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| Canada - Week 1 The West family venture |
| Day 1 The flight over was very smooth, despite all the British Airways check-in staff disputes that were renowned throughout the British media, we got through check-in quickly and had only 2 hours in the executive club lounge with its free drinks and snacks. The plane took off slightly early and after 9 hours of 'How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days', 'The Jungle Book 2', 'My Family' and some Rowan Atkinson stageshow comedy we arrived in Vancouver. Between the plane and the stay-over hotel Dad lost the digital cameras bag but hey no family holiday is perfect! We needed sleep, so we did. |
| This year was our chance to fulfil mum's dream and finally make a venture to Canada. After 26 years of promise it was about time to go! So it was a couple of weeks in an RV (that's Recreational Vehicle to you and me) and a few days in the city of Vancouver. Here is my daily diary... |
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| Day 2 Cruise Canada set us up with the RV although as we settled into our sleeping bags we were still in Vancouver. Most of the day was spent just collecting the RV and looking around Vancouver's shopping malls. Oh and we popped into a Royal Canadian Mounted Police Station to get a police report for the missing cameras. Of course we still had to phone the police in the district in which they were lost instead and didn't even see a proper mountie!! |
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| Day 3 Today we found a little place called Hope. No really we did; its the base of the Fraser Canyon. The campsite for the day was by the Fraser River and offered some great views as well as an opportunity to skim stones. Earlier in the day, before we set off down the Trans-Canada Highway, a Sony 5.0mp Cyber-shot Digital Camera joined our adventure, maybe there is hope for us yet. |
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| Day 4 Jon showered in his swim shorts. Reason? No idea. Idiot! We went from the little place of Hope all the way to the gates of hell in one day. "The gate of hell" is the narrowest and deepest point on the Fraser River. For those of you who haven't got GCSE/O-level Geography that means its the fastest too. We took the Hell's Gate Airtram down from the highway to take a closer look. A good few kilometres down the road was the best twist yet; a campsite with a swimming pool and freely delivered pizza. Aww bliss. |
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| Day 5 We went to Watf**d. Well at least it felt like it. Costco in Canada really is no different from Costco in the UK, except it didn't seem to sell alcohol, sold less clothes but it did sell more for dogs. Strange country this. This coming weekend is a kind of bank holiday for people in British Columbia so the campsites are pretty full, but we managed to discover an underconstruction site in a forest. Feels much like the New Forest except the pine cones are bigger and there might be bears behind the trees. Like I said, strange country. |
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| Day 6 Have you ever come face to face with a grizzly bear in the wild? Well, fortunately neither have we yet but we did meet a very hungry, wild, chipmunk. Scary stuff! The day was spent at Herald Provincial Park on the water's edge of Shuswap Luke. A couple of walks in the foresty mountain sides and we found some waterfalls suffering a little from the dry period. However the lake's water was still good for swimming and the grass for lying towels down and so it was a good relaxing day. |
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