroughly enjoyed an evening with you.
Further, on the family front we were very fortunate to be invited out to Pam Pearse's house at Abbotsford. We spent the weekend with Pam, her two boys Mitchell and Lucas and her man, Terry. What a wonderful experience, true blue Canadian hospitality, such a special family to know and we can see why Blair so enjoys your relaxed company and home cooking.
So many people were so very very generous to us and have etched themselves into our memories forever. We would love to return that generosity to you all one day and while NZ is a fair distance away for many it is a first class destination for any traveller....we can show you that.
All is good back in Blenheim for us. Hayden has managed the hostel well and there were no problems to be sorted. Diana is back into work there, just like old times. I am seriously considering finding a paying job....not rushing yet but will have to soon.
Lastly a thank you to all those people that read our blog and sent us encouraging comments....blog writers enjoy that, I think. We certainly enjoyed the adventures that created material to write, hopefully we can do some more travelling soon....we'll keep you informed.
Till next time.......
Back from Seattle for the weekend and Blair had decided a trip to Whistler was next on our itinerary. After a wet day at Mt. Baker yesterday we were well pleased to be heading to debatably the number one ski destination in North America, home to the Winter Olympics in 2010. Interestingly, Canadians have "Olympics" and "Summer Olympics",..they also have "hockey" and "Field Hockey". We spent the day at Whistler, taking a ski chair lift to the top of a 1850m mountain and then taking a cable car from one peak to another across a deep valley. That was a 15 minute ride, 4.5 kms in length. There was not a cloud in the sky, over 30 degrees and no jerseys required even high on the slopes. Magnificent day out in some spectacular countryside.
Racing back to town we managed to make the start of the Vancouver Giants against Victoria ice hockey opening match of the season. "We" had a 3-1 win and I think won both punch ups (on points) so a successful day and night had by all. Surprised to find that the stadium wasn't full but then this was an NPC type grade as opposed to the Canucks who are the super team for the province. Tickets to their matches are all sold out and 5 times more expensive than the Giants.
Sunday morning was again fine so we packed a lunch and after abandoning the idea of going to Bowen Island due to number of hours left in the day after breakfast and the fact that we had a dinner date with Jan and Ruby we opted for a walk in Lighthouse Park. And that was a great afternoon of walking on the north west side of Vancouver. Considering the length of the tracks, the magnificent sea coast and the fact that again the day was beautiful, it was pleasing that there were more squirrels to be seen than people!
Dinner at a posh Japanese restaurant looking out over the harbour with Jan and Ruby on Sunday evening was very pleasant. Not sure why but Blair insists on wearing shorts and jandals to all eating places and pubs in the city..says that Vancouverites are very non-judgemental, and he seems right, they don't bat an eye. More than happy for him to make a statement in this fashion rather than have "Love you Mum" tattooed on his forearm. Jan is Blair's flat mate in the apartment and Ruby a local lawyer is a good friend....lawyers always make good friends I think..?
There was still a big tree in Stanley Park that we hadn't got to see so we set off on Monday with that in mind. Stanley Park is a great place to go wandering and we did find the big tree....well past it's prime. The tree is a western red cedar reportedly 800 years old (but then again it is dead! ...do we keep counting?) and is now hollow due most likely to lightening strike. Considered by some as as liability, and potential health and safety risk, it was doomed to felling about 8 years ago.. Such was the outcry from the locals, the friends of... (One group set up as "Stanley Park Hollow Tree Conservation Society"), the greenys..the whole shooting box, the tree remains, trussed up like Forest Gump in the opening scenes of his movie. While in the park we spotted some unexpectedly wildlife. A family of raccoons were going about their evening business and it was possible to get quite close.
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| Raccoon |
Tuesday we made a dash to Granville Island in probably the heaviest rain we have had to walk in on our entire journey. Granville Island seemed to be home to a lot of artisan type people working in their factories and studios while selling goods at the front door. Also big fruit and vege market.....produce always looks so fresh in these markets. Unfortunately we are on our final day out so no purchases were made.
Dinner out on our last evening with one of Diana's paternal relatives, Peter Pearse and his wife Penny. We were fortunate to catch up with these two as they lead a fairly busy life even though Peter is into his "Octo" numbers in age. We were interested to hear that Richard Pearce of NZ aviation fame is a relative.....Josie will have to get onto that! Peter is also known in New Zealand as the man that developed the idea of fishing regulation quotas. He sold the idea to our Minister of Fisheries, Doug Kidd, back in the late 80's. Peter visited us in Blenheim back then and has strong affection for NZ and for our government. Blair gained little traction when expounding his views on voting, somewhat contrary to Peter's. I think a further meeting was arranged so that Blair could begin studying "Democracy 101". It was fun evening and we were again spoiled by Penny insisting that the hosts pay the bill.....hopefully we can return the favour in the not too distant future.
Wednesday 24 September today, our last day of journey barring the flight home which will take 14 hours, leave Vancouver on a Wednesday at 8.00pm and arrive in Auckland at 5.00am on Friday...14 hours? I fear a thief in the night! Some hours are going to get away on us.
This has been a wonderful journey, beginning with touring in our Motorhome in January this year and about to finish after 8 months travelling. If someone said "...the Pacific is closed, sorry, you'll have to go back the same way you came......", I'd be thrilled. Do it all again in a heartbeat (or perhaps again...... if the bank balance would stand it!). I will write one more blog once home with a brief roundup....see ya next week.
We headed south in Blair's car on Monday morning, aiming to hit the Canada/USA border at Blaine a little after lunch. That was the plan to avoid delays caused by the guards taking time off for lunch...didn't work, we spent best part of an hour waiting but flew through once we met the guard.
We sped south on the freeway, it was 4 lanes wide 50 miles from Seattle and the road was full. A bit disconcerting doing 70 miles an hour in the middle lanes with 18 wheeler trucks each side, gotta keep your nerve and concentration in the right proportion. Diana enjoys driving on the freeways but tends to find other things to do when we hit the cities. Generally the drivers are most courteous and we haven't felt too far out of our depth apart from not knowing some of the local rules. Turning on a red light if there is no traffic coming takes a bit of a battle with the brain saying ".....don't do this, it is not allowed...", but it is here.
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| Seattle landscape |
Once settled in to our B&B in Seattle we headed off to have a look at the attractions. We spent a few hours walking in Discovery Park and hunting out a few geocaches (as you do!). This is a big park, still pretty rustic and easy to wander about in and very close to the city centre. Following this we visited the Public Market near the waterfront where there is any number of different stalls selling things from all round the World but very little attracted our attention. That evening we dined with a very generous friend of Blair's who works in Seattle for Amazon. 20,000 people in Seattle work for Amazon....that is almost the number of people that live in Blenheim! Goddamn that is a lot of pay packets to sort out......doubt they use NovaPay! Aside from Amazon, there is also Microsoft, Google, and Boeing. Ryan was an extremely generous young man and saw to it that the evening didn't cost us a dime.....didnt take us long to figure out that Blair has wonderful friends here in North America.
Our itinerary the next day included a visit to the HQ of the Geocache game. Seattle is the founding place, Centre of the Universe they say, for caching which began with the first hide being made on 3 May, 2000. There are now 11 million of us hunting for over 3 million hidden treasures with numbers growing rapidly. While in that part of town we spotted a few new caches including one in the middle of the public area in their office.
Back into town and we planned to visit a glass and garden attraction and I must admit I had no idea what this was going to be about. Turns out that it is all about an artist extraordinaire called Dale Chihuly. Seattle has a whole display just of his work, took about two hours to get through and was really intriguing. Basically he blows glass and puts them into colossal displays or "plants" them among flower gardens. I've seen a few glass blowers (and the bottom of a few glasses!) but this guy is out on his own. The size of his works and the huge spectrum of colour were very impressive, we loved it.
Our last day in Seattle gave us enough time to visit the music museum, buy a few more clothes (please note a different shirt from one of the 3 that I have worn during the past 6 months) and race north to try and catch the Boeing Factory before it closed. The music museum was an excellent visit. We spent quite a bit of time checking out the tragic story of Kurt Cobain and the short life of Nirvana including young member that Blair had introduced us too a few years back, Dave Grohl. He now fronts his own band called Foo Fighters, of which Blair has a couple of tee shirts (proof that he attended the concert I believe). Also on show was a history of Jimi Hendrix which took us a while to get through. A neat place to visit, they also had an area set up with instruments that you could play and instructions on how to make your own tune presentable. I made an attempt on one of the machines, putting out a reasonable sound I thought, in the same vein as "P Money" and "50 cent". I think I will be calling myself "Two Bob Rob" in line with other no-hopers!
Once a short frenzy of power shopping was complete we sped north to the Boeing facility. There are 737's parked like a car park for Toyota's. Spotted an all black one with a silver fern among those parked up. Didn't get a chance to check out a new Dreamliner but it was a good place to look around and see the advances that the aviation industry have made in efforts to become more efficient and more environmentally acceptable. I still think that our upcoming flight will be 14 hours go to whoa and it will feel like all of that and some.
On our last day in Washington State we took a drive East towards Mt Baker, the second highest active volcano in N.America. It was a rainy sort of day and we held out hope that the cloud and rain would lift a little earlier than predicted but unfortunately, for only the second time on this whole trip that we can remember, the weather let us down. The views were great but only for 100 metres. We had to keep moving to get to the border and then get back into another little bit of USA that the draughtsman have stuffed up to pick up a package for Blair. Have a look at Point Roberts on Wikipedia. This little bit of US is only attached by Canada and if they get crook they are flown to Seattle by helicopter for attention. Blair gets purchases made from Amazon sent there then drives down the one hour freeway to pick up as this saves paying import duty......strange!!?
We got back to the 27th level apartment later in the evening and were pleased to see Blair again after the week away.
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| Butchart Gardens |
We quickly settled back into the 27th floor apartment with the very generous Jan and Blair. Some washing needed to be done and a general sort out of odds and sods and Blair had to show up for work or chance being listed as lost in action......or taken by a bear! We had planned dinner dates with friends and family for Monday and Tuesday which both went well. First to Joel and Elaine and Bryn and her brother Keelan. Bryn had visited us in Blenheim over a year ago when she toured NZ with Brandon. We were very comfortable there grazing on smoked steak and supping red wine. The wine cellar was a few spaces short when we left so I'm sure it was a good night. Thanks to Blair who remained the sober driver. The next night we dined on fresh caught salmon with the appropriately named Fisher family (but I think they purchased the salmon off a First Nation fisherman...presumably had customary rights). The Fishers are relatives from Diana's maternal side of the family and they had made a big effort to gather and meet us.....much appreciated. Unfortunately I had undertaken the driving duties for a bit of practice but while waiting in a line to turn off the freeway we were rear-ended by a nitwit! Not too much damage done to the car....nothing money won't fix and no harm done to any of the people involved but still a nuisance to get fixed. We took car details, name and phone number but later found out that the name was fictitious, the phone number didn't work, the car plates didn't belong to the vehicle that hit us and the driver probably has no insurance. The whole incident all got messier but as we all know......shit happens.
Not to be deterred we headed off to Vancouver Island on Wednesday driving Blair's car with the damaged rear corner. That went well; we visited Butchart Gardens on the way down and while I am not any great admirer of gardens, or flowers, or places where somewhere has smuggled trees from all over the World and transpalnted them...this garden was fantastic. We enjoyed a couple of hours wandering in the evening then headed for Victoria looking for accommodation which we had as yet not booked. It isn't that easy finding a spot to lay your head in a foreign town at 9.00pm. But we got the last room at a reasonable hotel and were most happy.
Victoria is an interesting, clean and tidy, picturesque little city (size of Christchurch) near the water on south end of the Island. It is also the capital of British Columbia. We checked out the museum and spent quite a bit of time in the First Nation section...that means the Indian section but they don't like to be called that as it confuses people that they think that they have come from India. Must be a lapse in the education system somewhere here as I learned very young that they were Red Indians, quite different to Hindu's, and used to live in tepees and get shot up by cowboys on regular occasion. First Nation peoples doesn't seem to have quite the right ring to it but then I don't expect anyone to take any notice of me!
Back from the Island we made a quick stop to pick up Blair as he had finished work for the week, and we headed east to Abbotsford. This is where lovely cousin Pam lives with her two boys, Mitchell and Lucas, and partner Terry. Pam is a relative on the paternal side of Diana's family tree and she visited us 25 years ago in New Zealand. We were put on a wonderful fuss and surely added a kilo or two to our playing weights. We all drove to Hope and walked along an old railroad track through some tunnels and wandered around a local lake looking for geocaches. Sure is a big country and some very impressive mountains, forests and rivers. We spent an hour watching Mitchell, who is 16, doing his grading for the upcoming winters ice hockey team. The enthusiasm and set-up and management of the game here is much like rugby back home. The ice skating ability of all the young guys involved is impressive...they seem to do it as easy as they can walk. We had a go at skating 30 years ago when we were here in BC and I still have the bruises! No way was I going on the ice again.....only good for putting in drinks I think.
Back to Vancouver in mid afternoon we took a quick trip up Cypress Mountain, just to the northwest of Vancouver. This is where Blair can go skiing after work in the evening. The slopes are lit up and chairs running for those who can't wait until the weekend. The day was stunning and we could see all the way to Mount Baker in the United States. That's where we plan to head for tomorrow...Seattle.
The drive from our austere lodgings at Birdridge Motel to Whittier is about 40kms but it would take us longer than an hour. We were in no hurry so spent quite a bit of time in the Portage Valley, walking on a myriad of bush trails (no tracks in N.America), looking at floundering salmon and hunting out the odd geocache. There is a one way 2 1/2 mile tunnel on the way so we had to wait our turn to get through. It rained most of the day but never got very cold.
Our accommodation in Whittier was on the 15th floor of a building dating from 1964 and built by the American armed forces as a strategic location during the Cold War. All seemed a bit far fetched for us but was very comfortable. The oddest thing was that there was a sauna room in the lounge. Rather than a steam room it was electric and sauna by radiation and claimed to cure most ills. We gave it a good go but can't say that it cured anything that I know of...maybe we're just too healthy!
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| Otters at sea |
We drove to Whittier as we had booked a full day out with a small operator (6 people boat) to look for aquatic wildlife and glaciers. The boat left the dock at 9.00 am and we had 8 hours on the water. Unfortunately whales were playing away so no sightings made but we did see sea lions and crazy little otter fellows who spend 90% of their lives floating on their backs in the ocean. They were way out from the coast and appeared to be a long way from their larder!
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| Surprise Glacier |
The main attraction, for me, was to see a glacier "calving", a large chunk of the face falling into the sea. We got up quite close and our excellent operator just waited around for as long as we wanted. There was a huge chunk that we had decided would look magnificent if it fell but realised that this is a couple of million years old so unlikely that our half hour would prove overly memorable.......but not to be, rumblings started, noises rang out like gunshots, she slowly toppled,.....magnificent! The biggest piece our operator had ever seen go over - it really was a great sight. A pretty spectacular day out everything considered. We got back in to Whittier to find a cruise ship in dock, totally dwarfing the small town of 280 people.
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| Portage Glacier |
On our way out of Whittier we made a trek to Portage Glacier. This required a 3 hour hike up over a low pass and on into the Last Frontier, as the Alaskans call it. Their trails are fairly well managed and we enjoyed walking into the woods. Spotted a large beaver dam which surely would earn an honorary engineering degree at any prestigious university around the globe. They are clever critters when it comes to building in the water. Out of the Portage Valley area and we race toward Anchorage with a quick stop to watch Beluga whales in Turnagain Bay. We hadn't ever heard of these type of whales and they are visible from the main road but a fair way off shore. Camped at Creekwood Motel for the evening and ate at the Broken Tooth Brewery and Moose's Tooth, the attached restaurant. The brewery has over 20 of their own concoctions on tap (Half Gallon Growler, Wild Country Raspberry Wheat, Polar Pale Ale and Northern Lights Amber Ale to name a few) - they serve no other alcoholic beverages......and the place is packed and we waited 30 minutes to get seated while the diner next door was half full. They must be doing something right and if our experience was anything to go by then they surely are.
We can reflect most favourably on our week in Alaska, it was well worth the visit. Nice to be able to spend the time exploring with Blair and to know that Hayden is keeping our ship on an even keel - good times at the Last Frontier. Trouble free flight back to Vancouver and seamless transition through immigration and customs once again.......I think they like us here.
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