thwarted, again

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Jasper

This morning we awoke early in the hopes of being able to sneak a quick walk around Lake Louise before we left for Jasper. Unfortunately, the rain still hadn't abated, but for a few minutes we managed to catch the unlikely sight of a rainbow hovering above the lake backed by the glaciers, which I suppose made the early rising somewhat worthwhile.

On the way to Jasper this afternoon, Rika took us on a sidetrip took a trip out to Athabascar Glacier whereupon the rain promptly stopped pouring which was rather gracious of it, really. Sadly, Athabascar Glacier wasn't anything particularly exciting, although wet and slippery enough to prevent much exploring, even if they had allowed you to, which they didn't.

We managed to reach Jasper by about 3pm and our Fairmont Hotel is so much nicer here than all the others we've stayed at. It blends more into the landscape, and we've managed to score ourselves a wonderful little cottage with an adjoining family room and beautiful view of yet another clear blue lake. There's nothing to do but walk around this lovely lake and take in the wonderful scenery which sounds pretty fine to me. Even Yash likes it here, amazing! Only one night in Jasper, too bad we couldn't stay longer.



Today was a day of bus driving and little else. On the way to Sun Peaks, Rika our tour guide, took us to a horrible little German cafe for lunch with the promise of "real meat pies!" Being a tour of almost entirely Australians, this went down really well and we almost didn't mind that she was driving us away from all the other eateries in the area - until we went in and actually ate the pies. Suffice to say the Germans running the cafe must have been Rika's relatives because otherwise there's no excuse for bringing a bunch of Aussies to a cafe that serves pies which were as cold and tasteless as those. Just as well we'd stolen food from the hotel at breakfast that morning to tide us over, I guess.

Anyway, tonight is at Sun Peaks which is apparently a growing ski resort town that is like Whistler before Whister became really big. Be as that may, Sun Peaks must be growing seriously slowly if the three shops was all it had to show for a 'downtown'. Oh well, better luck at Whister tomorrow hopefully.



An early start for Whistler this morning. Much time spent on the bus, but we did manage to spot a wolf sitting on the side of the road so that was a bit of a bonus.

Whister is a big ski resort which is going to play a pretty major role at the upcoming Winter Olympics. Despite the fact it was summer and no snow to be found, the town was still bustling with activity, even if they were all either half-mad extreme mountain bikers, or the rest of Australia's youth who had decided against (or were rejected by?) UK's working holiday program and were forced to go to Canada instead.

After being turned away by a few cafe/restaraunts with bar licences because Yash is underage (drinking age in British Columbia is 19 and they are seriously strict about enforcing it) we finally found a place willing to take us in and promptly spoiled our appetite for our last included 5-star dinner by eating a large plate of nachos. Despite that, we unbelievably also managed to fit in dinner AND the creme brulle platter - a selection of five different creme brulle flavours - for dessert.

It's just occurred to me how often I seem to be mentioning the food that we've eaten on this trip. Either it really has been just THAT amazing, or I'm going to come home a huge butterball if I'm not careful..



A long bus trip and ferry ride to Victoria today. Victoria is a town on Vancouver Island which is a few hours off the coast of Vancouver. Nothing much of note here, not sure why we have two nights here instead of an extra day in Japer, but I'm sure they have their reason. Monetary ones, probably.

Yash and I went whale watching in the morning though and managed to spot quite a number of whales around our boat, jumping, diving and doing all sorts of whale-type things. Yash and I also managed to stack quite spectacularly on the deck and I'm still limping a bit from that, always a good way to end a trip, no doubt.

There's not a whole lot to do in Victoria, despite our tour leader Rika's proud proclomations. Another Fairmont hotel, walk along the sea and a few street performers and you're done. It's also the home of a huge London Drugs store which e rushed to minutes before it shut after our group farewell dinner in order to get blank DVDs to burn the 4gig worth of photos and movies we've managed to accumulate over this trip.

Yes. 4 gig. No, that's not a typo. We're a bit snap-happy I guess.




Back in Vancouver. Tour finished up here and the family has left for LA after a long night of packing and repacking. There's not much left to do in Vancouver so I'm taking advantage of the tv, my own bed and bathroom and the ability to spread my stuff out as much as possible which may be the last time I get to do that in a very long time. It's going to be a bit tough moving from 5 star luxury to the world of slumming it in grimy hostels, but I guess that's the price you pay for..uh..not being rich. Yeah.

I had Indian for lunch today. Vegetarian at that too! Mum, you would be proud.

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