Warm Coleslaw (Bears in the Ditch)

Scene from our recent road trip

Hello from sunny sunny finally honey Vancouver. The weather has taken a serious turn for the better over the past week or so. Temperatures got close to 30 degrees downtown today. It's like a different city when the sun shines. Air conditioning in work however went on the fritz so, in protest I turned up after lunch dressed only in a pair of speedos. They had the air conditioning fixed in 5 minutes!

Bears, Snakes, Hypothermia, Chronic Bed Head........

Last weekend we finally took the plunge and rented a car. Well actually what happened was we thought it was a bank holiday weekend - turns out we were a week early - and we had decided to head for Wells Gray Provincial Park. We figured we'd need a tent for Sasquatch so why not pick one up early and break it in. So we picked up a fancy tent (it's probably our most water-proof purchase yet!) and some crazy self inflating mattresses and we were all set. We were just going to hire a Yaris but it didnt have a cd player so we upgraded to something equivalent to a Primera for an extra 10 bucks a day. You can't go on a roadtrip and listen to the radio! In fact I'm not sure you can go on a roadtrip in a Yaris period. (edit: howya Aideen!) The hire car was a pretty pokey yokey even though it was an automatic 2.7litre job.

Open Fire, Orange Tent, Warm Beer, Bear Denial......

Great roadtrip altogether. We ended up doing 1200km in 2 days but you hardly notice it because the roads are so good and you dont have to concentrate as much in an automatic.... It had an autopilot button aswell which I was too scared to push. Could've ended up in Winnipeg.....and no one wants to end up in Winnipeg. So the first 300km was on the trans canada Highway - 4 lanes in both directions most of the time, sometimes 3 but never less than 2. A completely different driving experience than back home where one horsebox can cause havoc on a national route. They dont have horseboxes over here. But they do have RVs. Air conditioned horseboxes for humans basically. Some of the views from the highways were stunning. These massive roads weaving through the valleys and mountains way beyond the horizon. Unfortunately, most of the time you couldnt stop or you'd be hit by a horsebox. Some of the places we passed through were called Chilliwack, Kamloops, Clearwater, Battle Mountain, Hope and Hells Gate. We stopped off in Kamloops on the way home. Very strange place - we re-christened it Athy in the Sky. Mainly because its at the end of a very long straight road, they sell turkey jerky there and the people of Kamloops are odd and generally propelled by battery powered devices..... see below.

Powered by Turkey Jerky

Wells Gray itself is in complete wilderness. It has a road going through it that goes for about 100km. So we're driving along this road and eventually come on a camspite that's actually open. So there's a gravel driveway about a half mile long that leads to the camspite and at this stage its about 6 on Saturday we've driven all day and we just want to pitch the tent before it gets dark and settle down for the evening. As we rounded the last bend before the the actual campsite both of us went Oh Jesus! is that a bear? And yes folks, in the ditch on the very last leg of our epic journey is a brown bear grazing on the local greenery. Neither of us know much about bears and people have been here for years and never seen one so we were like what do we do now? We cant camp in a bear's backyard.

Daddy of Cubby Quigley

On the way up we'd heard on the news that some guy had been attacked by a bear in Banff. It didnt say whether he was fit enough to hang around to toast marshmallows and sing campfire songs after the attack.

Bear Food

We eventually realised that our options were limited and pitched our tent anyway. Bears are renowned for their very astute sense of smell and the "Camping for Dummies" book which M got from the library, fair play to her, was full of warnings about keeping food as far away from the tent as possible, and not going to sleep in the same clothes you ate in - in case the bear smells coleslaw off your clothes in the night and comes a knockin thinking he's stumbled accross a very remote Supermacs. We ended up driving to Clearwater Lake and having our food there which was lovely. Can't beat warm coleslaw in the wilderness. We came back to the campsite and lit our first ever campfire with a tree which happened to be lying nearby. So romantic. My formative years as a part time bathroom arsonist came in very handy altogether. We went to bed when the sun set at about 8:30 smelling like pikeys but without the television, highlights or lace curtains. Probably one of the coldest nights in our short camping lives - up there with frozen eyebrow syndrome at Easter on Ben Nevis ( I say "on" Ben Nevis, I actually mean "somewhere near"). But at least the bears left us alone. We saw him or his brother again first thing the next morning happy as a bear in a ditch.

The book was right about the chronic bedhead

Another highlight of the trip was Helmcken Falls, a huge waterfall in the middle of the park which is apparently 2 and a half times higher than Niagara Falls but not as wide. In winter the water vapour coming up from the bottom of the Falls half freezes in mid air causing an interesting blue haze effect apparently.

So a great weekend altogether which we both really enjoyed. It surprised us both how easy and cheap it is to hire a really nice touring car and just drive and drive. I hadn't driven at all since December and was was a little wary but it's actually easier than driving in Ireland. Our mantra for the weekend was Right, Right, Right. Can't really go wrong with that one. The vastness of the place is hard to believe. Like I said we drove for 1200km and never even left BC. Our next trip is down to the states next weekend to go to Sasquatch. A 6 hour drive apparently (the driving equivalent of a 50 metre pool back in Ireland)

Seán Zoolander

Last night we went to see The Strokes in Plaza of Nations. It's a wierd kind of outdoor venue with a roof - a pavillion i suppose you'd call it, but really nice and intimate. A real summer venue. The weather was fantastic and The Strokes were excellent. Actually they were freaking rad!!! Probably the loudest gig I've been to. My left ear isn't talking to me today. It was so wierd though - because it was an all ages show there were literally hundreds of kids there - 12-15 year olds - mostly girls it has to be said. It appears The Strokes are the boyband of the moment over here. They were sellling beer in a "beer garden" - basically a caged off area at the back of the venue. You had to produce ID to get in (even I was ID'd), queue for tickets for beer, queue for beer, then stand drinking your beer like an eejit in this tiny cordoned off beer garden with other thirsty losers. SO un-rock'n'roll. The Canadians sure know how to take the fun out of drinking. But yeah - go see the strokes at your earliest convenience. I think they're playing Oxegen. I believe DJ Shadow is playing the Electric Picnic aswell. Don't miss him Aideen!

Springtime in Vancouver

Springtime in M's Brain

We're preparing for the arrival of Linda and Siamak in June. I say preparing....... :) Poor A was the guest guinea pig when she was over last month but we had a great time, ate all round us and back and managed to buy a fancy guna aswell. So we're really looking forward to that. Great to hear the Ks have finally decided to make an honest man out of me and set a date. Really looking forward to that. We'll be well seasoned tour guides at that stage so we'll show you all a great time.

M and Auz in a tugboat crossing False Creek

In other news we just bought a map of the world and hung it up on our wall. Next purchase is a set of darts, bulletproof glasses and a pint of ale. We'll let you know how that goes :)

More pictures to follow (when I photoshop in some more bears) so stay tuned.

Poster for a recent very memorable gig. Sunset Rubdown was our roadtrip soundtrack