Notes from BC - A collection of writings about life in British Columbia

Lou's Birthday & A Trip To America

On Wednesday it was Lou's 27th birthday, the second one she has celebrated in Vancouver. In the morning, after opening her pressies she did a video chat with her family and then around midday we made our way to Stanley Park to visit the Vancouver Aquarium. We'd been to the aquarium in 2005 but had not visited it since we moved here permanently. It was ok but I have to say it wasn't as good as we remembered and because it's the summer holidays it was absolutely packed full of people. We stayed for just over an hour but it was so crowded and hot in there we decided to leave after seeing as much as we could. We then took a walk along the sea wall and then went for "a couple" of drinks in a bar on the water front, it was so hot the frosted glasses and cool beer went down really well. Lou then moved on to the cocktails and we had a good laugh at some British holiday makers who provided us with much entertainment with their very vocal and incessant moaning!

In the evening we went to The Keg restaurant for a nice meal, it's become our favourite place to go to when we want really good food and it was probably about our 4th or 5th in the last year. Like Lou's birthday last year we had a lobster starter and then a nice steak each too. It was very good and the waiter did a good job at understanding my British accent which had become considerably slurred as the evening progressed! 

The next day after allowing our heads to clear (more mine than anything!) we headed down to the USA so Lou could spend some of the money she'd received for her birthday. Apart from the time we flag-polled in June it was the first time we'd properly driven down to the states. The border is only an hour away from home but it takes about 90 minutes to get through as there's aways a considerable line up if you go at peak times. With Lou having a British passport we also needed to go inside their office so she could get photographed, finger printed and pay for a Visa waiver (only $6 USD). In total it still only took about 2.5 hours to get to Bellingham though and coming back home was even quicker. Once we got to Bellingham the fun began for Lou, I volunteered to be the bag boy and Lou enjoyed buying lots of new clothes! The prices in America are so much cheaper than Canada it was definitely worth it. A lot of things were 50% cheaper and some things even a 1/3 of the price in BC, Lou definitely got better value for her money down there. Even after paying double tax (Washington tax and BC HST upon returning) everything still worked out far cheaper than buying it at home! We didn't take too many photos as most of the time we were just inside shops but we had a good day down there. Lou's Visa waiver is good for another 90 days so I'm sure we'll be making a few more trips in the next couple months.

                                 

Filed under  //   Downtown Vancouver   USA  

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Camping At Sombrio Beach

On Friday we went on another camping trip this time over on Vancouver Island. It was the first time I'd been back to Vancouver Island in over 25 years (and I couldn't remember it then as I was so young) it was also Lou's first ever time visiting. We caught the 9am ferry over from Tsawwassen and arrived at Swartz bay in Victoria about 90 minutes later. The ferry ride over was nice, we got to see some beautiful scenery on the way. Knowing it might be the last time we would eat properly for a couple of days we decided to have a cooked breakfast during the crossing.  

After we arrived on the Island it then took us about another 2 hours to get to where we were camping, at Sombrio Beach on the South-West of the Island. The roads were very different to what we've become accustomed to in Vancouver where it is like a grid system. On the Island the roads (once you're off the main routes) are very windy and narrow, it was similar to driving in Wales or in the more rural parts of England. The Island itself is quite different too, it is more sparse and it also looks a little bit old fashioned too but I mean this in a quaint way. It was a good ride for the most part, there were some one-way bridges that we had to cross and some encounters with road-hog logging trucks but we took our time and enjoyed the ride over. This was until we hit the dirt track for the final part which was full of pot holes and big rocks that we had to avoid, we were warned about this by my mate Dave (who organized the trip) but we didn't expect it to be so dodgy. I was just glad when we parked up and the car was undamaged.

The beach was about a 10 minute walk from the car park and was mostly downhill. We were warned to pack light which we tried to do but it still took 3 trips to get the stuff down there, it was even worse bringing it all back!  Once we got to the beach we found our friends who then helped us put up our new tent which we were thankful for. We'd brought a bigger one during the week and after sensing we didn't know what we were doing they stepped in to help us out and had it up within minutes. Although it is deemed an official camp site it was one without any real facilities, no warm showers, no picnic tables and no flushing toilets. There were outhouses which to be honest freaked me out a little bit (and smelt awful) but sometimes you just got to do what you got to do and get on with it! I will spare you the details of anything else regarding that aspect of the trip but it did create it's own funny moments! 

More of our other friends arrived during the day and for the remainder of Friday we just chilled in the sun around the camp fire with a few beers. The scenery was amazing, the place so peaceful and listening to the sea was super relaxing. My mate CJ said it only took a couple of hours before he felt chilled out, I think the rest of us all felt the same too. In the evening we started to cook our dinner on a little stove that we'd took along with us but it was taking a long time to heat anything. Thankfully our friend Erik had an awesome propane stove which he let us use and that was far better for cooking on. Sand was a constant battle to keep out of the tent and our shoes but after a while we just realized the best solution is to just embrace it and let sand get everywhere because you can't really fight it! We had a really good fire going in the evening and it kept us warm whilst we had a beer (or two…maybe three…or four…five etc!). One of our friends Sokha arrived with some more people at midnight. Somehow they managed to pitch up their tents in the dark which I thought was a pretty good achievement! By this point I'd had a few drinks so wasn't the most useful. I was relegated to lantern duty, a task which even then I didn't do to well at! Lou headed to sleep shortly after 11 on the first night after a very busy day, I managed to stay awake until 1am before heading to bed. The first night's sleep was ok but I woke up every few hours so and felt a little worse for wear when I woke up the next day. 

On Saturday morning there was a thick mist across the shore of the beach, on the photos it looks like the weather was rough but it wasn't too bad and was actually quite warm. Our friend Dave took us on a cool walk to a waterfall and we also had a look around a cave and some rock pools. The waterfall by all accounts was freezing, several people braved it and ducked underneath it but I wasn't brave enough and neither was Lou! On the way back to the camp site Lou spotted a small black bear in the woods but I missed it as I was attempting to collect firewood with CJ and Erik. We found out from the rangers later on in the evening that it was on his own as they'd had to remove it's mother last year as it was becoming dangerous. We were told the younger bear wasn't aggressive but we should be sensible with storing our food as it has no fear of humans and will try and get whatever it's interested in. Towards the end of the day the mist cleared and then the sun came out again and we had a really warm evening. We set up another camp fire, this time mostly made up of wood we'd gathered during the day. The 2nd night I slept a lot better and woke up on Sunday feeling refreshed which I wasn't expecting after significantly indulging in the good times the night before. We packed up our stuff around Mid day and made our way back home in the afternoon. We got back to Vancouver around 5pm and quickly jumped into the shower, never before has one felt so great!  

It was easy to loose track of time whilst we we there. We had no cell coverage, no distractions, no noise and no stress - it was great. We were there for two nights and three days but it definitely seemed a lot longer than that. We all had a great time, there were some really good laughs and it's definitely the best camping trip I've ever had. I've tried to put some of it in words in this blog post but I really can't do it justice, hopefully the photos will help with that! It sounds kind of corny but it was really one of those special trips with it's own uniqueness, you really had to be there to understand how cool it was. All I can say is it was simply awesome and I'm thankful to my friend Dave for organizing it all for us. I have to admit I did enjoy getting back to a warm shower and flushing toilet though!

                                                                                                       
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camping-at-sombrio-beach-jsJzdDChIdbDcsoekErB.zip (105804 KB)

 

Filed under  //   Sombrio   Vancouver Island  

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Camping at Cultus Lake

A few days ago we went on our first Canadian camping trip to Cultus Lake. There are quite a few sites around the lake and we opted to stay at Entrance Bay which was only $30 a night. This weekend we're doing some more camping with our friends over at Sombrio Beach on Vancouver Island and we'd decided we wanted to get some camping experience before we go there. We picked Cultus after remembering how beautiful it was on our day trip there last year. It only took us about an hour and half to get there from home and we managed to get the tent up in the early afternoon which allowed us to spend plenty of time beside the lake. We had brought a mini collapsable stove which took a while to get going and in the end (without realizing at first we could pull the wick out to make it burn better) we built up a camp fire and finished of cooking our dinner on there. We hadn't purchased any wood but luckily we found some nearby and I found some good tinder to get it going (though Lou soon took over!), Ray Mears would have been proud! 

The tent itself was smaller then we thought and the inflatable bed we had brought only just fit inside. I couldn't even stretch out flat (despite it apparently being 7ft long) so it was a bit cramped to say the least, it's a good job Lou doesn't take up much room! It said on the tent's box it was supposed to be a 3 man tent, I can only presume those three men must have been the size of garden gnomes. Somehow we still managed to get a semi-decent nights sleep. It was great to be away from the noise of the city and all we could hear at night were birds and thankfully no bears, a night without hearing sirens was bliss. The following day we drove a couple of KM's down the road to one of the secluded ends of the lake. They have several piers there so we found a good spot for some sun bathing. It started to get a bit hot so I decided to cool down and take a swim in the lake but Lou couldn't be persuaded into the cold water. It's nice to have a great place like this only 90 minutes away from home and it really was a good relaxing trip. It's definitely something we'll be doing again and maybe for a few more nights next time.

                                     
Click here to download:
camping-at-cultus-lake-FJeCtsqxljkroarzJCwe.zip (35800 KB)

Filed under  //   Cultus Lake  

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