OH Canada

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Before we arrived in Canada we had to stop in a few places.

We stopped in Vegas not for the gambling and partying, and Portland and Seattle, not for their reputations as the home of the USA's micro brewery scene, but becuase the flights were cheaper that way....seriously... well ok, maybe it was a bit of both.

One night in Vegas was all we could afford, we hit the wave pool and did some bodysurfing, and played the craps tables, Lucy putting her studies on probability into practical use for the first time, next thing we know it was time to leave, not sure what else happened.

In Portland we stayed in a lovely AirBNB, and set off on a brewery tour where we sampled 24 beers at a number of different breweries in town, apparently there are over 50 of them in the local area. Its beer overload where you never have the same drink twice. We really managed to fatten ourselves and returned to a diet of burgers and wings after the fresh seafood diet of Peru.

Then a quick stop in Seattle Tom hit the awesome music musuem to read up on all the great bands that have come out of this part of the world, Nirvana and Jimi Hendrix being the most famous examples. Then across the border by bus into Vancouver, Canada.

Vancouver is an great city and is like Sydney in many ways, there is water every way you go, the city is very diverse with excellent food from all around the world, we liked it instantly, but it also made us a little homesick. One big difference is the locals passion for Hockey and we were lucky enough to go to a Canucks game while in town which was great fun. After seeing the sport live we have a much better understanding of what is going on.

From Vancouver we hired a car and headed to Vancouver Island to check out the surfing towns and the rainforests. On the car ferry on the way over we were treated to a display from the local Orcas jumping close to the boat.

Once on the Island we drove through the picturesque roads that lead to the rugged Pacific coast and hiked in the Rainforests that go right up to the sand. When the surf picked up we were tempted to have one last session, and having sold his surfboards in Peru Tom hired a board to head out, while Lucy had second thought on seeing the freezing rain and stayed indoors. A full 5/4 steamer, boots, gloves and hood were definitely required.

From the beach and the surf we headed to the mountain to get our skis on. Whistler greeted us with perfect sunshine and warmer weather than we had on the beach. Luckily there was still plenty of snow on the mountain. Lucy progressed from the bunny slopes and ‘magic carpet’ on Day 1 to dominating the aerial park on day 3…. well not quite but her progress was impressive and she took off down some tricky runs on the last day and spent plenty of time dragging herself out of the snow after one of her many stacks.

The last day saw about 14cm of fresh snow and we had a ball carving some fresh tracks into the mountain on a quiet late season Wednesday.

The ski trip was the last big blowout of the trip and from here we start making our way back to Sydney via Portland (for a basketball game) and San Francisco for our flight home. Now as everyone has seen photos of the Golden Gate Bridge before this may be our last entry. Thanks for following!

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