Seattle
Saturday, November 1st, 2008FOR PERSONAL TRAINING AND FITNESS ON THE SUNSHINE COAST, QLD. CHECK OUT
Archive for the ‘Blogs’ Category
THE
Wednesday, October 22nd, 2008The sea to sky highway that runs from Vancouver to Whistler is undergoing major construction in order to be able to cope with the influx of traffic for the 2010 winter Olympics, so we had a few stops along the way, waiting for the stop sign to finally be turned and the slow to help us o our way. We arrived at Riverside RV resort, the only RV Park near whistler, and checked in for 2 nights. At $45 per night it’s not cheap, but still much more cost effective than a hotel.
We took the free shuttle bus into whistler village at about 2pm to discover that most of the mountain was closed! Talk about timing… We had arrived 2 days after the thanksgiving long weekend (when everything had been open) ad the lifts were all closed, at least half the shops were closed and even most of the activities that one might experience were closed.
So we knew we wouldn’t be there for an extended stay.
There was, however, a plus side or two. For one the village was quieter, meaning no lines for just about everything! There were also specials and sales everywhere, like the 3 course dinner for $21 at one of the nicest restaurants in town. We wanted to do something memorable, so we investigated some of the adventurous activities on offer. The best value that we could find was to go ATV-ing (4 wheel crazy motorbike things that can go in all terrain) up some mountain trails just near whistler. So the next day we walked into town, signed up for it and just had to kill an hour by doing some window shopping. The tour started by us all piling into a big van and driving to the tour company base in the forest about 15 min away. We then had to gear up – helmets, glasses, gloves etc. as it was going to get dirty!
After a brief safety and instructional talk by one of the guides we were ready to go! There were 8 of us and two guides, Jaime and I were sharing an ATV and would switch positions… And we were off, starting slowly to begin with to get a feel for it and building up speed as we got deeper into the mountain. The trail/road was rough! Big puddles and rocks everywhere, but these quad bikes just loved it! They would bounce over anything and roar through the puddles sending up muddy spray everywhere. It was an exhilarating experience. We pulled over after a while and Jaime and I swapped so she was now driving, she nearly ran us off the road in the first 30 seconds! But after that little scare she got a handle of the steering and really got stuck into it, burning through the puddles like it was no ones business. She loved it.
Our turn around point had us looking back over a valley towards the
On my second go at the wheel I really went for it, holding back then speeding up and flying down the winding mountain roads! We will definitely be doing that again sometime…
That evening we had a romantic dinner at a beautiful restaurant in the heart of
Starting
Sunday, October 19th, 2008FOR PERSONAL TRAINING AND FITNESS ON THE SUNSHINE COAST, QLD. CHECK OUT
We left whistler around lunchtime and cruised down towards
Andreas had picked up a block of hard foam for my new surfboard so we went to his garage and measured it out and cut it so that it would slide over the fins and create a protecting guard in case the fins were hit while travelling.
We ate dinner at a bar called The Hurricane Grill, well priced and delicious. And after chilling out with them until about 10pm it was finally time for us to leave
I plugged in the Garmin Nuvi 350 navigation system and followed its directions through
We parked at a highway rest stop that night and realized just how noisy they are! Trucks that keep their rumbling engines going and others that pull up and release a massive HISS when they stop. But we plugged our earplugs in and managed to get a decent night sleep.
The following day we were headed for the Big 4 Ice Caves, East of Seattle in the
Our drive took us south on the I-5 towards
We soon found an information board that informed us of the 1.6 km walk up to the caves, there was also a sign stating that the bridge had collapsed?
So we headed on! We passed a couple of government workers in bright orange vests, doing something random and they told us that to get to the ice caves we would have to cross the river as the bridge had collapsed. Ah, the sign made sense!
We decided we had come this far, to hell with it, we may as well continue. So we got to the river and scoped out the best place to cross. There were a couple of deep sections, easily above our waist, but we managed to find a spot where the water barely came above our knees. Holy crap was it ever cold! We pulled up our jeans, took off our shoes and socks and ventured out into the freezing waters, by the time we reached the other side out feet were completely numb.
Then we had to bushwhack our way back to where the bridge had collapsed and join the original trail up to the caves. It was a beautiful walk, lush green forest and the yellow hues of the changing season dancing all around us. We started to notice broken trees and then lots of cut up trees and at first thought that they had been cut down for some reason? We later realized from looking at the landscape closer, that a massive avalanche must have barreled down from the steep mountainside where the
And then we made it to the Ice caves!
It was such a beautiful scene, we walked out through an opening ad the trail became a vast rock spree that lead to sloping hills on either side ad stopped abruptly at the bottom of a small glacier. The whole mountainside created almost a semicircle with sheer cliff surrounding the glacier and we could see mini waterfall cascading down the rock face ad disappearing into the glacier. The water then slowly eroded parts of the glacier to form these crazy looking caves at the bottom.
An icy wind could be felt coming down the cliff and glacier and whistling out of the caves. It was just a natural beauty and hard to truly describe. We spent some time taking photos and just soaking up the wonder of our surroundings before heading back to the RV, making some lunch and heading back towards
TOFINO
Tuesday, October 14th, 2008FOR PERSONAL TRAINING AND FITNESS ON THE SUNSHINE COAST, QLD. CHECK OUT
The last few days of work were full on. I had planned to just ease out and take it easy on my last week but Walter wanted me to help him with some extra wok that he had going on the side and would pay me $25 cash so I spent the last 3 days working 12 hours plus travel time and raking in the money! We were renovating a basement for a Fijian family so that they could have a living space downstairs. It was a great learning experience for me as we were doing everything from taking out and replacing windows to insulating and building supports bracing for the stairs etc etc.
But finally, it was all over!
We packed up the RV and drove to
On Thursday afternoon we were off! We were driving Andreas’ truck with surfboards in the back and a free weekend ahead of us! The highway runs north of
We missed the 5pm ferry so left the vehicle in the line and went to a local pub for spinach and artichoke dip (you really should try it, delicious!).
It was a cold night, so we spent only a little time on the ferry deck, watching the moon slide behind the silhouetted trees on the mountainside to our right. We spent that night in
The drive to Tofino takes about 3 hours, the latter part being a winding, narrow road that snakes through mountains and valleys, with spectacular lake views and crystal rivers that look so inviting but you know they would freeze you in seconds.
We arrived in Tofino with absolutely no idea where we were going to stay, so our first couple of stops were at surf shops on the way into town. We found out that we were in for some decent surf and managed to also find a real gem of a resort called the Pacific Sands to stay at. This place was perfect, Meters from the most consistent surf beach in Tofino, we could look out of our balcony window and check the waves!
That first afternoon was just fantastic, my first surf in nearly a year! A rare sunny day blessed us with a warm dazzling sunset and clear waters for a memorable “sunset session”. I say warm, what I really mean is we were suited up with 5 mm wetsuits, 5mm booties, felt lined hoods and neoprene gloves in order to withstand the frigid north pacific waters! But the sun was out, and that is a rare blessing in these parts!
As the sun dipped beyond the horizon, Andreas and I swapped boards so that I was now riding the 8 foot min mal. I caught 3 beautiful peeling waves that I was able to pump up and down the face of and wham I was back in the zone and feeling fantastic!
We spent 3 days at the pacific sands, surfing and chilling out and just getting back into travel mode. It was the perfect buffer between finishing work and starting travel again. We even spent an evening by an open fire, right next to the beach, toasting marshmallows and spinning yarns until the late hours of the night…
On our last morning I woke early, hoping to get a good last session in before we headed back to
So we decided to take our rental gear back for the start of business and save on a day. When we got to the surf shop The Storm we realized that we had left one of the wetsuits back at the resort so Andreas went to get it while I browsed the surf shop quite happily. I hade been looking for a surfboard for a while now and nothing had jumped out at me and said ME ME ME! So I was surprised to see a second had 5’10” retro glassed on twin fin Fish hanging from the ceiling with a for sale tag. I knew it wouldn’t be cheap as it was in excellet condition and a retro fish, they never are. But I got it down anyway.
The more I held it and inspected it the more I wanted it! This was exactly what I had been searching for for months now and the guy dropped the price to $500 for the board, with a board bag, leash and wax! I was internally trying to argue that it was too expensive, but the board won me over ad I bought it right then and there! I haven’t yet ridden it, but will be sure to post when I do!
So an all round great trip, and we still had whistler to go before heading south into the
A
Monday, September 22nd, 2008FOR PERSONAL TRAINING AND FITNESS ON THE SUNSHINE COAST, QLD. CHECK OUT
5am: Beep beep beep goes the most dreaded sound of my day; I try and shut the alarm off quickly in case it hasn’t woken Jaime up. I often wake up before it these days. I drag myself out of bed with the enthusiasm of a three toed sloth and begin my morning routine of making lunch, eating a bowl of cereal and putting on my dirty work clothes. The heater is on full, but I have to sit close to it to receive any of its warmth.
5.40am: I step out into the cold dark morning, my Ipod playing relaxing music to help pretend that I’d not rather still be asleep. A brisk walk to the bus does little more than keep the cold at bay. My journey involves a bus to the sky train station of Surrey Central, then the sky train to Metrotown followed by another bus to
7am: Arriving at the “shop” which is the roofing home base, warehouse and office, I am greeted by the site of many rough looking characters smoking in the front lot. I say little and walk by them to be greeted by Walter, a 350 pound giant who is the main warehouse guy, keeps things organized and really built most of the building. He used to be a builder with a 25 guy crew, but went bankrupt and now works here. He is one of the few people who aren’t ruffian airheads. I usually help him around the place before being sent off with either Andreas (fingers crossed!) or the tar and gravel roofing crew (nooooooooooo).
A day with Andreas is quite pleasant, he is a nice guy and has much to teach me, a day with the flat crew however is another story. These guys are literally the bottom of the barrel, at least half of them have been in jail, most have substance abuse problems and more than a couple smoke dope on the job. They are rude, crude and lewd.
8am: There is lots of swearing and shouting that goes on, amid ripping up the roof with sharp shovels and tossing it into a big bin on the ground. Sometimes we have to build a slide of sorts so that the tear-off doesn’t miss the bin.
There are a couple of especially grating characters whom I have even had the occasion to blow up at, lowering myself to the roofing standard.
3-5pm: After a long day, it’s back on the public transport for me and another hour and a half trip home.
So after 3 months of roofing, that’s all there is to say about that! Time to move on…
STARTING
Thursday, May 15th, 2008FOR PERSONAL TRAINING AND FITNESS ON THE SUNSHINE COAST, QLD. CHECK OUT
STARTING WORK, SURREY
14/05/08
We only had to look for work for 1 day and bingo, we found something. I had been feeling like we really needed to start ASAP but I didn’t realise we would be going to work the next day! We have spent nearly all of our saved money on buying the RV and making it home, so I was feeling like we had to reverse the money flow soon, or else it would get too low, and I really don’t like the feeling of having no money.
I sat down near the RV park office to get WIFI and searched online for a couple of hours and found a few jobs to apply for, mostly by email, so I sent off both Jaime and my resumes to all of them. But it was through an advertisement for tree/landscaping that I had to call the guy and he said he would call me back later about possibly starting the next day!
His name was Charles and we had to meet him around
The work itself was very different to anything we have done before, especially Jaime, so she was a little nervous. We had to load up a big old truck with chainsaws and tools, then basically had to stand in the rain (it rained all day) while Charles went up in bucket at the end of a hydraulic arm to chainsaw a tree down, he would stop and we would have to go in and pull all the branches out and pile them behind the “chipper” to be wood chipped. After he had cut the whole tree down and we had piled everything behind the chipper, we had to feed the branches into the wood chipper and then clean the area of all the debris.
It took quite a long time as there was always lots of little stuff to pick up and clear and then we had to stack all the big logs into a pile and leave everything neat and tidy. We only completed 2 big trees that day.
We were filthy and soaked through, but we were working together and it was actually not too bad. We both decided that doing it every day would soon become tedious but for one day it was fine.
So today we meet his friend and probably will start work tomorrow for him, it has all fallen into place nicely and our good fortune continues!
-Owen
CANADIAN
Thursday, May 15th, 2008FOR PERSONAL TRAINING AND FITNESS ON THE SUNSHINE COAST, QLD. CHECK OUT
Dogwood Campground,
As we prepare to head off on our 3.5 km walk to the Avis car hire office, I find myself hoping everything goes smoothly today.
Today we have to go back into the
Thus we have hopefully found the loophole and come in as tourists with our RV (which was incredibly easy and quick) and now we go again but this time with a rental vehicle. Fingers crossed!
We made it! Had a good long walk to the car rental (it was more like 6km!) where we picked up a flashy little Mazda 3, but again had to pay extra for insurance. They always tell you at the last minute “oh yes and the insurance will be … per day” which in our case doubled the cost. Thankfully we got such a good deal that it was still ok.
We headed off towards the border, enjoying the smooth feel of the sports car and wishfully thinking how nice it would be to have a car as well as the RV (keep dreaming buddy).
By about 12.15 we were at the border to the
We had to drive through the booth area and pull over to the side, then go inside and activate our working visas with a customs officer inside the customs building.
The whole process was smooth and although I was a little nervous, everything went according to plan. We now have our work visas!
So now it is on to the job hunt, I hope we find work quickly and that the work we find pays well and is somewhat enjoyable. Heres hoping!
LOOKING
Monday, May 12th, 2008Why not visit
Being so close, Budapest was an inviting option, with an easy train ride bringing us to the main station in only about 3 and a half hours from Vienna.
We went into the tourism office, which we figured out afterwards was not an official tourist office, but one sponsored by certain hotels to get you to go to them. After finding a fair priced hotel (fair priced by European standards being expensive by Australian standards) we were picked up and driven there.
We spent the first evening walking around the city and decided to hire a scooter the next day and spend a whole day seeing everything that was on offer.
We decided to go to the train station and book our tickets before getting the scooter so we checked out of the hotel, left our bags there and went to catch the subway to the train station. This is where the trouble began…
Little did we know that once you buy the ticket (which we did) you have to validate it in this little orange box that is near the entrance to the underground… We just followed the crowd and no one else payed any attention to it and we didn’t think anything of it. Well, what a mistake that turned out to be. We arrived at the train station subway and were going up the escalator when we saw the inspectors standing at the top, checking everyone’s tickets. We still didn’t think anything was wrong until we showed our tickets and were pulled over to the side and informed that we hadn’t validated them and would have to pay a fine!
To make a long story short, after heavy arguing back and forth, outrage expressed by us and threats to call the police by them, Jaime lost it and started crying and yelling at them. They called the police and informed us that once the police were there, the fine would be much more. I had a feeling that if the traffic wardens, who weren’t even real police, were this tough, the police would probably also be and I really didn’t want to have to deal with that, so I had to pay about $80 AUD to these buggers and our day had a very sour taste to it.
Damn it!
We hopped on a bus to the train station and tried to buy a ticket, but the bus diver was all out of tickets and wouldn’t have a bar of us, so we sat down. You can guess what happened next. Yes, a ticket inspector got on the bus! This was looking to be our day.
We were ready to just do a runner but a couple of kind local women stood up for us vehemently, the ticket inspector was not impressed and it took the help of these two women to talk her down and convince her we were not trying to break any rules. Even then she looked very unimpressed and our dislike for Hungarian Officials was solidified.
And so, it was with more than a little frustration that we left the city of
So for those of you, who venture
LOOKING
Sunday, May 11th, 2008FOR PERSONAL TRAINING AND FITNESS ON THE SUNSHINE COAST, QLD. CHECK OUT
THE TRAIN RIDE FROM HELL, AHMEDNAGAR -
We had planned on going south towards
We planned to be gone for about a month, hoping to cover vast distances and see much of northern
Our trip started off in possibly the worst fashion I have ever experienced. Actually I take that back, it was definitely the worst!
We had pre-booked a rickshaw from Pats (friend of the family) house and all went smoothly, said goodbye to Sage and my parents and off we went into the night.
Thankfully we were befriended by a group of 3 young Indian men at the train station; they had been staying at Meherabad also (a spiritual retreat for Meher Baba). If we had not bumped into them it is safe to say we would most definitely missed our train, not that that would have been a bad thing considering the train journey…
The small sign that we were in for a bumpy journey came when large groups started chanting loudly all around the station. Apparently there was a big Rham religious festival in
The ticket man had only had one type of seat left “sleeper” class was what it was called. I probably should have clarified; you should ALWAYS clarify in
So our new friends informed us that we had to change platform, which we did with hordes of others, but there were far less of us walking over the proper crossing than those who decided to just jump down and run across the 4 sets of tracks! Our friends informed us that it may be a “bit tricky” getting onto the train, as many people would try and cram on, most of whom didn’t have tickets by the sound of things. So they kindly delegated one to go to their seats (air conditioned and reserved) while the other two helped us.
When the train finally pulled into the station, people were running everywhere, the system is such that you have a carriage number and seat number within that carriage, but before the train arrives you have no way of knowing where the carriage will be on the train, and the platforms are nearly a kilometre long! Of course, when the train slowly pulls in, people spot their carriage moving past them or realise by the order of numbers that theirs is at the other end and you have what we were witnessing, the excitement of Indian train travel!
So we joined the running throngs and made it to our carriage with the help of our two friends, the doorway was packed 10 deep and 4-5 wide with people trying to get in! We had to get pretty forceful to have any chance of getting on this train!
The frustrating thing is that this is common in
After some serious pushing and shoving we got onto the train with our two
Both of the bunks we had booked were occupied, by people with no reservation and who didn’t look like they much cared.
Thankfully we had our two Indian cohorts, who argued away until we had one of our seats, the other seat was still occupied by an old man, a child and another man who refused to move despite valiant efforts by our friends to get them down. Most other passengers in the carriage were Rham followers and seemed to laugh at the thought that we might have a seat to ourselves. So that is how it was that we had to spend nearly twenty hours sharing one seat between the two of us and our big bag as well, and having to endure the leers and constant loud chanting or Indian music that went on all through the night.
I managed to catch a couple of moments of shut eye but poor Jaime felt so uncomfortable that she didn’t sleep at all. We were so pleased to get to
And so we were in
RV-ING
Tuesday, May 6th, 2008FOR PERSONAL TRAINING AND FITNESS ON THE SUNSHINE COAST, QLD. CHECK OUT
As I sit at our dinette waiting for Jaime to finish in the shower, I have a peaceful moment to reflect over the past couple of weeks. The busy, non-stop RV hunt and buy is over, it was an exciting time, full of decisions and action. Very soon we have ahead of us the long drive back up to
Our first long drive in the RV began with the final delivery of our GPS navigation tool (the Garmin Nuvi 300) oh I love this thing! We then had to mosey on over to our RV dealer to get a couple of things worked out that we couldn’t figure out. Then to the
We had a rough destination in mind; a state park just north of
We spent a couple of quiet days at Carl G. enjoying a good long walk up to Heceta head lighthouse and a long stroll on the beach. Waking up to the sight of nothing but trees out the window and having nothing on our to do list is nothing short of incredible. This is the lifestyle we have chosen and it’s not half bad!
After Carl G. we stopped off at sea lion cave, one of the largest sea caves in the world, inhabited year round by sea lions. Of course, there was a whole tourist thing set up, with a shop and even a lift that took us down through the rock, to the cave itself. It had a pretty good whiff of sea lion pee and excrement but was pretty spectacular on the visual side.
We ended up here at
Well, the shower is free and boy do I need one!
