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Published: March 18th 2008
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Oyster Bay
Mum, Tony and I taking the dog for a walk at Oyster Bay. Graeme arrived on Wednesday night, a little tired but at least he managed to get his connection, his flight leaving the UK was delayed by 45 mins - apparently you are having some bad weather back there.. :-)
Thursday we drove up Mount Washington which is the main Skiing / Snowboarding Mountain on the Island, Whistler is closer to Vancouver which is on the mainland of Canada. Mount Washington was about an hours drive from my Mums house in Campbell River, as there is only one main road on the Island we will easily be able to find our way back, it is first right, first right again, keep going, head for a big mountain, keep going up and in a straight line, and your there.
There is four meters of compact snow on Mount Washington and there was 17 cm's on Wed night before we went up, I hear that is meant to be pretty good if you are skiing etc, we however were hurtling ourselves down a really big snowy hill on a rubber ring. Which was really good fun actually.
It is called snow tubing and basically you are given a rubber ring at the bottom
of the hill, hook the back of it onto a kind of lift and sit in your ring, you get pulled up the hill on your ass and then you walk over to one of the three lanes avoiding small children and animals and sit back down in it and off you go. For my first attempt I had my eyes closed and my hand clamped firmly over my mouth as many expletives were pouring out and I didn't want the small children and animals to be offended ! Or for Tony and Grae to know what a pansy I am ! Grae and I then progressed to going down two at a time - yeah that's right folks forget health and safety laws, there are none here, then after we had all gone down on our front, face first we called it a day and headed to the nearest cafe for a beer.
On Friday Mum and Tony treated us all to a spa day for my birthday, it is quite a posh affair (Especially for this little Island) we had a hydrotherapy massage, walking though fake rivers, a mud bath, steam room, Jacuzzi, fake waterfalls and a
glacial waterfall (I avoided that bit). It was very civilised, and then we went for a posh lunch.
I emphasise the fact that it is posh as not much here is, for example going out for lunch in the local restaurants I would be welcomed in with open arms if I were wearing a pair of jogging pants and t shirt and trainers, and frowned upon if anything else.
On Thursday on the way to the Mountain we went past a hitchhiker who was wearing a check shirt and lumberjack boots, oh and he was holding a massive chainsaw ! yeah right we'll pull over and let you in you physco !
Mainly Grae and I have been taking the dog for walks in the woods behind my Mums house, it is so quite and peaceful and goes on for miles, basically all the way back to Mount Washington, so if you don’t get another entry after this one you know we have been eaten by bear in the woods.
Oh, that reminds me Grae and I saw a snake today, it was really small and dead, but that's not the point, it was a real life snake
! I am hoping to see a lot more wildlife than that on the whole trip and hopefully it will be alive too.
Robyn you asked what the beaches were like - well the one at the end of Mum and Tony’s street is quite sandy, but to get to the beach you have to clamber over these massive logs, it would be too much work really. The beaches closer into Campbell River are pebblier, it varies a lot, but they are nothing like Durban Beach front, there is no development / commercialism on the beachfront at all. People do go walking along the beachfront but in designated places, where it is easier to get to the sea.
I thought I would save money and get my new camera in Canada, however there is a shortage of the particular model I want in Canada at the moment so I have my fingers crossed that I will be able to get it for Thursday coming, there will be more pics then, the ones on this blog are ones taken on Tony’s camera.
That’s all for now. Em x
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