Greetings, people! May all you who are still reading this blog be blessed for your faithfulness and hope - both of you! :D
We have arrived back in Australia and are on the Central Coast of NSW at my folks place for a few days - with no specific plans to be elsewhere anytime soon.
So... let me review the last couple of weeks since I blogged. Nope - there is too much! I will try to sum up, but I am in the post-14 hours flight and preceding and proceeding mayhem. It's 3am; I should go back to bed but am having a little energy burst. The energy won't last long enough to go into any great detail. Actually, I have just tried to write a few things and it has all been gobbledegook and crazy talk so I have deleted it. I guess I have just enough remain wit to be self-censorsorial. Is censorsorial a word? No idea and I am too lazy/beat to check now.
I am without my mighty iPhone until I get it unblocked from it's Canadian network, but my Aussie mobile is still connected. As our home in Darwin is now rented out, we currently have no fixed address or landline. Email or mobile is the best way to reach us - and we look forward to catching up with everyone in due time. We're looking at our options regarding housing and all the rest of it (which includes applying for residency visas for Canada and heading back in a year or two when we get the money etc), but I'll keep you appraised here and on Facebook as to our whereabouts.
And if you're really lucky, I'll even do a post letting you know about our last couple of weeks in Canada (brilliant); a summation of the 9 weeks (incredible AND brilliant); a review of The Fantastic Final Day, including a trip to Chuck E Cheese and Waiting For A Midnight Flight With 4 Children in a Bustling International Airport (spoiler alert: we all made it through ALIVE and without loss of blood. Not too many tears);
****
At 3.30am or near that, my mum's computer ate my blog post. I was discouraged. Disheartened. And didn't bother looking for it until today - and there it was, saved by Blogger. Yay! So, this post was originally supposed to be posted on June 26. That was a while ago.
Friday, June 25, 2010
Friday, June 11, 2010
OK, Sheryn - this one's for you!
Sheryn, sweetheart, I think everyone else in the world has given up on this blog, but your begging has been rewarded: I am sitting here and ready to type!
Not that I know where to begin. It has been a month since I wrote here, but I've been on Facebook most days since so you know most of what we've done. I'll try for a recap though...
After leaving the Rockies, we went to Calgary and were disappointed to find it was just another city. We are traveling earlier than peak season, and had found lots and lots of events, tours and businesses that shut down for the winter hadn't opened yet. Try explaining THAT to the kids as you drive past a fantastic-looking fairground! We did go to the zoo in Calgary which was enjoyable.
Leaving Calgary, we went east, heading for Winnipeg. We stopped at Medicine Hat, AB (and saw the worlds largest tepee - a cone of steel poles without canvas), Moose Jaw, SK (met a new friend, Barb, who an Aussie friend introduced me to before we left), Piapot, SK (stopped for a meal at a lovely saloon in a ghost town with a population of 49, including dogs), Moosomin, SK (gorgeous campground, but my enduring memory of this place is that I did laundry. Woo hoo), then Winnipeg, MB! This trip across Canada in the Trans Canada Highway was really wonderful. Like driving east to west in southern Australia, the landscape changes dramatically and significantly at the provincial borders. We left the mountains and traveled through open plains, rolling agricultural land, oil fields (looked like farms with pumps, not massive derricks or anything - not ugly!). We didn't leave the highway, and missed lots of fantastic places, I know, but we really loved the drive and found so much to look at and talk about. It was a LOT more attractive to me than the Stuart Highway! We had some really nice times with people - one another of course, but also strangers we met as we traveled. One of my favourite exchanges was in Moose Jaw, SK. We had lunch with Barb, and after she left, a woman chatted to us asking where we were from and so on. We said we were on holidays and she said "In Saskatoon??" as though it were the last place on earth people would travel to!
In Winnipeg, we stayed with Mat's good mate Cory and his wife Masami and their three boys. They are so generous with hospitality and made us so welcome - which is amazing considering there's 6 of us and a 31 foot caravan! They live in the inner city in a 3 storey house on a small block of land. The houses in Canada are different so I'm not sure how to describe it. I reckon it looked like a Newtown terrace house, but not attached to any other. It was a 100 year old place that has been renovated, and it was so pretty - I like the idea of living in something similar, although the stair were very steep and I would need lots more practice to wander around in the dark without worrying about falling down!
We did lovely stuff pretty much every day, and I am struggling to remember everything now. Cory's older sister, Stephanie, is a high school friend of mine and it was wonderful to catch up with her and meet her husband and kids. She has a daughter the same age as Miranda and they became great mates quickly - even having a sleep over one night. The whole family have been friends with Mat's for a million years, and they were just so much fun to spend time with. We were fed and entertained and shown around Winnipeg and had such a great time. I really loved the Mennonite Historical Village where we went on the rainy Victoria Day long weekend. Miranda now knows how to grind flour and wash clothes in a mangle which are skills I hope she finds good use for! Masami took me to a spa one night which was wonderful; hot springs and pools are very easy to find around here, and are so relaxing and warming when the weather is cold. I loved The Forks in Winnipeg too; it's where the Assiniboice and Red Rivers meet and has been a meeting place for Aboriginal people through Winnipeg's history. The Children's Museum was a hands-on play museum - a cross between Play Shack and Questicon. The Manitoba Museum was fantastic; lots of Aboriginal and flora/fauna exhibits (they had a platypus!) as well as colonisation history.
While we were in Winnipeg, my friend Jenni traveled from Alabama to spend a weekend with us. You read about it on Facebook, but I don't know if I told you how I know Jenni? We met online about 10 years ago at a "Left Behind" message board (remember those books?) and became good friends. A group of us from that message board went on to set up our own site and of the 14 of us (I think that's right!), 10 live in the US and some have met up a few times. One lives in Scotland, one in London, one in Auckland and me in Australia. Our Londoner went to the Kiwis wedding, which was so cool; I'm the second non-USian to meet up with anyone. It was an absolutely wonderful weekend. Jenni and I have never even spoken on the telephone during our decade-long friendship, and we joked about it being our first date and all the rest, but it was honestly just like catching up with a friend I spoke to only a fortnight before - because we have spoken so often and about so much for such a long time. We went walking, talking, eating and laughing for a couple of days, and saying "see you later" was really hard! Catalina particularly had become very attached too which was sweet. Jenni had traveled something like 3000km across an international border to spend two days with me - it was SO precious. Blows my mind.
And now we're heading west again, this time with Cory, Masami and their kids (they are heading into the Rockies and we're joining them to return to Lake Louise before we go back to Vancouver). We traveled first to their family campground near Piney, MB (actually south east of Winnipeg) and spent two days in a fantastic cabin which was on a huge block of mostly uncleared bushland. No mains electricity and no running water, which is more rustic than I like, but the cabin itself was really terrific with comfy beds and a wood stove inside. We barbecued mostly, and had a lovely fire, and Cory has built a wood-fire hot tub which was bliss. The long drop toilet and ticks were not so nice, but we survived. LOL - I would have been a lousy pioneer!!! The kids loved playing with garter snakes, too! :) After leaving the cabin, we went to Riding Mountain Park, which was really pretty - and I loved a coffee shop/book shop/artisan shop in Onanole... honestly, it was like my fantasy heaven! We saw our first (and so far only) bear in the wild - but it scarpered so quickly it could have just as easily been Sasquatch! We stopped in Brandon, too, because I wanted to check out the Commonwealth Air Training Program museum. My grandfather spent a lot of time in Winnipeg in 1940 as he trained as a wireless operator for service in the Air Force during WWII. It was a really interesting museum.
After Brandon we spent the night at Moose Mountain Provincial Park, Saskatoon. It was gorgeous and the houses were lovely. It reminded me of the NSW Central Coast for some reason - at least, the Central Coast 20 years ago without all the people and traffic! If they didn't have obscene winters and they had work for Mat, I would love to move here! It really was beautiful. Nice campground, too - and we met a little girl named Miranda who was 6, whose birthday was in Novemeber. They didn't look at all alike, but I thought the coincidence was cool. Our Miranda was a week older. :)
We spent another night in Moose Jaw and I got to catch up with Barb again which was a hoot. From Moose Jaw we went to Medicine Hat and made a fuel stop. We shouldn't have. 6 weeks + of driving without incident and on Monday afternoon as he pulled the caravan past the bowser, Mat clipped the rear corner of the caravan on the steel barricade at the end of the row. No damage to the post. Extraordinary how much damage was done to the camper! The awning support was ripped off, the bumper was half ripped off and somehow it all made the rear wall get skewed so the rear-end wasn't square. The joins to the side walls separated, the bunk beds attached to the rear end detached, the bathroom sink pulled off the wall (just the silicone I think), the bathtub popped it's plastic rivets. Groan. Mat and Cory worked their tails off - in the drizzly cold rain - to get everything squared and the bumper reattached and lights working etc. We had dinner at Maccas and the kids got to play in the Play Place. We rang the hire company and were told that because no other vehicle was involved, we didn't need to make a police report and that we should head to Calgary to return it to their depot there. Not cool - I missed Drumheller and the Hoo Doos AGAIN!!!
We spent a night and a day in Calgary sorting things out - which meant getting railed at for NOT making a police report, parting with a huge amount of money and moving house. Which was no where near as painful as moving out of Canonbury, but still wasn't fun. :) The new caravan is nicer in many ways - lots more light and it feels spacier, but it does lack storage space. Anyway, we left Calgary and rejoined Cory & co in Canmore which has been a terrific place to spend the last couple of nights. We have shopped and eaten and toured, and really enjoyed a day at the Banff Hot Springs yesterday and a nice driving tour of Lake Minnewanka (yeah, seriously). Two Jack Lake is stunning, and we enjoyed taking a walk around in the late evening even though it was pretty cold yesterday (about 7C and drizzly). We got home after 10pm and the kids didn't get up until about 8.30am (oddly, just about the time I started typing this blog!). We're leaving today to go back to Lake Louise where we'll see it wet (not solid like on Mothers Day) and we'll ride the gondola. Sadly, we'll part company from Cory & co here, and head back to Vancouver on the weekend.
So, blogging hasn't been a big priority, clearly! I loved blogging when we were in Adelaide for a month and really looked forward to writing it and reading peoples comments. I guess a travel blog is different to a "our son is in hospital having his head remodeled" blog. :D Certainly this trip has been so much more fun!
We have just 2 weeks left in Canada now, and we either need someone to offer us a job, or a huge pile of money, or we need to come back to Darwin and send Matty back to the office. Mat is just now starting to worry about where we're going to live!! Boys. Having moved out of Canonbury, we need to find a rental - and there just doesn't seem to be anything in Darwin or Palmerston under $500 a week, which is obscene. Still, we are going to trust the future to be taken care of and we're cramming as much beauty and adventure into these last days as we can. We don't want our snow change to end!
Not that I know where to begin. It has been a month since I wrote here, but I've been on Facebook most days since so you know most of what we've done. I'll try for a recap though...
After leaving the Rockies, we went to Calgary and were disappointed to find it was just another city. We are traveling earlier than peak season, and had found lots and lots of events, tours and businesses that shut down for the winter hadn't opened yet. Try explaining THAT to the kids as you drive past a fantastic-looking fairground! We did go to the zoo in Calgary which was enjoyable.
Leaving Calgary, we went east, heading for Winnipeg. We stopped at Medicine Hat, AB (and saw the worlds largest tepee - a cone of steel poles without canvas), Moose Jaw, SK (met a new friend, Barb, who an Aussie friend introduced me to before we left), Piapot, SK (stopped for a meal at a lovely saloon in a ghost town with a population of 49, including dogs), Moosomin, SK (gorgeous campground, but my enduring memory of this place is that I did laundry. Woo hoo), then Winnipeg, MB! This trip across Canada in the Trans Canada Highway was really wonderful. Like driving east to west in southern Australia, the landscape changes dramatically and significantly at the provincial borders. We left the mountains and traveled through open plains, rolling agricultural land, oil fields (looked like farms with pumps, not massive derricks or anything - not ugly!). We didn't leave the highway, and missed lots of fantastic places, I know, but we really loved the drive and found so much to look at and talk about. It was a LOT more attractive to me than the Stuart Highway! We had some really nice times with people - one another of course, but also strangers we met as we traveled. One of my favourite exchanges was in Moose Jaw, SK. We had lunch with Barb, and after she left, a woman chatted to us asking where we were from and so on. We said we were on holidays and she said "In Saskatoon??" as though it were the last place on earth people would travel to!
In Winnipeg, we stayed with Mat's good mate Cory and his wife Masami and their three boys. They are so generous with hospitality and made us so welcome - which is amazing considering there's 6 of us and a 31 foot caravan! They live in the inner city in a 3 storey house on a small block of land. The houses in Canada are different so I'm not sure how to describe it. I reckon it looked like a Newtown terrace house, but not attached to any other. It was a 100 year old place that has been renovated, and it was so pretty - I like the idea of living in something similar, although the stair were very steep and I would need lots more practice to wander around in the dark without worrying about falling down!
We did lovely stuff pretty much every day, and I am struggling to remember everything now. Cory's older sister, Stephanie, is a high school friend of mine and it was wonderful to catch up with her and meet her husband and kids. She has a daughter the same age as Miranda and they became great mates quickly - even having a sleep over one night. The whole family have been friends with Mat's for a million years, and they were just so much fun to spend time with. We were fed and entertained and shown around Winnipeg and had such a great time. I really loved the Mennonite Historical Village where we went on the rainy Victoria Day long weekend. Miranda now knows how to grind flour and wash clothes in a mangle which are skills I hope she finds good use for! Masami took me to a spa one night which was wonderful; hot springs and pools are very easy to find around here, and are so relaxing and warming when the weather is cold. I loved The Forks in Winnipeg too; it's where the Assiniboice and Red Rivers meet and has been a meeting place for Aboriginal people through Winnipeg's history. The Children's Museum was a hands-on play museum - a cross between Play Shack and Questicon. The Manitoba Museum was fantastic; lots of Aboriginal and flora/fauna exhibits (they had a platypus!) as well as colonisation history.
While we were in Winnipeg, my friend Jenni traveled from Alabama to spend a weekend with us. You read about it on Facebook, but I don't know if I told you how I know Jenni? We met online about 10 years ago at a "Left Behind" message board (remember those books?) and became good friends. A group of us from that message board went on to set up our own site and of the 14 of us (I think that's right!), 10 live in the US and some have met up a few times. One lives in Scotland, one in London, one in Auckland and me in Australia. Our Londoner went to the Kiwis wedding, which was so cool; I'm the second non-USian to meet up with anyone. It was an absolutely wonderful weekend. Jenni and I have never even spoken on the telephone during our decade-long friendship, and we joked about it being our first date and all the rest, but it was honestly just like catching up with a friend I spoke to only a fortnight before - because we have spoken so often and about so much for such a long time. We went walking, talking, eating and laughing for a couple of days, and saying "see you later" was really hard! Catalina particularly had become very attached too which was sweet. Jenni had traveled something like 3000km across an international border to spend two days with me - it was SO precious. Blows my mind.
And now we're heading west again, this time with Cory, Masami and their kids (they are heading into the Rockies and we're joining them to return to Lake Louise before we go back to Vancouver). We traveled first to their family campground near Piney, MB (actually south east of Winnipeg) and spent two days in a fantastic cabin which was on a huge block of mostly uncleared bushland. No mains electricity and no running water, which is more rustic than I like, but the cabin itself was really terrific with comfy beds and a wood stove inside. We barbecued mostly, and had a lovely fire, and Cory has built a wood-fire hot tub which was bliss. The long drop toilet and ticks were not so nice, but we survived. LOL - I would have been a lousy pioneer!!! The kids loved playing with garter snakes, too! :) After leaving the cabin, we went to Riding Mountain Park, which was really pretty - and I loved a coffee shop/book shop/artisan shop in Onanole... honestly, it was like my fantasy heaven! We saw our first (and so far only) bear in the wild - but it scarpered so quickly it could have just as easily been Sasquatch! We stopped in Brandon, too, because I wanted to check out the Commonwealth Air Training Program museum. My grandfather spent a lot of time in Winnipeg in 1940 as he trained as a wireless operator for service in the Air Force during WWII. It was a really interesting museum.
After Brandon we spent the night at Moose Mountain Provincial Park, Saskatoon. It was gorgeous and the houses were lovely. It reminded me of the NSW Central Coast for some reason - at least, the Central Coast 20 years ago without all the people and traffic! If they didn't have obscene winters and they had work for Mat, I would love to move here! It really was beautiful. Nice campground, too - and we met a little girl named Miranda who was 6, whose birthday was in Novemeber. They didn't look at all alike, but I thought the coincidence was cool. Our Miranda was a week older. :)
We spent another night in Moose Jaw and I got to catch up with Barb again which was a hoot. From Moose Jaw we went to Medicine Hat and made a fuel stop. We shouldn't have. 6 weeks + of driving without incident and on Monday afternoon as he pulled the caravan past the bowser, Mat clipped the rear corner of the caravan on the steel barricade at the end of the row. No damage to the post. Extraordinary how much damage was done to the camper! The awning support was ripped off, the bumper was half ripped off and somehow it all made the rear wall get skewed so the rear-end wasn't square. The joins to the side walls separated, the bunk beds attached to the rear end detached, the bathroom sink pulled off the wall (just the silicone I think), the bathtub popped it's plastic rivets. Groan. Mat and Cory worked their tails off - in the drizzly cold rain - to get everything squared and the bumper reattached and lights working etc. We had dinner at Maccas and the kids got to play in the Play Place. We rang the hire company and were told that because no other vehicle was involved, we didn't need to make a police report and that we should head to Calgary to return it to their depot there. Not cool - I missed Drumheller and the Hoo Doos AGAIN!!!
We spent a night and a day in Calgary sorting things out - which meant getting railed at for NOT making a police report, parting with a huge amount of money and moving house. Which was no where near as painful as moving out of Canonbury, but still wasn't fun. :) The new caravan is nicer in many ways - lots more light and it feels spacier, but it does lack storage space. Anyway, we left Calgary and rejoined Cory & co in Canmore which has been a terrific place to spend the last couple of nights. We have shopped and eaten and toured, and really enjoyed a day at the Banff Hot Springs yesterday and a nice driving tour of Lake Minnewanka (yeah, seriously). Two Jack Lake is stunning, and we enjoyed taking a walk around in the late evening even though it was pretty cold yesterday (about 7C and drizzly). We got home after 10pm and the kids didn't get up until about 8.30am (oddly, just about the time I started typing this blog!). We're leaving today to go back to Lake Louise where we'll see it wet (not solid like on Mothers Day) and we'll ride the gondola. Sadly, we'll part company from Cory & co here, and head back to Vancouver on the weekend.
So, blogging hasn't been a big priority, clearly! I loved blogging when we were in Adelaide for a month and really looked forward to writing it and reading peoples comments. I guess a travel blog is different to a "our son is in hospital having his head remodeled" blog. :D Certainly this trip has been so much more fun!
We have just 2 weeks left in Canada now, and we either need someone to offer us a job, or a huge pile of money, or we need to come back to Darwin and send Matty back to the office. Mat is just now starting to worry about where we're going to live!! Boys. Having moved out of Canonbury, we need to find a rental - and there just doesn't seem to be anything in Darwin or Palmerston under $500 a week, which is obscene. Still, we are going to trust the future to be taken care of and we're cramming as much beauty and adventure into these last days as we can. We don't want our snow change to end!
Sunday, May 9, 2010
The Song on My Heart
O Lord my God, When I in awesome wonder,
Consider all the worlds Thy Hands have made;
I see the stars, I hear the rolling thunder,
Thy power throughout the universe displayed.
Then sings my soul, My Saviour God, to Thee,
How great Thou art, How great Thou art.
Then sings my soul, My Saviour God, to Thee,
How great Thou art, How great Thou art!
When through the woods, and forest glades I wander,
And hear the birds sing sweetly in the trees.
When I look down, from lofty mountain grandeur
And see the brook, and feel the gentle breeze.
Then sings my soul, My Saviour God, to Thee,
How great Thou art, How great Thou art.
Then sings my soul, My Saviour God, to Thee,
How great Thou art, How great Thou art!
And when I think, that God, His Son not sparing;
Sent Him to die, I scarce can take it in;
That on the Cross, my burden gladly bearing,
He bled and died to take away my sin.
Then sings my soul, My Saviour God, to Thee,
How great Thou art, How great Thou art.
Then sings my soul, My Saviour God, to Thee,
How great Thou art, How great Thou art!
When Christ shall come, with shout of acclamation,
And take me home, what joy shall fill my heart.
Then I shall bow, in humble adoration,
And then proclaim: "My God, how great Thou art!"
Then sings my soul, My Saviour God, to Thee,
How great Thou art, How great Thou art.
Then sings my soul, My Saviour God, to Thee,
How great Thou art, How great Thou art!
Happy Mother's Day
This Mother's Day, I woke to see the campground covered in snow*. It looked magnificent. I woke Miranda, and we pulled jackets over our pyjamas and donned our shoes and I took a sleepy girl to the front door of our caravan. She was all foggy-headed and groggy, but I told her I had a surprise for her. I opened the door, and her face broke into an amazing smile, as she exclaimed, "wow!". We went out for a walk and an explore and it was truly stageringly beautiful to us tropical folk.
It wasn't a heavy snowfall, but it added to the glorious beauty of this special place. So taken with the prettiness around us, it was about 15 minutes before I lifted my eyes toward the peaks that surround us. Veiled in dense clouds, most were invisible and it added to a sense of insulation, of isolation in this place. We took some photos, then went to get Mat and Caelum. Oliver had stirred as well, and came out with the boys, and Catalina joined us a little while later. When we were all finally together, the clouds opened and snow began to fall, slowly at first, and then thicker and heavier. We had pulled on beanies and gloves, and the kids got stuck into the snow. It was two hours before we went inside for breakfast. I couldn't have hoped for a more wonderful start to Mother's Day.
Yesterday we left Jasper, which had been a wonderful stop for several days. In Jasper, we had had gone out to Lake Maligne which was a spectacular drive, followed by a beautiful walk around a lake of snow and ice - in a couple of weeks, they'll be taking tourists out onto the defrosted lake. While I want to see the 'summer version', the wintery (springy?) Canada is more beautiful than I could ever have imagined. We also 'enjoyed' a domestic day doing laundry (I got to go shopping for a special wedding gift for my friends Sascha & Micheal - sorry to be missing the wedding); we had a BBQ with some Novocastrians (the Aussie kind) and some Dutchies; we continued to explore the culinary differences between Australia and Canada (they are not always apparent until the product is opened/meal is served...). On one amazing day in Jasper, we took the Skytram up Mount Whistler and had lunch at a restaurant at the top before playing in thick mountain snow [and taking several thousand photographs], headed down the mountain and out to Miette Hot Springs, about an hours drive away - if you don't stop to take photos along the way! At the Hot Springs, we got out of the car and walked across snow covered car park and gardens to the building (much like a public swimming pool in Australia), paid our entry fee and went our separate ways to the boys and girl change rooms to get out of our long johns and woollies and into our swimsuits. So, practically naked we walked outside again to the pools - two with steam wafting off them. The first pool was a VERY warm 38C, and we soaked and swam and splashed for ages, talking to locals and fellow travelers, as we enjoyed the view of the snow-covered mountains around us. There was another hot pool that I didn't go into, but Miranda said it was hotter, and there were two cold pools - one 11C and one 14C - which insane people use to alternate the hot/cold experience, supposedly for all manner of physical benefit. I was the only Niejalke nutty enough to do it - in the 14C pool - and I only did it once, and not for long!
Leaving Jasper yesterday, we set off down the Columbia Icefields Parkway, which my Lonely Planets guide proclaimed as the world's most spectacular drive. I am not convinced it out-spectaculars The Great Ocean Road drive in Victoria (the Aussie one), but it was indeed spectacular. It is so hard to describe, and hard to capture the grandeur with a 35mm camera, so I'll leave it for those interested to investigate further - you'll find great pictures of the icefields and the glaciers on the net, but I also recommend the 14 hour flight from Sydney and hiring a car to do it yourself! We enjoyed a light hike around the Athabasca Falls. Horseshoe lake, Bow River and most other bodies of water we passed were either frozen over or mostly frozen. We stopped at the Peyto lake and Bow Summit lookout, but even though LP promised a "400 metre wooded trail", we were put off by the deep, deep snowdrifts and fit, spunky looking hikers in Serious Walking Paraphernalia. I did stop to take a photo of the Avalanche Warning sign though.
The end point of yesterday's drive was the Lake Louise village and campground. Lake Louise is a place I remember hearing about, and seeing pictures of, my whole life. My mother was named for the lake, which was where her parents honeymooned, I believe (the family home was/is still called Calgary), and Miranda and I are also named for the Lake. It's incredible to be here. (The lake itself was named for a princess, the daughter of Queen Victoria, and the wife of The Marques of Lorne, the Governor General of Canada - all long dead now). The village is tiny; so much smaller than we'd expected, and very pretty. Today, we are preparing a picnic lunch which we will take out to the lake, which we believe is still frozen over. The Lake Louise Gondola is closed for another couple of weeks, apparently, which adds to the desire to return to Lake Louise on our return journey to Vancouver from Winnipeg in June. Peak tourist season, sure, but there's a reason everyone travels here in summer!
Phew! Okay, hopefully this post appeases the blog-watchers for another few days! We are healthy, happy, and absolutely loving our trip. God's awesome grace has surrounded us, and we feel renewed, uplifted and so very blessed.
* Actually, just the organic stuff. The bitumen roads and campsites were still bare.
It wasn't a heavy snowfall, but it added to the glorious beauty of this special place. So taken with the prettiness around us, it was about 15 minutes before I lifted my eyes toward the peaks that surround us. Veiled in dense clouds, most were invisible and it added to a sense of insulation, of isolation in this place. We took some photos, then went to get Mat and Caelum. Oliver had stirred as well, and came out with the boys, and Catalina joined us a little while later. When we were all finally together, the clouds opened and snow began to fall, slowly at first, and then thicker and heavier. We had pulled on beanies and gloves, and the kids got stuck into the snow. It was two hours before we went inside for breakfast. I couldn't have hoped for a more wonderful start to Mother's Day.
Yesterday we left Jasper, which had been a wonderful stop for several days. In Jasper, we had had gone out to Lake Maligne which was a spectacular drive, followed by a beautiful walk around a lake of snow and ice - in a couple of weeks, they'll be taking tourists out onto the defrosted lake. While I want to see the 'summer version', the wintery (springy?) Canada is more beautiful than I could ever have imagined. We also 'enjoyed' a domestic day doing laundry (I got to go shopping for a special wedding gift for my friends Sascha & Micheal - sorry to be missing the wedding); we had a BBQ with some Novocastrians (the Aussie kind) and some Dutchies; we continued to explore the culinary differences between Australia and Canada (they are not always apparent until the product is opened/meal is served...). On one amazing day in Jasper, we took the Skytram up Mount Whistler and had lunch at a restaurant at the top before playing in thick mountain snow [and taking several thousand photographs], headed down the mountain and out to Miette Hot Springs, about an hours drive away - if you don't stop to take photos along the way! At the Hot Springs, we got out of the car and walked across snow covered car park and gardens to the building (much like a public swimming pool in Australia), paid our entry fee and went our separate ways to the boys and girl change rooms to get out of our long johns and woollies and into our swimsuits. So, practically naked we walked outside again to the pools - two with steam wafting off them. The first pool was a VERY warm 38C, and we soaked and swam and splashed for ages, talking to locals and fellow travelers, as we enjoyed the view of the snow-covered mountains around us. There was another hot pool that I didn't go into, but Miranda said it was hotter, and there were two cold pools - one 11C and one 14C - which insane people use to alternate the hot/cold experience, supposedly for all manner of physical benefit. I was the only Niejalke nutty enough to do it - in the 14C pool - and I only did it once, and not for long!
Leaving Jasper yesterday, we set off down the Columbia Icefields Parkway, which my Lonely Planets guide proclaimed as the world's most spectacular drive. I am not convinced it out-spectaculars The Great Ocean Road drive in Victoria (the Aussie one), but it was indeed spectacular. It is so hard to describe, and hard to capture the grandeur with a 35mm camera, so I'll leave it for those interested to investigate further - you'll find great pictures of the icefields and the glaciers on the net, but I also recommend the 14 hour flight from Sydney and hiring a car to do it yourself! We enjoyed a light hike around the Athabasca Falls. Horseshoe lake, Bow River and most other bodies of water we passed were either frozen over or mostly frozen. We stopped at the Peyto lake and Bow Summit lookout, but even though LP promised a "400 metre wooded trail", we were put off by the deep, deep snowdrifts and fit, spunky looking hikers in Serious Walking Paraphernalia. I did stop to take a photo of the Avalanche Warning sign though.
The end point of yesterday's drive was the Lake Louise village and campground. Lake Louise is a place I remember hearing about, and seeing pictures of, my whole life. My mother was named for the lake, which was where her parents honeymooned, I believe (the family home was/is still called Calgary), and Miranda and I are also named for the Lake. It's incredible to be here. (The lake itself was named for a princess, the daughter of Queen Victoria, and the wife of The Marques of Lorne, the Governor General of Canada - all long dead now). The village is tiny; so much smaller than we'd expected, and very pretty. Today, we are preparing a picnic lunch which we will take out to the lake, which we believe is still frozen over. The Lake Louise Gondola is closed for another couple of weeks, apparently, which adds to the desire to return to Lake Louise on our return journey to Vancouver from Winnipeg in June. Peak tourist season, sure, but there's a reason everyone travels here in summer!
Phew! Okay, hopefully this post appeases the blog-watchers for another few days! We are healthy, happy, and absolutely loving our trip. God's awesome grace has surrounded us, and we feel renewed, uplifted and so very blessed.
* Actually, just the organic stuff. The bitumen roads and campsites were still bare.
Tuesday, May 4, 2010
Just in Jasper
Well, hi all - most exuberant greetings to the whingers who demand more bloggy goodness. Well, more frequent, anyway.
We arrived in Jasper late last night. Late, because we HAVE to stop every few kilometres to ooh and ahh over the mountain... the river... the clouds... the rocks... THE SNOW!!! Yesterday we experienced our first snow fall, and it was so amazingly beautiful. It had been drizzling rain a lot of the day, but in the afternoon larger fluffier precipitation began to precipitate. Mat didn't believe me that it was snow initially (ha! mocker), but we pulled into a rest area as it started to fall more heavily (I don't think it ever got very heavy, though - not that I know what heavy snow looks like yet). It all melted as it hit the roadside stop, but as we danced and looked skyward with our mouths wide open (to catch snow), it was like being in a wonderland. It looked so very different to what I had imagined (I didn't see a single pretty symmetrical flake falling), with light clumps of frosty ice drifting so slowly toward us. Looking up, it was like a salt shaker sprinkling us. Caelum thought it was Christmas and said Santa Claus would be coming. Very sweet; Australian Christmas is obviously all about Jesus, and Canadian Christmas is all Snow'n'Santa! :) The kids are with Mat at the moment, down exploring near the river (we're at a campsite called Wapiti if you want to look us up). Wapiti is an alternate word (First Nations) for elk. Haven't seen one yet...
Nor have we seen moose, thought the Moose River/Lake are incredibly beautiful. Stopped there a while yesterday to look at (and touch in the case of Mad Miranda) the ice and slush. We saw two deer as we were driving; that and crows are the only wildlife we've seen thus far! Oh, okay - all those ducks and the goose that slapped me at Lake Burnaby.
Spent a night in Kamloops and a night in Clearwater - both lovely, but Dutch Lake was incredible. We would loved to have stayed there for a month.... Had a lovely time there in spite of the ongoing drizzly rain.
OK, the family has returned - I'm logging off. Sorry I didn't take the time to upload a million photos - I promise, we're all smiling, all wearing jackets, and standing in front of stunning mountains, rivers, lakes and forests.
Lots of love.
We arrived in Jasper late last night. Late, because we HAVE to stop every few kilometres to ooh and ahh over the mountain... the river... the clouds... the rocks... THE SNOW!!! Yesterday we experienced our first snow fall, and it was so amazingly beautiful. It had been drizzling rain a lot of the day, but in the afternoon larger fluffier precipitation began to precipitate. Mat didn't believe me that it was snow initially (ha! mocker), but we pulled into a rest area as it started to fall more heavily (I don't think it ever got very heavy, though - not that I know what heavy snow looks like yet). It all melted as it hit the roadside stop, but as we danced and looked skyward with our mouths wide open (to catch snow), it was like being in a wonderland. It looked so very different to what I had imagined (I didn't see a single pretty symmetrical flake falling), with light clumps of frosty ice drifting so slowly toward us. Looking up, it was like a salt shaker sprinkling us. Caelum thought it was Christmas and said Santa Claus would be coming. Very sweet; Australian Christmas is obviously all about Jesus, and Canadian Christmas is all Snow'n'Santa! :) The kids are with Mat at the moment, down exploring near the river (we're at a campsite called Wapiti if you want to look us up). Wapiti is an alternate word (First Nations) for elk. Haven't seen one yet...
Nor have we seen moose, thought the Moose River/Lake are incredibly beautiful. Stopped there a while yesterday to look at (and touch in the case of Mad Miranda) the ice and slush. We saw two deer as we were driving; that and crows are the only wildlife we've seen thus far! Oh, okay - all those ducks and the goose that slapped me at Lake Burnaby.
Spent a night in Kamloops and a night in Clearwater - both lovely, but Dutch Lake was incredible. We would loved to have stayed there for a month.... Had a lovely time there in spite of the ongoing drizzly rain.
OK, the family has returned - I'm logging off. Sorry I didn't take the time to upload a million photos - I promise, we're all smiling, all wearing jackets, and standing in front of stunning mountains, rivers, lakes and forests.
Lots of love.
Wednesday, April 28, 2010
One Week in Vancouver
We are such tourists. :) We've been loving checking out all the pretty stuff, and spent the day in Vancouver yesterday, checking out a steam clock, the world's narrowest commercial building, Granville Island, the Royal Mounted Police's very own souvenir shop (didn't buy anything), the Sky Train, Stanley Park... actually, we saw a whole bunch more besides, because we took one of those hop-on, hop-off bus tours. Which may be quite daggy, but was really enjoyable. The drivers knew a lot about Vancouver - a little too much about the cost of buildings, which seems irrelevant in many ways - and they were entertaining as they drove us around. We started out in great weather, but we were playing and walking in Stanley Park when we got caught in rain. Which was not ideal (ie it was COLD!). But we survived the rain, and had a fantastic day looking and laughing and enjoying being together. [I was going to include links to all these things, but our free wifi here at the caravan park isn't so flash].
I haven't figured out how to send photos from my new iPhone to the blog or Facebook (Mat stuck a few up on his Facebook this afternoon though). Mostly because I haven't looked for a solution. My apologies. May I just say that Vancouver is every bit as beautiful as it is in pictures? There are blossoms on the trees; there are tulips and other flowers everywhere in public spaces; the people we speak to are friendly and outgoing and interesting; the caravan is comfortable albeit small and we're managing money better now that we have a local account and so on.
Still no news on a job, and we've delayed our departure from Van until at least Friday. Oh, and today I planned to drag the family to Grouse Mountain, Capilano and Whistler. Instead, we are in the van park with 3 snotty and semi-miserable kids. Sigh. Good thing we've got time to take things slow! I've just had a very nice afternoon nap, and we'll try to get to these places tomorrow.
So, that's been a wonderful first week in Vancouver. The plan now is to head up through the Rockies from Friday, and spend about 4 weeks making our way up, around over and down to Calgary.
I haven't figured out how to send photos from my new iPhone to the blog or Facebook (Mat stuck a few up on his Facebook this afternoon though). Mostly because I haven't looked for a solution. My apologies. May I just say that Vancouver is every bit as beautiful as it is in pictures? There are blossoms on the trees; there are tulips and other flowers everywhere in public spaces; the people we speak to are friendly and outgoing and interesting; the caravan is comfortable albeit small and we're managing money better now that we have a local account and so on.
Still no news on a job, and we've delayed our departure from Van until at least Friday. Oh, and today I planned to drag the family to Grouse Mountain, Capilano and Whistler. Instead, we are in the van park with 3 snotty and semi-miserable kids. Sigh. Good thing we've got time to take things slow! I've just had a very nice afternoon nap, and we'll try to get to these places tomorrow.
So, that's been a wonderful first week in Vancouver. The plan now is to head up through the Rockies from Friday, and spend about 4 weeks making our way up, around over and down to Calgary.
Saturday, April 24, 2010
Arrived We Have
It's Saturday afternoon and we've been in Vancouver for 3 nights now. "We're" getting used to driving on the right hand side (I'm actually only navigating, but hey - it's a job). The language differences aren't too terrible (although we're getting picked up on our accents all the time), but the currency! OK, we have loonies and toonies ($1 and $2 coins), quarters, dimes, nickels (all a lot lighter than Aussie coins, and they feel like play money). The shops are similar-but-not-the-same, as are the products on the shelves (Special K is NOT Special K... over here, it's like flattened rice bubbles). On Wednesday and Thursday it was quite overcast and cool, as it is today (it's actually been drizzling all day today), but Friday was clear and sunny and WE SAW THE ROCKIES! Our first view of these really pretty mountains, with snow and lakes or glaciers - every bit as beautiful as in pictures.
I'd whinge about the rush and hassle of getting to Sydney, the sick boy IN Sydney, the drama at Sydney Airport leaving and the 14 hours flight (it was L O N G) - but I can't be bothered now. It's done; over and no great enduring harm done. We're HERE! It feels really odd - like stepping into a book we've read and talked about together for years and years. At the moment, it doesn't feel real.
We're in a 33' caravan (which feel like more to tow, less when you're inside it!) and staying at a van park in Burnaby at the moment. I have bought an iphone but am still figuring out how to use it. Everything is working out as it should be - and the 20 month old boy playing with the CD drawer on the laptop wants me to get off the computer.
Lots of love from Canadia, where we're remembering ANZAC day. Lest We Forget.
I'd whinge about the rush and hassle of getting to Sydney, the sick boy IN Sydney, the drama at Sydney Airport leaving and the 14 hours flight (it was L O N G) - but I can't be bothered now. It's done; over and no great enduring harm done. We're HERE! It feels really odd - like stepping into a book we've read and talked about together for years and years. At the moment, it doesn't feel real.
We're in a 33' caravan (which feel like more to tow, less when you're inside it!) and staying at a van park in Burnaby at the moment. I have bought an iphone but am still figuring out how to use it. Everything is working out as it should be - and the 20 month old boy playing with the CD drawer on the laptop wants me to get off the computer.
Lots of love from Canadia, where we're remembering ANZAC day. Lest We Forget.
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