Put your life in a box and off we go....

On the Road with Mrs Robinson

whiteelephant — Sun, 24 May 2009 11:35:00 GMT

Ubertramp noun: One who has recently left their home and employment seeking a life of pure recreation. Often equipped with tidy clothing and an array of gadgets (cellphones, laptops etc) left over from days when gainfully employed, Ubertramps may easily fool an observer into believing that they have more money than is actually the case. This quality is often utilised by Ubertramps in keeping a low profile when visiting such places as foyers of upmarket hotels (where they are not actually guests) whilst they poach hot-tubs, scab wireless internet and plunder ice machines.

Taking a break on the open plains of Idaho

The great American road trip has begun! If only after an unbelievably stressful last few days (thanks a million whistler weather for dumping snow on us while we were trying to move out of our apartment) and even if all our worldly belongings were more hurled in the back of the van than carefully stowed in their rightful place. In true west coast style, the snow gave way to pouring rain as we hit sea level and continued through the night as we caught up with friends in Vancouver with a deluge that lasted all the way to Seattle. We stayed with a household in which we had formerly couchsurfed, Lynn was an angel offering us plenty of mental support as we tried to get the van tidied into some sort of order that we might actually be able to inhabit. She also gave us a bit of a tour of the city since the sun had finally come out making sightseeing a little more appealing.
We pointed the van East and set off for Yellowstone, the nation’s first national park. Things got a little tense around Idaho, as we struggled with crappy signage and a seemingly endless list of fairly (if you ask us) overrated attractions that we seemed to spend hours driving in circles trying to find. Both on the verge of turning around and going the hell home, we thankfully stumbled into ‘little city of rocks’ right on sunset which was most definitely an underrated destination! We had it all to ourselves and stayed overnight exploring the bizarre landscape a little more in the morning.

Nothing else calms the stress like a campfire

An early morning walk up the valley got us inspired again

Our faith was restored, perhaps we had not made a mistake and everything would be OK.... Little did we know, that emotional rollercoaster some people refer to as travelling, was about to dive again. As the temperature began to drop with each mile, it dawned on us that Yellowstone park would still be blanketed in snow and mostly inaccessible. Silly tourists, we should have checked of course, but it was spring in Vancouver, we figured surely everything south will be warmer right? We decided that it just was not meant to be and headed south to Utah where things started looking up fast! We were thrilled to find that one of our favourite bands ‘The Presets’ were on tour in Salt Lake City the following day. Afterentering the venue and spending about 20 minutes looking for the bar, it finally hit me, we were in the heart of Mormon country and there probably was no bar. Well not to worry, when your car is your house you can easily slip out for a sly drink or two in the parking lot between sets. Felt a bit like a naughty teenager but what the hell, we had a great night! In our post gig euphoria, we finally settled on a name for the van too, ‘Mrs Robinson’. We were driving up the steep hill out of town and the song started to play on the radio, we figured why not... she is old, but she still turns heads!

The Presets can still get a room jumping, even without the help of alcohol

Just out of Park City, we had stopped near a trailhead in the forest and a mountain biker approached us asking if we might have an allan key. Happy to oblige, we started chatting and before we knew it, we had been invited to stay the night. The promise of a hot shower was too tempting to resist and we spent the night getting to know our new friends Nate and Anna, swapping stories and admiring their extensive collection of photos of them doing impressive things in stunning locations. After mentioning that we wanted to visit the Midway ‘Hot Pots’, a really cool group of hot springs where hot water has formed huge domes of minerals, Anna mentioned that if we were heading to Moab and wanted a good soak that we should check out Diamond Fork springs too. Thanks for the tip, we loved it!! A gorgeous hike up to a bunch of beautiful hot pools on the river and a pretty waterfall, could you ask for more? After soaking the afternoon away, we were just about to head back to the car when we ran into a couple of friendly guys from Salt Lake, soaking in a pool further downstream. They asked for our help, their mates had not turned up leaving them with a whole crate of beer to either drink or carry out again! Ha, how could we refuse! The guys gave us some more great tips for things to see along the way too which was very much appreciated. After plenty of beers and with the weather rapidly turning nasty we decided it would be best to stay put in the parking lot at the trailhead and we climbed over the back to sleep it off.

This beautiful hotpool, which you can rent diving gear to explore, is entirely enclosed in a dome of minerals deposited by the springwater.

Ahhhhh! Nature's bathtub.

The following day we made our way to Moab, a little foggy from the night before and also little surprised to be getting lashed by a blizzard and several inches of snow. What on earth, we thought we had left that in Canada! To our relief, as we approached Moab the weather began to behave a little more desert like as we had expected, and we spent the following week exploring the stunning National parks surrounding what is a very cute little town in the middle of nowhere!

Corona Arch was being used by a group of rockclimbers for rapelling practice.

Biking in Canyonlands NP

It really is a paradise for outdoor recreation with amazing opportunities to hike, mountain bike, raft and jeep in every place you look. We explored the Arches NP, which is famous for....well arches! We did some slickrock mountain biking on the smooth sandstone trails that bikers flock to the area to ride, and even took Mrs Robinson up the Shafer Trail. Just a little way up the road from where ‘Thelma & Louise’ went over the edge, this road was a real heart starter, winding its way up the cliff to the top of the mesa. What a view though, the top is part of the ‘island in the sky’ district of the Canyonlands NP and it is literally like floating above the earth with sheer cliffs on all sides. After taking in the panorama, we did an overnight hike into the ‘upheaval dome’, an amazing circular crater which nobody quite seems to be able to decide how it was formed.

Double Arch in Arches NP

Its breakfast time!

With campsites like this, we felt like we had the whole desert to ourselves.

Spot the van

Justine checks out the Shafer trail which we just ascended

The fun aint over yet! The road meanders along the mesa top uncomfortably close to the edge

What a view!

Justine at the edge of the 'Island in the Sky'. Note the white rim visible on the lower plateau

Red rock turns a deeper hue at sunset hiking near the upheaval dome

Slickrock trails like this make Moab famous in the mountainbiking community

Canyonlands NP is absolutely huge with 3 separate districts, ‘the maze’ was extremely remote so we skipped that but did give the Needles district a visit on the way out of Moab. Another overnight hike was in order as the rocks here are pretty unique. We were getting pretty tired from all this exploring and figured we would camp a short way in and explore the network of trails in the morning without the heavy packs. Well I got a bit blasé with the navigation and stuffed that idea! We got a fair way up the wrong trail and figured that going back would be almost as far as circling around, but didn’t factor in that the new route was a lot more demanding! Trying to clamber through a slot canyon with a full pack is not so funny! Trying to follow a trail consisting of small rock ‘cairns’ in the dark is even less funny! We did make it to our designated camp at around midnight, totally exhausted nonetheless. The following day we managed to muster enough energy to explore at least a little of what we had planned, and were rewarded with some stunning views of the needles formations.

Narrow sections in slot canyons were tricky to negotiate with full backpacks

As the daylight faded, the hike became more challenging!

The payoff, beautiful formations of the needles

We continued on our way across the desert, stopping at a really nice little slot canyon that (Cameron & Paul, the boys at the hot spring) had told us about. It was well worth the detour, beautiful rippled walls of red sandstone that stretch for a good Km or two. We even got a bit wet in one section that still had a fair amount of water pooled in the bottom.
After all this activity, we decided that Escalante NP was best admired from the road since we were pretty stuffed by then! Lazy you might say – HA! Not as lazy as the American couple we overheard arguing at our next stop in Bryce Canyon – she wanted to take the shorter trail (shorter being 0.1 mile!) because she “wouldn’t want to do anything too hard”. Hmmm, perhaps one day there will be an escalator, dear!

Peek a boo! Little Wild Horse Canyon was an impressive tribute to the power of water

A kilometre or two of sculpted rock make this one of the prettiest slot canyons we visited

Even to drive through Escalante NP is a spectacular experience

Despite being a little bit ‘rocked out’ by then, Bryce was still a pretty impressive sight. Soft pinks and oranges of muddy stone as far as you can see all carved into bizarre formations. It was certainly a bit different to most of the ‘rock’ attractions we had seen. Driving further around the NP circuit, we came to Zion NP and after popping through its iconic tunnel built carved through the sandstone in the 1920's and catching sight of the canyon we thought, wow, we really need to spend some TIME here. It was a tough call as our buddies Nick and Juliana were in Vegas for a couple of days and we really wanted to push on and see them. We decided that a little city time might get us back in the mood to go hiking again and that perhaps we would appreciate the park more if we came back a bit later, so we headed off to the bright lights for the odd dollar margarita and a bit of fun.

Aptly named 'Wall Street' area of Bryce Canyon

The striking Checkerboard Mesa (above), and the Mt Carmel tunnel make for an interesting welcome to Zion NP

It was great to see our budddies Nick and Juliana

Returning to Zion proved to be a great idea. We spent almost a week exploring trails up and down the canyon which are stunning. The canyon was created by the Virgin River, and is an amazing contrast from the desert – it is filled with lush green forests, waterfalls and even ferns which can survive in the moist microclimate within towering sandstone cliffs. The vast array of rock formations have biblical names given to them by the Mormon pioneers that settled the valley. It is really nice just to be there and enjoy the surroundings and of course much more pleasant temperatures for hiking than some of the other sun baked parks we had been to. The highlight would have to be Angels Landing – a hike up to a high sandstone peninsula that juts out into the middle of the canyon. At one point the trail is only a few feet wide with a 1200ft drop on one side and a 900ft drop on the other. I have to admit, I was shitting my pants! It was breathtaking though.

The Three Patriarchs: Abraham, Isaac and Jacob

Waterfall in the desert

Climbing 'Walter's Wiggles' on the trail to Angel's Landing

Yep, we're going up there!

Hold on to that chain, its a long way down!

A rest at the top

Waste from this restroom on the trail is choppered out!

We made some friends along the way

Hidden paradise in the desert

On the right, the 'Altar of Sacrifice' has a spooky red stain

Passing through Vegas once more, we decided to try something different and visit the old district. The original ‘strip’ that preceded the line-up of theme park style megacasinos that most people think of when Vegas is mentioned. It is very ‘old school’ with the original light bulb style signs that were used before neon stole the show. The city fixed the area up a bit a few years back to try and shake off the seedy reputation it had and it definitely succeeded. Very cool vibe with loads of cheap drinks, free live music and performances on the street, and of course the world’s largest TV screen! Yep, its about 4 blocks long and suspended above the street. Every hour all the casino lights shut off up and down the street and a themed show plays out on the screen with music and lights. Trashy, but cool – like me...ha ha! To keep some perspective, we did some biking on an old rail line near the Hoover dam, and also visited an awesome hotspring. It was a 2 mile hike/canyoneering effort (after a dodgy $6.99 all-you-can eat buffet, no less) to a group of hot pools we had all to ourselves to soak for hours and watch the stars twinkle between canyon walls. Still blows me away that such a great and relatively unknown spot is only a couple of miles from a major tourist attraction.

Appropriate slogan flashed up on the giant monitors just as I took this pic

New bridge at the Hoover Dam being constructed to divert traffic from driving over the dam wall, vehicles are currently stopped / searched for exlosives because of the possibility of terrorist attacks

Water level is low, I guess it is not just Australia having water issues

Rail trail near the Hoover Dam

Joshua trees in Mojave National Preserve

Stalactites in Mitchell caverns, Mojave NP

Pretty cacti are about the only thing that survives on the rocky lava

Inside the Lava tube

General Sherman in the Sequoia NP, one of the largest trees in the world

Mojave was cool, we wandered amongst the Joshua trees and cacti, so nicely arranged you would swear that they had been landscaped. Also did a bit of caving and explored a lava tube there too. Ticking days off the calendar, we realised that we really had to make tracks to San Francisco, so after a quick stop on the way at the Sequoia NP to see the giant trees, we put the pedal down and headed for the city we had heard so much about. Well it certainly did not disappoint, we were fortunate enough to have a friend to stay with – actually several friends! We ended up couchsurfing, ironically at couchsurfing HQ, the home and office of those wonderful people that tend to the website. They have several offices that move periodically, staff and all, around the world. With the company growing, logistics were getting tricky so they were setting up an additional fixed location in SF. With many people still on placement, we were lucky enough to score our own room too. We also had a houseful of travel-loving new buddies to take in the sights and sounds of the city. We were barely settled in when our new friends Mars and Jackie invited us to join them at a 3 day music festival. It sounded great and best of all, it was free! Everybody piled into Mrs Robinson and we set off for UC Davis, a college town north of the city. Tonight we would be couchsurfing with our San Francisco hosts, whoa....double surf!!! Our Davis hosts were really great too, Tony and Stephanie welcomed us with open arms. We all had a lovely time at the festival and also exploring the town. Beautiful tree lined streets and tons of delicious and affordable ethnic food to try. We also ended up at a huge college party, even if I did feel a bit like a ‘toolie’ with most of the crowd a good ten years younger than me. We also got to hang out late into the night with some local students at ‘the domes’ – a student sustainable housing initiative where they built 14 small fibreglass dome apartments back in the 70’s. It runs as a co-op with students tending to vegetable gardens and chickens etc. Apparently the project was intended to run for ten years, but the domes are still used for student housing today!
After the festival, we still managed to make it back to SF in time to take in the tail end of the ‘How Weird’ street festival. Holy crap, these people know how to party – multiple stages, crazy costumes, gratuitous nudity, you name it! I am sure you would be arrested in any other city in the USA, but not here. I think what I loved most about San Francisco is how extroverted most people seem to be.

Tony and Stephanie, our hosts in Davis relax on the grass and take in the good vibes at the 'Whole Earth' festival

Shovelman - yes his guitar is a shovel!

Biking under the Bay Bridge

Lombard street is so steep, it zig-zags up the hill and in many other streets we saw, cars were parked sideways to prevent runaways

Streetcar with Alcatraz in the background

View from the pier

Now that we had some good city time in, we decided to take a side trip to Yosemite. By sheer luck more so than good planning, Whistler buddies James & Yana were also about to head that way. We managed to coordinate picking them up and spent an amazing couple of days in the park. It was prime time for waterfall viewing at the peak of the spring snowmelt and we certainly got our fair share. The scale of the place is just phenomenal. Got very drenched on the appropriately named mist trail, but that’s OK, it was a welcome cool down on the mostly vertical trail that ascends the cliff right next to one of the biggest waterfalls I have ever seen. We left James and Yana in the park, as they were going to do some longer overnight hikes with friends that had arrived for the weekend, and we headed back to SF.

Views of Yosemite Valley

James and Yana pause at a viewpoint on the trail

Interesting tree with Bridal Veil falls in background

Bridal Veil falls

Who could resist this little poser

Climbing the Mist Trail

Vernal falls

James at the top of Vernal Falls

Yana with a huge standing wave at a fast flowing rapid above the Emerald Pool

Nevada Falls

Coming back to the city for the weekend proved to be a good idea, we got to attend the annual ‘bay to breakers’. A 10 mile marathon from one side of the city to the other may not sound like that much fun, but this is San Francisco! There may have been a couple of registered ‘serious’ runners in there somewhere, but they were more than outnumbered by costumed revellers with carts and trolleys loaded with booze who successfully turned it into the world’s longest moving party! Even houses along the route got in on the action throwing parties of their own. By the time we reached the finish line, we were feeling pretty happy from all the enroute entertainment and beverages, especially when we realised there was plenty of delicious food for sale and live music in the park to watch.

They all look so awkward because they are walking backwards - the crowd doesn't stop moving, it is a marathon, after all

Oah Yeah!

Random leapfrogger couldn't resist jumping our 6 and a half foot mate

When it was all over we got to celebrate with live bands and half a chook on a stick!

With just a few days between San Francisco and picking up Justine’s folks in Vancouver (they would be joining us for 6 weeks of travelling), we needed to make tracks up the coast. The trip was mostly uneventful except for running out of gas at the very top of a mountain pass, the needle on the gauge seems to over read when driving uphill, and it had been a long way up! We managed to coast down the other side and rolled to a stop right in front of an RV park where the owner was able to help us out as he had just filled gas cans for his lawnmower. We decided to pick one place on the way to stop and have a look around which turned out to be Portland, somewhere we had really wanted to see properly but not quite gotten around to yet, we always seemed to be passing through in a hurry on earlier trips. We had organised a couchsurf with a lovely local couple and took a couple of days off driving to explore the city. What can I say, it is pretty nice! It has a great vibe, loads of live music venues and pubs. There is also a load of microbreweries and there are so many different beers to try, and try them we did! Each night I think we sampled about 6 with dinner! The city really has a great down to earth feel with heaps of interesting old buildings and bridges, and a great alternative scene. Definitely our kind of place, I wish we could have stayed a bit longer.
Passing through Seattle, got to catch up with Channing and Co again, if only briefly – they were packing up to head to Sasquatch festival (which we were insanely jealous about). then we hopped the border and made our way back to Vancouver to meet Rhonda and Stephen at the airport. There were many hugs and tears, Justine had not seen them for almost 2 years. We headed to the city where we had a lovely inner city apartment to stay for a few days and see the sights in Vancouver.

Our Portland hosts Corey and Andrea treated us to some very special donuts at a local bakery - mine is shaped like a voodoo doll!

Another winter of fun.

whiteelephant — Fri, 20 Mar 2009 16:42:00 GMT

'The barrier' near Garibaldi lake.

Rainbow Lake at sunset.

So it is March and winter has finally arrived. It is hard to believe that in the two seasons we have lived here, we have seen one of the best ever, and one of the worst. Add to all this a bung worldwide economy and the original plan of staying an extra winter to save up some travelling money has gone out the window. Never mind, we still have found ourselves in a better position than most, with many of our mates being cut back on hours or laid off altogether, we have both been able to get full time work even if we are not making the money we had hoped. The especially late winter did have some upsides too.....with all the summer touring we had done we found that at the end of the short Canadian summer, we had hardly seen much of Whistler itself. We took full advantage of the snow free trails doing plenty of spectacular (if a little chilly) hikes. Not such a bad thing to be freezing cold when you are slogging 10 Km uphill!

Adam, Claire and Nick join us at Wedge Mountain

Christmas and the New Year went by in a flash, we chose to work most of it as it was almost the only time the resort has been busy for most of the season. We did manage to make it down to Vancouver for New Years Eve though, kicked off the night with a crazy party on the skytrain - a large group of artists and other alternative types piled onto one of the city trains playing live music, decorating the carriages with streamers and preceeded to party all the way to the outer suburbs and back again. It was priceless to see the looks of shock and amazement from those waiting on the platform as the train pulled up at each station and the doors opened spilling out happy tunes and good vibes onto unsuspecting commuters. After the train we headed out to meet some mates at a bar, but once we arrived realised it wasn't really our scene and headed last minute to a nice low key little warehouse party.

My buddies on planks will be pleased to hear that I have popped the snowboard on the shelf and taken up skiing. My ever troublesome back finally went out in a big way right as the season started, leaving me in 24hour pain and with some pretty uncomfortable sciatic issues. With 5 months of intensive chiropractic tratment, I have almost recovered but the constant bending to deal with bindings and the inevatable falls on your ass when boarding were really not helping. With some good luck, I was able to pick up some pretty decent gear at the local secondhand shop for next to nothing and have been thoroughly enjoying getting that 'half out of control' thrill as I throw myself down slopes I would handle with ease on my board, but which are far more advanced than my skiing skills are!! Suddenly realising mid-slope you might have bitten off more than you can chew....priceless! I have dropped a lot of day shifts, Working more nights in the cab to given me plenty of time to work on this, not to mention my goggle tan!

Our big news is that we have bought a van. A big old chevy that drinks at least 3 times the fuel that the Camry ever did, but we love it anyway. It has a fold out bed in the back, big comfy seats and even shag-pile carpeting and mood lighting. It is literally a living room on wheels!

Pimped!!

Our good buddy Cromie came to visit and we figured it was an excellent opportunity to take it on its maiden voyage, a nice little roadie over to Banff and Jasper. After unsuccessfully trying to sell the Camry to a couple from Queensland, we ended up taking them with us to Banff to save on petrol costs! Once in Banff we realised that the friend we had hoped to stay with lived in on-mountain accommodation (only accessable before 5pm and with a lift ticket). Ooops, it was 9pm and we had no ticket either. Thankfully, as we were seriously discussing the unattractive possibility of sleeping in the van in icy -25 degree weather, my buddy Keirsten chase that moment to call and say that she was headed to the pub and that we simply must join her, and sleep on her couch after. We drank the night away, leading to some very amusing games of 'rock band' on the in pub Xbox and also leading to us being somewhat hungover and not being able to face the ski hill next day, even with perfect bluebird skies.

We instead made our way out to Sunshine Village ski area to catch up with Jez and Cromie, then set off for Jasper with a quick stop at Lake Louise to take a bit of a wander out on the ice.

Next came possubly the most amazing stretch of road you could ever see, the Icefields Parkway stunned us with its sheer scale and incredble vistas at every turn. It is certainly a challenge to keep your eyes on the road and watch for wildlife like elk and bears which are often hit by cars, as your eyes are led to the spectacular surrounding scenery.

Once in Jasper, we cought up with some Kiwi chicks we know, Ange and Julie really sorted us out with a yummy dinner waiting and also put us up for a couple of nights. Ange took us on a bit of an expedition up the Maligne canyon, where we marvelled at frozen waterfalls and did a little scrambling and sliding around on the solidified river. It is pretty amazing that an entire river can stand frozen in time. Can't wait to visit again in the summer and see how different it is with water cascading through it.

We have made a bad habit of having coffee and cake much too often, so it was then off to the bakery in the afternoon to indulge and catch up with Julie who was stuck at work.

All too soon it was time to get back in the van and start heading home. We stopped off at the Columbia icefields. Weather was terrible but went exploring anyway. The whole place was very mysterious shrouded in cloud. We decided to climb a big pile of moraine, only to come to the realisation that it was probably a pretty idea! The backside of the pile had been eroding away and periodically collapsing - we quickly decended again.

Ride that mountain!

Driving in Canada....always a pleasure if you can find the road!

Stayed the night in Golden and next day got to do something I had wanted to for long time....ski Kicking Horse mountain! It didn't dissappoint with some of the gnarliest terrain you could find anywhere and about 9cm of freshies, we had one hell of a day. Still makes me laugh to recall the ski patrollers we heard hanging shit on the determined individual who had climbed an electric fence to poach the fresh pow in the Grizzly habitat! Dumbass!

You in BIG mountain country now.....

Cromie gets a gnarly line at Kicking Horse

Ahhhh, sweet pow

Back to the van for a hard earned beer

It was then on to Revelstoke, a bit worried as we had heard that Roger's pass was closed. Sure enough, the sign in the trans canada highway said it would be closed all day for avalanche control. Thankfully the day was almost over, so we headed off anyway, figuring that it would be done by the time we got there. It really amazed me how primative sections of the highway are....The 1 road across Canada, I had been expecting dual carriageway all the way. Some sections of the road, with snow piled high are barely wide enough to squeeze past the endless stream of oncoming cemi-trailers. I can't find words to describe the moment of panic as you plunge into an avalanche tunnel from bright sunlight on snow. Even with headlights on, they are all but useless as your eyes seem to take an eternity to adjust to the relative darkness.
Revelstoke would have to be one of the highlites of the trip, with some of the most amazing gladed runs I have ever seen, we were still finding untracked lines at 4 in the afternoon. Boy were we tired that night!

Sweet hero shot Cromie!

Oh happy day....

Awesome tree runs are everywhere at Revelstoke, they have funny names too like 'Conifers of gnarnia'!

Wicked view of Revelstoke township and the Columbia River

Thankfully Shelly was ready for us with a yummy dinner and some Apres drinks in Kamloops.
In the morning it was back to Whistler via the beautiful Marble Canyon. Arriving home, we were delighted to find that it had been snowing almost since we left, finally winter seems to be here with snow forecast into next week -its only 5 months late!

So I will try to get my ass out of bed and go up the hill for 'fresh tracks' tomorrow - a great concept where you get to go up the mountain early, they serve a big fry-up for brekky and then set you free on the slopes before the lifts open to everybody else.

You can get lines like this, before everyone else gets there!

We have to get as much mountain time in now as we can for we will soon be leaving whistler. I must say it will be rather hard to return to 'real life'. Whatever shall I do when I have a job that I can only take leave with months of notice? How will I ever cope with a gruelling 45 minute commute in traffic after this past year, a pleasant 10 minute walk through the forest has been my preferred method of transport (even if it does involve the 'ice stairs of death' - a stairway that has become so slick somebody has attached an old climbing rope so you can haul yourself up!). Why catch the bus to go into town and collect the car, abandoned after a night out drinking when you can head up the mountain for a few runs (always a good hangover cure) and ski down the other side to collect it on the way home! Yes, life will be hard indeed - best to put it off a little longer, we probably couldn't get real jobs with the economy like it is anyway!!! The house is back up for lease and we will move into the van and head South for a few months, Not really sure where, California, then perhaps Mexico....wherever life takes us. There is still a bit of the season left but we are both ready for the next chapter and eager for new adventures. With our incomes dropping sharply, there seems little reason to stay in longer in Whistler, even if it is a little terrifying to set out on a 3 month journey with barely more than our released bond money and whatever we can get for the Camry. Call us insane if you like, you are probably right!

Check out that hoar frost! Exploring Joffre lakes in mid winter.

Our Summer of Festivals.....

whiteelephant — Sat, 27 Sep 2008 10:57:00 GMT

After getting a taste for the festival life at Sasquatch, we just knew it would be a good summer for partying. I searched high and low in streetpress and sifted through mailing lists trying to line up a killer summer of entertainment for us. Never before had we both had jobs flexible enough to allow us to take off on such a binge of multi day events and we wanted to take full advantage!

A far cry from the corporate sponsored megafest we had just attended, the next little gathering we visited was called Intention 9.5 and was held in the nearby town of Squamish. The setting was beautiful, deep in the forest on the junction of two large rivers.

It was a real home-grown type of event, we even helped set up part of the stage on the first night and put together a huge geodesic dome on the second to give us some shelter from the typically moist Squamish weather. With a relatively small crowd and a great communal kitchen, it was really easy to talk to pretty much everyone who participated. We did all kinds of workshops, watched some amazing fire twirling and of course, enjoyed some pretty cool beats. It was great to go to a bush techno party and return home feeling more recharged than the usual worn-out!

Reading the local paper, we were thrilled to see that Live-Nation had decided that Canada needed to have its own annual mega-fest and had decided to locate the first one just half an hour from us in the little town of Pemberton! WOW, The lineup was huge, the setting was amazing and we knew that we just HAD to go. Unfortunately we nearly had a heart attack when we saw the price of the tickets, for just the two of us it was going to end up costing close to $800!! Being as stubborn as I am, I knew there must be a way that we could go so after weighing up our options we eventually ended up on the setup crew.

In return for two days work setting up the campground, we got ourselves free tickets and camping passes and headed off to enjoy ourselves. What a strange sight we saw as we arrived. Having set up our own gear a few days prior and headed back to Whistler to our day jobs, we returned to the festival at around midnight the night before, to find a scene reminiscent of hurricane Katrina or some other mass disaster. Thousands of people were strewn along the tarmac of the local airstrip dragging coolers tents and sleeping bags, trying to climb onto rows of school busses! Somebody had decided it would be a good idea to park cars at the airstrip and then bus festival goers to the camping area since there would be no cars allowed in the campground.

NOT a good idea, given the attendance was around 40,000. It took almost a day to sort out the mayhem and Justine and I were suddenly ever so happy to have volunteered for the setup crew as we had our own separate campground which we drove straight to and rolled into bed. The rest of the festival proved to be a little better organised and we were treated to some amazing performances including Nine Inch Nails, Wolfmother, Tom Petty, Dj Shadow, The Crystal Method and so many others.

We also saw probably the best tribute to North American excess ever....an air-conditioned tent, I guess I was a little sickened, but at the same time pretty damn impressed! It was a huge 'boiler-room' style deal with three bars, they even had waterfalls behind the bars. We have pretty fond memories of sitting out the front sipping mojito's in the sun! There was some pretty random stuff there too, one night just as we were about to leave, a bunch of burlesque dancers popped out onto the stage and did a performance. We also had a very crazy time one evening when we ended up (can't remember how, in my state of inebriation) on the back of a golf cart driven by a french traveller, speeding all around the festival, weaving in and out of drunken participants and a sea of discarded water bottles.
Some of the best times we had were chilling out in the volunteer campground at the airstrip chatting to other cool people that had volunteered, something about sitting on an airstrip drinking vietnamese coffee that made it extra special!

After the festival, we decided that we would avoid the traffic ques and headed in the opposite direction to do a bit of exploring. With two hitch-hikers on board, we headed out to the beautiful Joffre Lakes. 'A bit of exploring' suddenly turned into several hours of difficult hiking over tree roots and boulders, which in hindsight, was probably not the best idea when hung over, tired and without anything resembling appropriate footwear. The uphill struggle was well worth it when we arrived at one of the beautiful top lakes complete with glacier behind.

A perfect way to remove 3 days of festival grime, damn cold tho!!

After barely recovering from Pemberton, we made a last minute decision to head East for Shambhala. It was gonna be tight since it was less than two weeks in between, but we had heard too many good things about this festival to miss out. So we piled a couple of our Whistler buddies, Kristy and Carla into the car and made the ~10 hour pilgrimmage to Nelson BC. The trip almost ended in disaster before it began when a motorcycle coming the opposite way on a remote stretch of highway swerved abruptly into our lane, then back again and promptly dumped its two riders onto the tarmac. We skidded to a halt and leapt out, a little unsure of what to do first, assist the injured riders or flag down the traffic that was approaching at high speed. After freaking out that there was no cell phone coverage, things started to look up when a truck arrived that I figured would have a radio. However, still no luck as we were deep in the mountains between two very small towns. Luckily the injuries did not seem to be life threatening, just extremely painful and one of the passing cars helped us out by speeding to the next town to call for help. An hour or so later the injured couple were loaded in the ambulance and after giving a police report, we were on our way again.

We were greeted with probably the best festival venue I have seen in my lifetime. Acres of beautiful rainforest and a lovely river running through the middle. There were 6 stages dispersed through the forest and a labrynth of trails linking them up, even a stage on the banks of the river! The festival had a great laid back vibe, you could pretty much camp anywhere you wanted, those who arrived early had beautiful spots under the shady rainforest trees. It was pretty cool to see hundreds of people sunbathing on camp chairs in the river with a prime view of the stage. There was great cheap food and all kinds of crazy stuff to stumble upon in the forest, we spent so much time just exploring.

The weather was a little mean to us, as it rained quite a bit but in some strange way it added to the experience. The shroud of fog that covered everything one evening made things pretty mysterious, particularly when costumed individuals would seem to materialise before you! People really loved to dress up for this one which was really a sight to see. It was also a pretty intense experience to be in a field between two mountain ranges with thousands of other festival goers, staring in awe at the sky as huge jolts of forked lightning lit up the sky all around, I felt very small cowering in a portaloo for shelter from the torrential downpour, watching full grown trees explode into flames along the ridge. The beats never stopped though, woah...who needs lasers!

Next on the list was the big one, an event I have wanted to attend for many years and am happy to say, completely surpassed any and all expectations we might have had! Our good friend Shannon had come over from Australia to join us and brought his mate Jason along for the ride. We spent a couple of days giving them an action packed tour of Whistler (I remember one crazy day when we managed to fit a cheese rolling festival, alpine hike, mountaintop BBQ, sunset swim in the lake and a full moon party all into the same day) before loading up the car and heading South to Nevada in the USA for the Burning Man Festival.

Our meandering trip through four states was a load of fun as we pillaged Opp shops and dollar stores far and wide, buying up all the costumes and supplies we could fit in the car (and plenty we really couldn't or rather shouldn't have). There were four of us packed into our rusty little toyota camry, add enough water to last 4 people a week in the desert and the poor little car was riding on the bumpstops from Oregon, through the top corner of California and all the way to Nevada! I couldn't help but laugh as the ticket collector, unable to see Justine buried under a pile of crap in the back seat, only asked us for 3 tickets. Perhaps he was distracted by the flowers that had appeared all over the car somewhere around Grants Pass, Oregon!

To try and explain 'the burn' is near impossible, which is probably why nothing could ever really prepare anybody, including us, for their first time. The scale of the event is phenomenal. It is a temporary city built on a salt plain in the desert, and for the duration of the 1 week event, it is the 3rd largest city in Nevada.

Yes, I said city, there are streets, a post office, several newspapers, radio stations and of course, the 50,000 or so residents. It is large enough that there is even aerial photos of the site on google earth! There is also the most mind blowing array of insane activities, theme camps and art installations to keep you occupied for the week. We were camping with a long running theme camp The Lost Penguins and our contribution to the community was to serve wine, chocolate and snow-cones in our cafe (please note that serving snow-cones in a desert can lead to extreme popularity).

Once at the event, you are not allowed to use money so all participants are expected to contribute something into the community to make the 'gift economy' work. There is not really any rules, and so what is on offer is as varied and unusual as the crowd that attends and ranges from basic services to entertainment to the downright bizarre! Ladies, sick of sitting on those dirty portaloo seats? Just visit the 'Amazing pee-funnel camp'. We had many a free drink in bars that ranged from western style saloons, to a giant aeroplane and even a 20 foot high breast! We skated in circles at the roller disco, rode on mutant vehicles, sampled mystery morsels at the 'snack food glory hole', and stared in awe at the giant topless-only see-saw.

Yep, that is actually a Segway on the skating rink!

We saw flying trapeeze artists at one of the three circuses, climbed the opulent temple, ghasped with the expectation of a major injury at the 'bike jousting'. I even found a camp giving away chiropractic adjustments. We did stop short however, of the chocolate enema but it is good to know, that should you ever want to, that you could! Likewise, we decided to leave the 'Ipecac cocktail hour - Ladies and gentleman, bring a cup and a bucket' and the 'Tea-baggers ball' to try another day....

Just incase you began to doubt your own eyes...

The city is so large, you could never hope to explore it all before it disappears again a week later. It was great to just grab a bike and ride away into the distance sometimes, just to see what you would discover out on the playa.

I could however, just have easily been happy sitting for the week in the cafe watching random things occur outside. It seemed every time you looked out onto the 'playa' there was something totally random going on that you had not seen before....Be it a flame-shooting dragon shaped car, nude trampolinist, amazing and unique art installation, or even the 15-20,000 topless chicks on bikes cruising past for the 'critical tits' bike ride. Even within the cafe you were not safe, I remember being randomly attacked by around 150 zombies who dispersed again almost as quickly as they came. The next day, the camp was overrun with french maids obsessively cleaning the playa dust from everything in site!

Justine rides a giant cock!

Shannon entertaining us out the front of our camp one evening.

The festival culminates with the burning of a 40 foot wooden man in the centre of the city. The burning of the man was incredible. Tens of thousands of costumed festival goers rushed towards the burning figure as it collapsed and proceeded to run in circles around it. Running around the fire is somewhat of a virgin's initiation to the festival and I have to say my heart was racing as we did our best not to get toasted alive by the immense heat coming off the inferno.

Dressed in a cat-suit, Shannon frolics in the firelight!

It was also an interesting contrast to the final 'temple night' when an amazingly intricate wooden temple was torched. It was very humbling to see so many people be completely silent for so long as it burnt.

The peace was soon broken though, as mother nature unleashed with one of her infamous dust storms. The kind where you need a respirator and goggles just to be able to function! Suddenly thousands were wandering lost in the storm trying in vain to find their camps. Justine and I managed to grab two of the public 'yellow bikes' and had a hilarious time riding blindly around in the dust searching for a portaloo. Our delight on finding one at last, soon turned to dismay when we realised that we had been going in the opposite direction to our camp and had quite a ride to get home again.

Bicycles and art-cars like this one, are the main forms or transport in Black Rock City

It was rather strange to leave the desert and suddenly find that you had to worry about those inconvenient little things like money, showering and wearing 'normal' clothes again. The look on the face of the hotel staff in Reno was pretty funny as we checked in, still in costume and coated in playa dust. We didn't care though, all we wanted was a hot shower.

The photos of this event do not do it justice, but check the rest out here anyway as they are still pretty amazing!

If you still can't get enough of the madness and mayhem, check out these shots by photographer Scott London.

For probably our last event of the summer, we headed off to Squamish again, to another low key type of do in the forest called Cedar Sky. Despite the pouring rain, we were delighted to arrive at a beautiful camping area deep in the forest. All the trees were draped with moss and gave the whole thing a very enchanted feel.

Even with the rainy weather, I think we had probably one of the best nights of the year, dancing away to some very cool psytrance for most of the night. I suppose we were just very well practiced by now and it was really nice to catch up with some buddies from the Intention event we had visited earlier in the year. The hangover the next day was instantly cured when the clouds parted and we were able to pack up and be on our way in glorious sunshine. Better late than never I suppose!

Springtime Surprises

whiteelephant — Mon, 2 Jun 2008 10:26:00 GMT

As the snow melts away and the quieter shoulder season kicks in, you would think that we might have more time to do things like sit down and write a blog. Not So... We have found ourselves busier than ever, but I thought it best I sit and write this before the memories fade too much. It is hard to believe we have been here almost half a year, I feel as though we are barely getting started, but to think back over some of the amazing experiences we have had, I start to see where the time went.
There is the obvious things that come to mind, we went backcountry snowboarding and stayed overnight in a hut perched on the edge of a glacier. That was something I didn't think I would ever do, I didn't even know what a splitboard was until I came to Canada. For those still wondering, it is a snowboard that is split up the middle so that you can take it apart and convert it to a pair of X country ski's. Stick some skins on and you can climb up a slope. Very cool idea! It was one of the coldest sleeps I have ever had, but to wake up in the morning and have an entire valley to ourselves was pretty special. Didn't think I would ever build an igloo either, but we did. Luckily it was to stay warm, and not needed to sleep in since we were not very good at it!!! A huge thankyou to our new friends Seppel and Kerstin for taking the time to share their knowledge of the backcountry with us, we never could have ventured out there by ourselves.
I edited some photos and clips into a short video you can watch here.

There was also the telus festival, when the whole town partied nonstop for over a week. We got to see awesome live music on big outdoor stages right at the foot of the ski slope. Fairly memorable to see a bass player rockin' out shirtless in the middle of a blizzard. We saw Michael Franti, John Butler, Blackalicious, De La Soul and heaps more. Then there was things like the big air competition which was pretty awesome, and outdone only by the dude who got really drunk the next day and in the middle of a gig, climbed the big air jump and stripped, then jumped off and slid naked to the bottom on a pair of thongs!! Yep, Whistler is like that....

It seems to be the smaller things somehow that stick in your mind, like watching a spontaneous snowball battle break out between the patrons on the sundeck deck at the GLC and those accross the plaza in the beer garden at the Longhorn. I watched for at least half an hour as the beer-fueled battle raged on, people taking cover under market umbrellas and patio heaters or whatever was handy. All the while, what were the security gaurds doing? Giggling like schoolgirls as anyone not paying attention, and even the odd cocktail waitress got caught in the crossfire. It pays to have a sense of humour around here.

Let me tell you, it was certainly a pretty surreal experience to sit with a cold pint and soak up the warmth of an open fire whilst taking in some of the best live acoustic I have ever seen. The atmosphere at the Ash Grunwald gig was only enhanced by the twinkling lights of groomers prepping the mountain for the next day, seen through the plate glass behind the performer. Who would have thought that we would get a bit carried away with it all and have a race down the slope on stolen patio tables. Tsk Tsk....my ass still has the snow rash to show for that!

I suppose it has to happen some time, the bit where I go on and on about Whistler.... I can't really help it though, especially when we really were never really intending to live here at all. Our preconceived idea of the place was 1: expensive, 2: touristy, neither of which really appealed to us. We kind of ended up here by accident after having difficulty finding scientific work in Vancouver, a cheap flat here was offered and having no other plan, we decided to take it. How lucky we felt when we realised just how cheap our flat was, our mates here were either paying 3-4 times as much in rent, or sharing houses with 18 or so people! That was our first good fortune. The second is just to be here, the place really surprised us in every possible way. I can't think of anywhere else that has small mountain town charm, paired with the international flavour and travelling community that you would normally only expect in big cities like London. You see such wacky fashions and individual styles around town, almost everyone is from somewhere else and has their own way of doing things, but it all seems to fit together successfully to make the place what it is. They say that Whistler is a bubble, and they might be right... Once you are here the rest of the world just seems not to matter anymore. Leisure is top priority for everyone, whether your thing is skiing, biking, climbing, hiking, snowmobiling or any of the bazillion other things there are to do, one thing is for sure, your boss is probably just as committed to enjoying themselves as you are which means that you can usually fit plenty of whatever you love into your week. I have even seen a business that had a 'powder day policy' (start at noon if the snow is good!!!) Whistler is all about lifestyle, even if you do seem to be broke as a uni student pretty much all of the time!! I hope you will now understand why I have been so crap at keeping in touch!

Is the snow really as good as they say? To put it simply, hell-yes! I am worried I will never enjoy snowboarding at home again.....I can't think of anywhere that even comes close to this. The mountain is so tall, it has three climate zones, so you can always find some OK weather somewhere in the hill. The runs are so long, you need to pop your ears on the way down and almost all the lifts are express.

If that didn't spoil us enough, when you get sick of one mountain, there is a whole other one to explore and to top it all off, the season is ridiculously long and stretches for around 7 months of the year!

Now that the snow has melted away in the village, we have found summer to be filled with amazing hikes, biking trails and beautiful lakes at every turn.

The only downside seems to be that there are so many choices and only 5 months of suitable weather, you really have to pick and choose what to do or you would never have time to go to work at all! One of the coolest things about arriving here when we did, was that it was all under metres of snow. We had no idea even what our own house looked like. Spring was full of surprises as we got to see what was underneath. I was pleased to find that we had a lovely sundeck which we have been making good use of since I fixed up an old BBQ donated by the lady upstairs. Imagine my delight when several cans of beer popped up out of the snow in the garden, obviously forgotten by the previous tenant who must have been making use of the worlds largest party fridge.

This is the same section of the hill in winter and summer....

With the snow gone, the wildlife is out and about too. I have never seen it so 'in your face'. We have squirrels that sit on the windowsill eating pinecones, have had chipmonks come right up and snatch a bite out of our sandwiches when hiking, and I have stumbled into the odd bear walking on my way to work which sure does wake you up in a hurry! Of course all this is nothing compared with the stories some of our friends have told us, one had a bear break into the kitchen while she was at home and she had to hide upstairs until it left. Another woke up with a start to find a squirrel had climbed through the window and into bed with her! There is really no avoiding nature over here, you start to feel a little silly that you used to worry about having a spider in the house.

So I had to re-sit my drivers licence test over here as they will only recognise an Aussie one for a few months. While I was at it, I upgraded to a taxi class. I have picked up a few shifts a week driving a cab to suppliment my Hotel job income and despite never thinking I would drive a taxi in my life, I am really enjoying it! It is a great way to meet some really cool locals who are only too keen to tell you about all the hidden secrets and inside info the area has to offer. I am also loving the tips, it is a great feeling when people give you money simply for being nice to them! Along with getting a new licence, we also purchased ourselves a car. An '88 Camry with pimped out gold mudguards (to hide the rust!!). We don't care so much how it looks because it has opened up so many places to us. Have done loads of camping trips and hikes and even went down to Washington state for a festival. It is true what they say, things are bigger in America. It was called Sasquatch and was held in a little town called George (yep, there is a place called George, Washington), a small town with a BIG gorge!! And perched on the edge of that gorge was one of the biggest outdoor stages I have ever seen. Throw into the mix massive bands like 'The Flaming Lips', 'R.E.M.', and 'The Cure' over three days and you got yourself one hell of a festival!!

The lips would have to take the cake for the craziest show I have ever seen, with confetti cannons, about 20 dancing teletubbies, a UFO, an inflatable hampster ball which the lead singer climbed inside and rolled around on top of the crowd, not to mention the half dozen naked chicks that ran onto the stage and began dancing mid show.....

The Cure would have to be the longest show ever at about two hours, plus an encore that ran at least 45 mins!!! I was close to collapse by the end, but they were amazing to see. We also made some new buddies. It was a 7 hour drive and with the cost of fuel these days, we decided to place an ad for a couple of carpoolers to help with the costs. Two uni students from Vancouver jumped into our back seat and turned out to be pretty darn good company, thanks for coming along Mel and Genna. You guys really 'made' the trip for us....well you guys and those dudes with the bacon and pancakes when we were hung over and looking for breakfast on day two....

This christmas, Santa got me 6 inches of freshies and no ques!

whiteelephant — Sat, 12 Jan 2008 14:13:00 GMT

So what do you do on Christmas day when you have no family or friends in the country? You go skiing of course!!

After spending Christmas eve talking to our various family members on skype (since the time difference is quite large) we were faced with a whole day of free time to entertain ourselves. We had subleted a lovely little apartment right in the heart of the city from a lady who was going away to visit her family for the holidays. The hostel was getting too expensive, so we agreed to take the place for a few weeks whilst we were deciding what to do. In between, we stayed briefly in a 27th floor apartment, which had one of the most amazing views ever!

Well we set off down the street in our snow gear for Grouse Mountain....yep, thats right, down the street. The public transport connects direct to the mountain so without even leaving zone 2 you can be on the slopes in about an hour. I must say it feels pretty strange to be wandering among the skyscrapers with a snowboard in tow, but nevertheless, it is pretty damn cool.

So first we make our way to the train station....

Then a short trip across the harbour on the seabus....

Then a regular bus, and finally up the hill on an enormous aerial tramway. What an eclectic ride!
We were delighted to find that the rest of the city had families to spend the day with, so we got the entire mountain to ourselves, not a lift que in sight and fresh powder falling all the while. What a day!

I am really loving how close things are to the city. Within minutes walk of the city centre, you can be on beautiful beaches, or in the middle of thick cedar forest and beautiful lakes. Ski slopes, hiking trails and canyons with roaring waterfalls are only a short bus trip away too. The locals seem to appreciate it too, even the city busses have mountain bike racks on the front!

NYE was probably the most crazy and random I have ever had! Starting our evening at home with our flatmate and some buddies of his, we had more than enough Jäger’s, scotch’s and beers to get in the right mood, then when they headed out to club we decided that we would have to go out and find our own party. Since nobody had invited us to one yet, we begun knocking on random doors wherever we could hear good music....what a great idea! We met some Polish people who were great fun, and visited a Bulgarian/Ukranian party which had the best food ever! Then it was off to the infamous Granville St where there was quite a street party going on.

We partied the night away there, the pictures tell the story beautifully, especially as I can’t.... I have no memory of anything past about 12:30! We definitely had a good time though, I know because I was hung over for two days!

We didn’t seem to be having much luck getting Pharma work in Vancouver (probably the time of year) so we decided it was time for plan B....Head for the snow and just have fun! When we came to Canada we had decided that the only place we did not want to live was Whistler, too expensive and touristy we figured. So where do you think we leased a house? Whistler of course! Several mates are up here and we managed to score a VERY reasonably priced apartment here, so we decided that we would take advantage of the labour shortage. The resort is hosting the Olympics in 2010 so there is a lot of construction workers here that have taken up a lot of the available accommodation, leaving a big shortage of resort staff. So far, I am glad we did. It is a pretty groovy place, and the locals mostly seem to be pretty down to earth, even if they do live in multi-million dollar chalet’s! Every time I look out the window, I have to kick myself, it really is amazing to be totally immersed in the wild. Stuff just happens up here, the other day a bobcat wandered into a shop and sat down behind the counter! Needless to say the customers and staff made a hasty exit! Our neighbour told us that if you leave stuff like hamburger wrappers in the car, bears will often smash through the window to get at it. I am glad that they are hibernating at the moment! Even the rubbish dump has bear-proof trash compactors! Getting used to waking up in the middle of the night to the crunch and grind of mini avalanches falling from the roof. After spending about an hour clearing my front steps this morning, I was a little disappointed to hear ‘that’ sound and turn to see a torrent of ice and snow cascade down onto the path leaving a four foot high pile of snow blocking our doorway again. I gave up in defeat after that, it is my flatmates turn to shovel I reckon. I have lived in snowy areas before, but this is just unbelievable, the sheer amount of snow is mind boggling. We have a base of about 2.3 metres already and it is still falling, I am running out of places to shovel it.

Getting around is interesting too, the bus system is very good, but when the snow comes down, it is traffic mayhem. It is a queasy feeling to be fishtailing down the road in a commuter bus, missing other traffic by inches, or not, as the case may be. Justine has already been involved in a bus crash on her way to work!
I bought my season pass today. Even if I can’t see out the lounge windows at the moment due to a seven foot pile of snow in the way, it is good to know that every inch I have to shovel off the front path is another inch up on the mountain. I can’t wait to get up there tomorrow!

On To Vancouver

whiteelephant — Mon, 10 Dec 2007 02:23:00 GMT

First off, if you are wondering what it is like travelling on the tube in London, this little video sums it up pretty well!

I took a day trip out to Greenwich a couple of weekends ago. What a cool place! There are markets and opp-shops everywhere selling the most cool stuff. If you ever need vintage clothing then this is the place to look. It is also intersected by the prime meridian. There is a huge observatory on the hill where they pretty much invented standardised time, among other things. It is quite interesting to wander around and learn a little about the history of clock-making, timekeeping and navigation. It also answered a bit of a niggling question for me.....everywhere you go over here, there seems to be a clock tower and you think, why don’t we have those at home. Before there were accurate clocks, the townspeople would get the time from the town clock to wind their watch each day. I guess most places in Australia are just too young to have ever really needed it!

Having lots of nights out and seen some great concerts. Saw ‘The hives’, and ‘Queens of the stone age’ and met a Columbian traveller at the hives who is here studying. Last weekend, my final one in London we rented a car with an Aussie dude from work, to go and explore some of the countryside. Taking the plunge to drive in London I must say was freaking me out a bit, but proved to be less dramatic than I was expecting. Despite the traffic being ridiculous, as long as you are not in a hurry (you never can be!) things are generally OK. City drivers seem terribly courteous, even stopping their car to wave you in from a side street every single time! As long as you can get used to looking all the way to the end of every street you turn in to, since they are never wide enough for two cars to pass! The motorway is a different story....when you are screaming along at around 120kph in the pouring rain and people arc up their little hatchbacks and go flying past at what I would guess is about 160kph, then cut across three lanes without indicating, almost taking the front bumper off your car in the process, one tends to get a little nervous. We managed to get through it without any accidents and got to see Stonehenge just in time for the rain to clear, even if it was blowing a gale.

Also saw a pretty cool ruined castle in a nearby town and stopped there for a yummy lamb shank and pint in an old English pub. It was the perfect way to spend a rainy afternoon. We then made our way up to Avebury where the stone circles surround the entire town. Got slightly disorientated en route and arrived right on sunset so after a brief wander around the stones in the freezing cold, we declared ‘stuff these rocks, let’s go to the pub!’

So...from where time begins to where it is killed....the transit lounge! I am waiting for my flight to Vancouver which is delayed two hours already. It has been a shitty morning as the weather has been atrocious and driving in peak hour in bad weather is no fun in any city, especially here. I couldn’t find a petrol station to fill up the car before returning it, had I known the flight was delayed, I would have looked a bit harder as they charged me what translates to about AU$4.50 per litre to top it up ‘ouch!’. Not happy! At least the lady at the counter let me check in with....um....substantially more luggage than I should have. Lucky!
To be continued......

.......It is now my fifth night in Vancouver and I am over the jetlag and finally gotten around to posting this! I am thinking that it is a pretty cool place, there seems to be a lot of stuff going on, it sort of has the cultural buzz of Melbourne but with this amazingly laid back undertone. Even the tall city buildings look like they have all taken a step backwards to have a bit of personal space. The people are really friendly too which is very welcoming. I find it pretty cool that everyone can be so laid back, yet super efficient. I had a tax number issued less than 24 hours after entering the country. We have also found that you can open a bank account online! One thing that is very uncool though, is trying to buy a sim card for your mobile. This would have to have been one of the most tedious experiences of my life! You can’t just go and grab a prepaid sim like everywhere else, oh no, those will only work in the city where they are issued! So you have to sign up for a contract which is like tiptoeing through a minefield. You have to pay your usual X amount per month, but then you gotta pay an extra monthly network access fee, a fee to call the emergency services, a fee for voicemail, a fee to see the calling numbers....the list goes on and then when you are through all that, it costs the same per minute to receive calls as to make them! Unbelievable!

We also found that Nick, our buddy from Wanaka had just come over to play at Whistler for the season, so we caught up with him for a drunken Friday night and spent the next day rather hung over! We are still trying to decide what to do with ourselves....if only you can have big city salaries and career choices with mountain lifestyle, but that is probably not going to happen so we need to make some decisions before the money runs out.

We are looking to move into a share house as the hostel is quite expensive. The only budget hostels we have found are in the less appealing parts of town and after going for a quick visit, we really are not that enthused to stay there. Vancouver is really beautiful and modern, but there is a dark side too. It is the mildest city in Canada weatherwise, so the nations homeless are drawn here in the masses. You really can’t go anywhere without tripping over a sleeping bag on the pavement somewhere, even in the ritzy areas. Head down to the seedy part of town and it is pretty disturbing, rows of dealers and prostitutes line the streets waiting to sell you whatever it is they are peddling. We watched as a crack-smoking delinquent graffitied the front of a shop while its owner left the premises, only glancing at him in casual indifference. It is quite odd that all this goes on just a block or two from the CBD, and as depraved as it is, it seems not to be especially dangerous. In the middle of it all we saw a new convertible audi just parked on the street, and there are plenty of everyday people that appear to go about their business there without a second thought. Still, we really don’t want to live there if we can help it!

Gruezi from the Land of Chocolate

whiteelephant — Fri, 23 Nov 2007 02:28:00 GMT

Monday morning’s commute to my daily grind was a real bitch.....I flew in from Switzerland! While my head is still spinning from the fact that you can actually do that over here, I thought it was about time to give you an update on the last few weeks which have been pretty busy. I have moved into a flat at the hospital which means I can get out and explore the city a bit more. The 5th of November is known as ‘bonfire night’ over here, when it seems the entire country lets off a vast array of fireworks to celebrate the foiling of a terrorist plot to blow up the house of parliament in 1605. The celebrations seem to last for many days before and after the actual date, so for about a week I was treated to fireworks displays as far as I could see in every direction over the city. My flat is in a high rise of which there are very few in London so the view out the window of it all was pretty spectacular.

Last weekend I hopped aboard a train and went out to the little town of Leominster near the Wales border to visit Kate and Blake for the weekend. The rugby club has got them sorted with a nice little house in the countryside. We did some exploring around the little English towns in the area and had a pretty nice catch up. It was great to see what life is like out of the city, as London can be pretty full on.

Finally managed to catch up with my old CSL buddy Jane, who has been over here for about 3 years now. Turns out she works in the same hospital and lives practically across the street! The world really does seem very small sometimes. Good to know that there is a friend nearby for a quiet pint now and then, or a big night out if that is necessary! Speaking of night’s out, I saw the French group ‘Air’ last Thursday. It was intense! The experience was only so very slightly tarnished by two idiots: 1. Me for forgetting my glasses and having to squint the whole night, and 2. The venue operator who left the seating in place from an earlier concert, who wants to see dance music sitting down? Had to race home afterwards to get some sleep (which was almost impossible being still on a buzz from the concert, and all excited about the upcoming trip) so I could get the first train to the airport. Richard my best mate from high school is living in Switzerland with his Swiss girlfriend, so I decided to go and see them for the weekend.

What can I say, Switzerland is everything you would expect it to be. Beautiful countryside, quaint villages, spectacular mountains, beautiful traditional buildings and cheese, cheese, cheese! I have never eaten so much cheese in my life! I still have a bellyache but it was so worth it! The first night, we had a traditional dish called Raclette. It is sort of a grill/hotplate that you put on the table and cook the meal at the table. Onions and bacon etc go on the grill, while big slabs of cheese go under the grill until it melts. You then get a big plate of boiled potatoes and pour the whole lot over the top, just right for warming you up in the subzero weather. It is awesome. But so is everything else too, the beer, the baked goods, the chocolate, the dairy products.....I just couldn’t stop eating!

We did quite a bit of touring in the three days I was there, visiting some castles and beautiful traditional towns, Rhine falls, the largest waterfall in Europe which makes up for in volume what it lacks in height, and the Pilatus mountain hotel. Holy crap is that thing high!

You have to take a gondola and then an aerial tram to get up there and then you can explore the tunnel system cut into the peak, which opens up here and there to incredible views. There is even a church perched on the edge of the mountain. Susanne tells me that the Swiss refer to this as a ‘toothache church’. If you have a toothache then you run around the church three times and your toothache will no longer bother you!

When it all got a bit chilly we went inside the restaurant for a ‘cafe schnapps’ which is coffee with a big shot of schnapps in it. Yum! And what a place to enjoy it. Damn I wish I had my ski gear!

I will have to come back in summer too, I was delighted to find that inline skating is so big over here that they have three dedicated trails which span the entire country! I am also now very good at doing the old ‘smile and nod’ maneuvre! Speaking virtually no Schwyzerdutsch, I have to say I was pretty embarrassed to open my mouth at all, even if it was just to buy some groceries. You really feel like a bit of a schmoe being limited to one language in a country where most people speak at least three. Lucky for me that Richard has gotten a pretty good grasp of the lingo in the year he has lived there.

I managed to sleep through my alarm (that would have nothing to do with the copious quantities of yummy beer from the microbrewery down the road, which were consumed the night before) and we had to bust-a-move down the autobahn the next day to the airport. Technically, the flight was closed but with a cheeky smile I told them I have no checked baggage and they were kind to me and re-opened the flight. Sometimes you are lucky!

Had a pretty cool night out last night. Wanted to go and see ‘Sons and Daughters’, an awesome Scottish rock band, I have seen them at Meredith and I knew it would be a cracking show! So off I went on the tube, I had left it too late to get tickets and the box office was closed but having been to a few gigs here and seen how aggressive the scalpers are, I figured I would find a ticket somewhere. Well first I couldn’t find the venue and it was pissing rain so I got totally drenched wandering around, then when I finally did find it there was not a scalper in sight. So there I was thinking I had missed it all and just about ready to go home but I thought I would ask at the counter if there were any tickets on the door. Things started to look up when the girl at the counter handed me a ticket and said don’t worry about paying, some people left it here earlier as their friend could not make it! Must have felt sorry for me standing there dripping wet. A couple of pints and a shot of vodka later I was having the time of my life, dancing so hard my glasses kept flying off into the mosh, and having long and interesting conversations with strangers. Right on!

PS. For more Switzerland photos, click here...there are just too many to choose just a few!

Seeing the Sights

whiteelephant — Mon, 29 Oct 2007 04:26:00 GMT

It has been a few weeks now and I am starting to get into the swing of life in London and learning all the little details you need to know about living in a new country. There will always be things that just seem wacky, like why is it perfectly acceptable to park on the wrong side of the street facing into traffic, and really, honestly, why is there a full page topless model on page 3 of each issue of 'The Sun' newspaper…not that I am complaining but it does seem rather odd in a city so obsessed with political correctness! I have been working at a hospital in West London. The work is pretty mediocre, I am thoroughly overqualified for it, but then, that seems to be the way in London. There are many people from different countries here and sometimes their qualifications are not universally recognised so often you will find people with phD,s or degrees having to do lab assistant type jobs for years just to have their training accredited. Peope from home keep asking what I am actually doing at work; it involves getting all the samples prepared for analysis. Mostly blood, and some urine and other samples arrive from the wards and we log them on to the computer system, label them with a barcode, centrifuge and separate the sera if necessary and then send it to the lab for analysis. The people seem to be friendly enough, I am just trying to get used to the work ethic which seems to differ around the world, things seem to be somewhat more laid back here especially when it comes to HS&E and that sort of thing. One good thing about working at a hospital is that you are able to apply for hospital accommodation. Rents are obscenely high in the city and I have been able to get a room onsite at the hospital for a very reasonable £370 pounds a month including everything, even internet so I can keep in touch with you all! So shortly I will swap a 1.5 hour commute each morning for a 2 min walk, I can’t wait.

When I first arrived here, and took the train to work I thought hey, what a great system….there are three separate bus routes that go to the station all within walking distance of my aunt’s house where I am living. Climb aboard the train and wow! It was more like an airplane than a train, with comfy velour highback seating and traytables, double glazing to keep it warm and quiet and they even have a power outlet for your laptop at every seat! Settle in and you are whisked away to the city at over 200kph. I have to admit, I can’t resist loading up ‘star guitar’ by The Chemical Brothers on my mp3 player and staring out the window. (if you have seen the film clip, you will understand). Once in the city network you can use the very groovy ‘oyster’ ticketing system where you are issued a smartcard that you can store money and weekly tickets on. Simply waving your wallet in the vicinity of the turnstyles opens them and deducts the correct fare which is great when in a hurry. On that first trip to work I thought awesome, this is public transport I can live with. Unfortunately the fun wore off very quickly….These guys are so late they make Connex look good! With so many services the system is very fragile so even if your train is running on time, someone elses is probably late and you are delayed waiting for a platform. Obviously that first day was an unusually quiet one because often I find myself jammed in the section between carriages next to the toilet with a bunch of other unfortunate commuters who have been unable to get a seat. Definitely not fun! Of course it is rather expensive too, my daily transport cost is around £17 so I have to try very hard not to convert that to Aussie dollars for fear of becoming clinically depressed!

Been doing quite a bit of looking around on my weekends. Despite the weather being typically London most of the time, almost all my weekends have been beautiful weather which is good for walking.

Done lots of walks down around the London eye, although I havn’t actually gotten around to going on it yet. It is a lovely area along the river with lots of street performers to watch and it is nice just to wander around.

I seem to have seen more of my friends over here than I did at home! Caught up with Lara who is visiting to try for a USA work permit, and may well murder someone at the consulate before the week is out! Also have seen a bit of Simon and Drew & Kelly who are all working over here and actually live right next to where I work. We all went for a wander around Hyde Park where I realised how much I miss my skates. There were more rollerbladers there than I have ever seen, including a disturbing number of people on the old school rollerskates! We terrorised some local squirrels and saw the famous ‘speakers corner’ where it seems you just bring your soap box and climb up on it to say whatever it is you feel needs to be said. There is no shortage of people willing to listen either.

I also spent a weekend in the city with Sara and her partner Ville, an old friend from uni days that I have not seen in about 3 years. We wandered through some lovely parks with amazing views of the city, checked out the famous Camden markets which really have to be seen to be believed, there is absolutely nothing you cannot buy here but even being a traveller whom can buy nothing for fear of having to carry it, it is still great to wander around as it is quite fascinating. There are stalls on the street level, stalls down on the canal and even in the catacombs under the street! There is also amazing food from every part of the world on offer for extremely cheap prices. Sara had to catch up with a mate in the arvo, so I went for a wander around Trafalgar square where there was a huge Muslim festival happening. I saw some wacky Muslim hip-hop artists ‘I put on my hijab and my backpack, y’o!!).

We also spent plenty of time checking out all the nice pubs in the area and drinking many a pint and getting some good convo in, which is of course, one of the best ways to spend a sunny weekend no matter where in the world you are!

I have also spent a few weekends at home trying desperately to organise things for the next leg in Canada, and spending a bit of time with Tessa and Karl and the kids. We went for a lovely walk around the canals in the countryside to look at the loch systems which are quite clever. We also found a pretty cool bridge that swings out of the way by hand for boat traffic to pass which we had a nice play on.

I have been thrilled to find that my friends in France, Germany and Switzerland all live relatively close to the border within a couple of hundred K’s of each other so I need to go and organise a quick visit for a weekend I reckon. Till then.

Little Planes and Big Planes

whiteelephant — Tue, 2 Oct 2007 18:45:00 GMT

So I am here in the transit lounge at LAX. Justine dropped me off at the Dunedin airport almost 24 hours ago now, so yeah, I am feeling pretty crappy. All in all, I guess the flight wasn’t that bad, I managed to get a bit of sleep and had a spare seat between me and the other people in my row on the long haul leg, so plenty of room to spread out and a nice extra blanket and pillow for me! I did have a rather strange man sit next to me from Dunedin to Wellington. At first, we were seated either end of a three seat row, then for no apparent reason during the flight, he unclipped his seatbelt and moved into the centre seat right next to me where he stayed for the rest of the trip. He was a rather tall guy, like me so it was not exactly comfortable, and so there I sat staring out the window wondering why on earth he moved, but not really wanting to ask in case he wanted to continue talking (I had already decided he was rather strange!). There was some pretty shitty weather in NZ so it seemed every leg of the flight was delayed to let thunderstorms pass and we had a bit of turbulence to go along, but once we finally departed Aukland things smoothed out a bit.

The last post I wrote was on the way back to Melbourne. I was returning to complete my PPL. Unfortunately, I still did not quite get there, the good old Melbourne weather was not too kind and I cancelled many a lesson. I did get the opportunity to do my first cross country solo though, which was quite a thrill, so at least that is one milestone that I have achieved and the last stages of training hopefully I can complete in Canada.

I did a nice little flight from my home airfield in Lilydale, down to Moorabbin, then over to Inverloch, Latrobe Valley and then back to Lilydale. Was even feeling comfortable enough to grab the camera and take some happy snaps.

So the trip home was not a total loss, I also got the chance to tie up a few loose ends at home – the rotten car blew a head gasket just before we left so I was able to repair that so that my mum can use the car, and the roof of our storage container was corroding a bit so I was up on the ladder to sort that out. It was great to catch up with a few old buddies at the High Vibes festival, which is a great free music festival in Northcote, sorry to all those I wasn’t able to have a beer or a coffee with, but there is just too many of you to see in two weeks! Anyway, my plane is boarding now so I will continue this shortly……

………After returning to Wanaka, just in time to pack up and head for the UK, Justine and I managed to squeeze a bit of fun into our last few days. We had a rather nice farewell at the lodge, a good bunch of friends over on a beautiful sunny arvo for a beer. It was a most perfect afternoon and we mixed up some pretty mean cocktails with the remaining dregs in our bar resulting in everyone getting rather trashed. There was crazy trampoline stunts, a badminton tournament and a pretty good time was had by all.

The following day we were to farewell or last flatmates Charlie & Patrice who were off to see Milford Sound, then we finally managed to do a hike out to the Rob Roy glacier that we had been trying to do for most of the time we were in Wanaka. It was a pretty tricky drive out there, all narrow gravel roads and lots of fords to cross in the car. About an hour and a half of walking took us through some beautiful forest and up the canyon to the glacier. The trail winds up the opposite side of the canyon to view the glacier and it is easy to see why, you would be mad to try and climb the glacier side as the whole thing literally hangs off the edge of the cliff. As you stand and watch in awe the silence is broken by a loud crack, as chunks of ice and snow break from the terminal face and tumble down the ravine. It certainly makes you feel very small.

Even just on the walking trail, there were at least three major landslides that had occurred recently eating up the trail and anything else in the way. You really need to remember that mother nature is the one in charge up there!

Despite being rather tired from the hike, we launched into a frenzy of cleaning the next day so that we could leave the house the way it was at the start of the season, then were on our way to Dunedin for the grand opening of Scott & Amanda’s (Justine’s big sister and her fiancé) new salon. We stuffed ourselves on champagne and seafood, which was delicious (nice one guys) then headed home to get some sleep, as I still needed to figure out how to get all my crap into the baggage limit. Hooray for transiting North America, you get twice the weight of everywhere else, but I still reckon I was pushing it!

So I arrive in Heathrow about 32 hours after checking in at Dunedin. God did I want a shower! After all the delays it was odd that we arrived about 15 minutes early, which in such a busy airport meant that our gate was unavailable so we had to get out on the tarmac! Of course it is a beautiful London day (about 14 degrees and drizzling) but I suppose it would be silly to expect anything else this time of year. The employment agency have been brilliant, I have a job to start in two days time, and they have really looked after me. Right now I am writing this in my complimentary hotel room, and they even sent a driver out to pick me up from the airport, which was pretty damn cool. First time anyone in a suit and tie has ever been standing at the gate holding a little sign with my name on it. Makes you feel pretty special! It was also a big load off after such a long flight not to have to think at all, the guy even insisted on carrying all my luggage (yes, I have a LOT of it), so really I just sat back in the leather upholstered minivan and took in the scenery while he delivered me to the doorstep of my accommodation. Sweet eh! I am trying to stay awake now to re-tune my body clock, I have an appointment tomorrow with the agency to open bank accounts and get a tax number and that sort of thing. I fear I will be in bed by 5pm tho, my head is feeling oh so heavy.

Fun With Ice...

whiteelephant — Mon, 10 Sep 2007 20:34:00 GMT

Last week our good buddy Shannon hopped aboard a plane to pop over and visit, so we decided to drive up the wet and wild West Coast to meet him and do a little exploring along the way. It is a truly amazing place but oh so very wet! We left Wanaka on a glorious cloudless day and drove West through some of the most spectacular scenery you could see anywhere. Wanaka is beautiful with its deep blue lake and surrounding snow capped mountains, and it seems as you drive West things just intensify; the lakes get more azure blue, the mountains get larger until about an hour into the drive, there is a dramatic change and you plunge into dense temperate rainforest and waterfall country through a winding mountain pass shrouded in a mysterious fog. Boom, the heavens open and it rains and rains. It is quite mystifying to look up at a hillside and see more waterfalls cascading down through the jungle than you even have time to count. Coming from drought ridden Melbourne, it really boggles the mind how a place can be so damn wet, but it is ironic I guess that Australia’s hot dry climate is actually responsible. Vast quantities of air are heated over the deserts of Central Australia, and carried East by the prevailing winds known as the ‘Roaring Forties’ where the warm air evaporates a huge amount of moisture from the Tasman Sea. Slamming into the colossal mountains that span the West coast of NZ, the air rises and cools, dumping the collected moisture in the process. Our guide told us that the area which feeds Fox glacier has an average annual snowfall of around 45 metres!

We made our way up the rugged coast across what seemed like hundreds of one-lane bridges, to Hokitika where Kylie (Justine’s cousin) who had just returned from 2 years abroad was home to visit her mum. Justine was pretty excited to see her as she would be flying to Melbourne in a day or two to live, and being off on an extended trip ourselves, we probably wouldn’t get the chance again for a while. Jackie (Kylie’s Mum) and her partner run a jade carving business so we got to see how the famous NZ greenstone carvings are made, and Jackie whipped up a pair of greenstone earrings for Justine right there on the spot! We had a bit of a look around at the beautiful gorge with water so green and spectacular that it almost looks like it isn’t real, then said our goodbyes and headed back down the coast to meet Shannon in Fox Glacier.

Our day of ice climbing on the glacier was incredible! Once fitted out with all the gear we headed up the trail which was about 1 hour of difficult hiking up the side of the canyon wall, then decended onto the ice. After some instruction we mastered the art of walking in crampons, which is not as easy as it sounds…near the end of our day a lady on another tour caught her crampon in her pants while taking a step and stabbed a deep hole in her leg requiring a helicopter to get her out! Shannon managed to fall flat on his face at least twice! So yeah, an extra 2 inches of steel hanging off your feet can be tricky.

We started on a nice easy wall to get the basics of climbing, and learning to trust the gear.

No mean feat when you are hanging from an ice axe which you have only managed to punch into the wall about half an inch. It takes all your logic and guts to put your faith in it. After an hour or two our guide said we looked pretty good at it so he would find something a bit more exciting, but instead of just going to a steeper taller wall like they usually do, he went way out there for us because there was only the 3 of us in the group. Next thing you know we are being lowered into a 10 metre deep crevasse!

Whoa, I was crapping myself as, if you fell, it would be certain death. The crevasse tapers away to nothing and you would be firmly wedged at the bottom. Hacking your way up a sheer wall of glass-like ice is one hell of a buzz, especially when you can hardly swing your axe due to the opposite wall. After the crevasse we made our way to one last climb for the day in a Moulin (a large hole in the glacier surface caused by melting water). It was pretty spooky to be down there looking out the top, water pouring in all the while. At one point Justine lost her footing and found herself dangling from her arms, which gave her the biggest thrill of the day I reckon! Did help to reinforce how much weight those things will hold if positioned properly though.

The glacier is beautiful and we really got to see it under all conditions, overcast, sunny, rainy and even a hail storm, yep, just what you need on a glacier…more ice! It is pretty cool to see some areas with layered pinkish marks in the blue ice, which are actually dust from central Australia that has been blown high into the air and carried here on the wind. All in all, we would all like to concede “we love crampons!!”

The following day three very weary ice climbers made their way slowly back to Wanaka, Stopping at most every scenic bushwalk and place of interest along the way, and there are a LOT! Of course Shannon had come to visit NZ to ski, so it was up to Cardrona for us but sadly he blew out his knee at the end of the first day so that was the end of that. Yep, shit really does happen, but we popped over to Queenstown to look around instead and had a pretty good night out with most of our flatmates who had all come over too. Even found a bar selling “loopy juice” Need I say more? Anyway, I am writing this on my flight back to Melbourne so by the time I post it for you to read I will be there! Will do my best to catch up with people in the week or so I am in town so don’t be a stranger.

The Stories from August...

whiteelephant — Thu, 30 Aug 2007 14:40:00 GMT

OK, so I have been a little slack lately with the whole making posts to the blog thing, but here’s what we have been up to in the last month or two…

First up, we had a visit from my little sister who was over in Wellington for work and managed to convince her employer to book the return flight home from Queenstown so she could pop down and visit for a few days. At around about the same time our friends Ash and Kiki arrived from Melbourne for a short holiday so it was up to us to show them all around a bit. We took a day trip to Queenstown and had a bit of fun in on the skyline luge track, which is perched on a high peak overlooking lake Wakatipu and Queenstown. It is definitely a buzz racing down the trail in your toboggan with spectacular views at every turn.

We then stopped for a drink in the ‘minus 5’ bar. I think that the idea started in Stockholm, but they seem to be popping up all over the globe now. It is essentially a huge freezer and everything, including the walls, furnishings, bar and even the drinking glasses is carved from ice.

We had some pretty tasty cocktails inside and then made a rather hasty exit to avoid the frostbite that was starting to set in! On the way out, we were pleased to notice a pub offering $4 doubles of Jack Daniels all night on Fridays. Will definitely keep that in mind for a later visit, especially when our JD loving mates come over for a holiday! It is good info to have as you seem to pay a hefty premium for just about everything in Wanaka and Queenstown due to the high population of tourists. I did come across a pub just the other day with $6 jugs though, and the other night we had a huge roast meal with dessert for only $15 so all hope is not lost. We have both started to watch our pennies a bit though, as we have had a few really big bills recently. Our electricity bill for just one month was over one thousand dollars! Damn I miss good old cheap natural gas! It was quite a shock to say the least. I guess that is what you get for having a large house full of people (there are 10 living her at the moment!) in a cold climate.

The other little hiccup we ran into was that our car developed a strange ticking noise that turned out to be a broken flex plate which is located between the engine and transmission. Not a cheap repair as the entire engine had to come out. The whole problem was caused by a poorly executed repair that was done two owners before we got the car and had been holding on by a thread for about two years! Pity it had to go in the 3 months that we have got the car, but these things happen. After spending about $1700 at the garage, we have a good reliable car again and I guess are both pretty happy that it didn’t fail completely before we had it repaired and leave us completely stranded somewhere up the mountain.

If it wasn’t for these little financial setbacks, I think that we both might have quit our jobs by now to snowboard full time! We are starting to feel pretty sick of our work and certainly appreciating the fact that it is only temporary. Cleaning poo stains off toilets is not exactly stimulating at the best of times, but a couple of weeks back, Wanaka was hit by a massive storm. It rained for days on end , so much that the power ended up being knocked out for a day. Most of the rooms are apartment style flats with internal bathrooms and we were stumbling around in the dark trying to clean them. Obviously the people staying there had been trying to use the toilet in the dark too, what a mess! On top of that, our work chef seems to have lost his creativity. We had some pretty tasty work meals when we started at the place, but lately it has been chicken nuggets and fries almost every day, sometimes even 5 days in a row. If I see another nugget, I am gonna scream! So yeah, we are starting to think maybe we can get by for the next month or so without the measly $12.50 an hour that they pay us!

Went to a pretty cool concert last week for the closing of a big snowboarding competition they had up here. Picture this, you are in a natural amphitheatre overlooking an amazing terrain park on top of the mountains. The sun is setting, the band (The Mint Chicks) is going off, and behind the stage, they don’t have one of those lame posters with the band’s name on it, oh no, they have a massive kicker and all the while some of the world’s best snowboarders are pulling off huge inverted maneuvers above the stage.

To the left of the stage what do you see, but a steaming hot tub which is full of bikini clad chicks relaxing and enjoying the show. But wait, what now, the lead singer is waist deep in the spa with the bikini chicks! Geeese that guy is gonna have cold legs when he gets out! (remember this is all happening on the side of a mountain in subzero temperatures). Was a pretty unique night out, if a little chilly and an interesting drive back home winding down the icy mountain road after dark and after a beer or two.

Check out my Flickr Photo site for some more awesome pics of the event if you are interested, there is a link in the "About Whiteelephant" section of this blog.

We did a huge hike up Mt Roy the other day. It is only about 11 Km return but over 1000m vertically! It was a killer, I reckon going down was worse than going up too. We have been sore for days! The view from the summit was pretty amazing though.

Well that is about all the news from here for now, I have booked a ticket back to Melbourne for a week or so, to try and finish my PPL before I head to London in October, so might get to see a few of you for one last coffee or beer before we disappear to the other hemisphere.

Life about Wanaka

whiteelephant — Sat, 21 Jul 2007 16:14:00 GMT

Well we are quite well settled in now. We have moved up to the lodge in Wanaka and pretty much gotten ourselves set up. The first few days here were a bit of a shock with the hardest frosts I have ever seen. The ice was about 1/2 an inch thick and covered everything!

We managed to pick up a pretty sweet car to get up the mountain and can I just say how happy I am that we managed to get something with AWD and good brakes, airbags etc.. the trip up the mountain is quite terrifying! Used to the cushy sealed roads in Victorian ski resorts with all that nice gaurd railing and blizzard marker poles, we find ourselves driving up a loose gravel track just inches from a sheer drop over the side. No railings, not even a tree to break your fall! There was a story in the paper the other day about a tourist from Melbourne going over the side, he was lucky, after a 30m plunge, the car hit a single lone boulder on the hillside which prevented it from falling further.

The lodge is starting to feel a bit more like home, it is a pretty big place as you will see from the picture below, and in the first week or so it did feel a bit empty with just the two of us in it.

It is a lot nicer now though, we have found some people to share long term, an English and an Irish girl working in town, and an English couple here to ski for the season. We have also got a friendly couple in the dorm room at the moment so the place is full of friendly travellers and we are starting to be a bit more social! Yes, as i write this, I am still a tad hung over from our outing to the pub last night.

We also have managed to get some work here to help pay the bills, my flat is still vacant in Melbourne so the mortgage beast is calling. We walked into a luxury resort enquiring about work. Two days later we got a phone call for a quick interview, but as we were just about to head up the mountain, we dropped by in our ski gear! No worries, anything goes in Wanaka. We walked in and the boss basically said you start Monday, I already have put you in the roster. And here was I trying to update my CV! OK so it is not exactly glamorous, we are making beds and cleaning toilets, and the pay is not quite what we are used to, but it will get us by till we move on and give us plenty of time up the mountain for doing stuff like this!!!

Yep, it really is that breathtaking.

We were up skiing the other day and some smart ass in a private jet basically buzzed the ski field, can't have been more than 50ft off the ground! Ripped down the ski slope then took off across the mountaintops doing barrel rolls all the way! It scared the absolute crap out of all the skiers on the mountain, including me!!

Cardrona is a smallish mountain, but pretty nice and has a good range of different runs, and the view is spectacular. When it is clear you can see both Queenstown and Wanaka which is very cool, although the other day there was a big inversion layer for the whole week, it was perfect weather on the mountain but both towns were blanketed in a sea of fog for the whole week. It was a bit dreary at home, but made for a rather interesting view of the mountain peaks rising up out of the mist.

Basically i think that the sign really sums up the whole place best.....

Time to go....

whiteelephant — Wed, 4 Jul 2007 21:07:00 GMT

You know how it goes, you talk about doing that amazing round-the-world trip your whole life, but never manage to actually get up and do it. Well after six years working at the same place, buying a nice flat and getting just a bit too comfortable (to the point you just might not want to go anywhere for fear of missing home too much) I decided it was time to do something about the situation. What better way to kick off a trip than with a few months snowboarding in beautiful Wanaka NZ?!! It is an opportunity you just have to take, especially when your girlfriend's folks own a lodge there and are looking for somebody to caretake it for the season. So in with the resignations, tickets booked and we start to prepare.

Well you would expect that your last few weeks of work would be a little stressful, especially when the whole place is gearing up for an FDA audit scheduled the week before you go, but no. Nothing could compare to the stress of that final week between finishing up work and getting on the plane. While we proceeded to box and bag all our worldly posessions, we started to wonder how the hell we managed to accumulate so much crap! All in all it took us four full days to pack the house up and stick it in a container for storage.
Day one saw us carefully and lovingly wrapping furniture and whitegoods in layers of cardboard (see below), bubble wrap and shrink film, but by day four it was more like heave-ho it in the door!

We filled that container to the brim, then it was sent away on the truck (so heavy it lifted the wheels off the ground) to be stored.

I think that we were both quite amazed to actually get here, and with relatively few dramas like a lost credit card and almost missing the connecting flight in Sydney. Slowly winding down and relaxing a little, we had a nice deep bath the other night, with not even the slightest bit of guilt about water restrictions - this country has more water than they can even dream about using!

We really don't quite know what to do with ourselves after being so incredibly busy, and now just not. I have to say, I don't mind though. Spending a few days now with Justine's family and organising a couple of things like a car, before we move out to the lodge and look for some work. Can't wait to hit the slopes, it is pissing snow over here!