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I hope everyone is well back in Aussie. Pity about the freezing conditions plaguing many parts of Tasmania. It's a real tragedy that Moira and I are missing all of that! We finally experienced some absolute scorchers here, mainly when we revisited Merritt in the interior. 35 degrees plus, we could do nothing but find some shade and consume some nice cold Smirnoffs by the cart. Jeez, this is a tough life we lead.
Thats enough of making you all jealous. I hope you still continue to read about our adventures. It must be entertaining a few of you, particularly the last one re. Calgary and its famous traffic. I have been told that it is sometimes confusing when a different author bobs up so I have decided that my type will be standard like this, and Moira will be
hunched like this. Hope this helps!
I have also noticed we have talked a bit about the wildlife but have been a bit reticent on displaying some photos. Fixed that for this edition.
So we left you last in Cochrane where the RV park owners Chris and Mike offered us great support after our little trauma in Calgary. Thanks Chris and Mike - we'll send a card. We traversed the Rocky Mountains once again, on a different path through Field and Golden - the Yoho and Glacier National Parks. Unfortunately both were still affected by snow and we could not stay at the RV parks along the way. We had to drive onto Golden. This is a magical little town in the middle of nowhere but it had some bonuses for us. We got to see Stars Wars III the day after it's world wide release - probably before most of you got to see it actually. The cinema at first glance was quaint, but on review it was worse than the old Burnie cinema in Mt St. The Dolby surrond sound was actually a bunch of tacky old speakers surrounding the hall. At least it was cheap - tickets, drinks and popcorn for 2 with change from $20!!! We stayed two nights, relaxed, checked out the state of the art gym. NO, it really was good, makes Healthglo look old. Sat in a cafe for a while and just passed the time. It was a nice break from the traffic. As it was Monday and the end of the
long weekend, the traffic was bumper to bumper again, but fortunately in the opposite direction. We drove onto the 'Wolf Centre'. This is supposed to be an educational centre for locals. It really is a political mouthpiece with a few mangy old wolves that have been desexed and held captive so the public can stare. It was shit really. They say they are trying to develop public empathy to protect the wolves - but I think they need protection from these people. The cages were way to small and dirty. The smell almost made me throw up. Craig saw things very differently.
We stayed at Revelstoke 1 night at the Lamplighter Campground. R is famous for it's HE power. The dam generates 2000 megawatts of power. This is huge, about as much the whole of Tassie generates. Am I right Allan? - we had quite a debate about this as I was typing. The Mica dam above the Revelstoke generates about the same (slightly less) and together they contribute over 40% of British Columbia's power. Not bad for two huge dams. We took a tour to the top of the dam wall - 175m high. We were not allowed to
take photos - security was pretty tight, as it is in every major tourist attraction. They are worried!!
We moved on to Sushwap Lake. We stayed 2 nights. The first was at an awful RV park at Blind Bay. We couldn't leave quickly enough. The 2nd night at White Lake was lovely. It is a little fishing lake full of rainbow trout, so they say. Also had plenty of turtles. We didn't catch anything in the 30 minutes I piloted a pontoon boat out onto the lake. It was so hard to drive/steer it Vaughn. I didn't take out the jetty, though I had 3 goes at it!!
Onto to Merrit again via the Kamloops. It was a bit warm. We paused briefly at the Wildlife park outside Kamloops - not worth the effort or $20. We made it to Merrit by 4pm and got a few supplies. We camped by a lake, Marquart, for a night. It was fantastic, quiet and still, and best of all we had it all to ourselves. Craig fished and caught a few small rainbows but they had to go back. You are not allowed to keep sardines!! There were bigger fish out there
apparently but they didn't bite. Craig had to wade out in knee deep cowshit to cast out far enough and after an hour decide this was not going to work. We lazed about all next day until trekking into Merrit about 4 pm.
Craig then went fishing again with Jack, the RV park manager. They stayed out until 11pm on Nicola Lake. They caught cokenay salmon and rainbow. We ate several of these. The next mornig at 5 am I tipped him out of bed to go fishing again with Jack. Lake Edna this time provided many Brook trout. These we ate in Vancouver with the boys.
So that takes us back to Vanc where it all began. We returned the camper. Fortunately they were very kind and understanding and the damages less than $1000 so we feel we got off lightly. We stayed 3 nights with Deane and Steve before we flew to Toronto. We saw Star Wars III again (I slept through most of this). We went to a Korean restaurant - Craig enjoyed it, I did not. We finished off with a bike ride around Stanely Park and another stroll around the city.
So thanks again to
our wonderful hosts in Vancouver, we will return all favours when you next come to Australia.
Our next chapter will be from New York - June 18th
Bye for now,
Moira and CRaig
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