A FORTNIGHT OF FAMILY FAREWELLS

Big White comes to an end, an eventful six weeks spent skiing and for some of us coming to terms with snowboarding techniques. Jan has now progressed to being able to stand up and come down the mountain (nursery slopes) under reasonable control even putting the odd turn in on the way, mind you she does have a sore coccyx and wrist after one or two heavy falls during these stages, but fortunately no broken bones always a plus point.

The ski slopes of Canada have lived up to all our expectations, light powdery snow coupled with empty chair lifts have made for some very enjoyable skiing, especially the last four weeks, where unbroken sunshine has been the order of the day. The eight weeks we have spent skiing here means that we have skied more in Canada than in Europe, something we never thought we might be able to do a few years ago.

We leave Big White on the 13th March catching up with family on our way back to Vancouver. Pat & Bev who I have not seen since 1973, are our first visit down in Kelowna, and then my cousin Nigel has a son who lives in the Okanagan valley at Summerland which is our next stop, getting to know members of our family who we have never met has been one of the nice experiences during our round the world trip. After a very enjoyable drive on highway 3 back to Vancouver, where I hasten to add it didn’t rain at all during the whole drive, a first for us during our stay in Canada. We spend the night in Vancouver before catching the ferry the next morning over to Vancouver Island and the capital city of B.C, Victoria.

This is a very English city which we were quite taken with, spring has definitely arrived here with the tree blossom and daffodils in full bloom. We stay overnight taking in all the usual tourist haunts,
Parliament building,

Thunderbird Park

Craigdarroch Castle,

complete with a couple of local pubs with their own brew dark ales (one even had coffee in it which was particularly nice) and a visit to China town to reacquaint ourselves with Asian food. Our whistle stop tour cumulates with a drive to Courtney nearer the north end of the island where we stop with my cousin Nigel & his wife Heather,

We were going to be picking up Charlotte & Jamie from Mt Washington which is only twenty minutes up the road, but they finished work a week early and took the bus to Kelowna, so we just had to collect their bags from Nigel’s, as we will meet up with them in Vancouver on Friday. Our last week in Vancouver is spent with Charlotte & Jamie,

we have a great couple of days down on Lummi Island in the states with my relatives before

returning to Vancouver so they can fly home on the 25th March, after 18 months of working the ski hills and great outdoors of Canada, it’s been a great experience for them, but all good things must come to an end and so the UK will yet again become their home, for a little while anyway? We cram the sights of Vancouver in over a couple of days, now that the crowds from the Olympics have gone there’s a lot more room in the city for the rest of us, the sun actually shines on Friday and Saturday and we take the skytrain into the city to take in Canada Place, Gastown, & it's steam driven clock.

The view from Vancouver lookout

The Capilano suspension bridge

last visited by me in 1971, it’s now got a treetop walk added attraction with sky high admission prices to go with it. We have now been in Canada some three months and our first impressions of Canada are mixed, the weather has been our first surprise, the amount of rainfall that Vancouver receives during the winter period surpasses anywhere else so far on our travels, we thought England was grey and wet but that’s nothing compared to here, the summers might be nice, but it’s a long long wet winter so we are taking Vancouver off our somewhere else to live list. Mobile phones are a lot more expensive to operate over here, paying to receive calls as well as to make them, and then the banking system must be making a small fortune, as they charge their customers for personal accounts, and yet again chip & pin has not yet taken off so the credit card fraud problem must be astronomical, we have used our card several times where they don’t even take a signature or a pin number all you need is a card (anybody’s card) and away you go. We leave tomorrow for Whistler and the 6000km+ drive across Canada to Halifax on the eastern coast, we are both looking forward to adjusting to life back on the road, but this time we will be sleeping in the back of our car where we can, so let’s hope the sun comes out and it warms up soon so that we can enjoy all of our journey across Canada and not just the parts where the car heater is on.

FAMILY, FRIENDS & FUN IN FEBRUARY.

BIG WHITE VILLAGE CENTRE.

February, the shortest month of the year, and this in turn will probably be the shortest entry in our blog since we started our travels back in April 2008. The editor apologies in advance for the lack of content in this edition, due to excessive skiing, drinking & eating, while catching up on old times with friends and family over from the UK.

We arrive up at Big White on the 30th January after leaving Vancouver yet again in the pouring rain, my that place certainly sees more than it’s fair share of the wet stuff!!

After a four hour drive we arrive up here late in the evening, picking our way through a fog laden night. Unfortunately Canada doesn’t do cat’s eyes in the road, and as for safety barriers on the small windy mountain road up to the resort, well they have not yet been thought of. So we pick our way along a thick foggy unknown road which was always going to be fun, but we made it with eyes that seemed liked they stood out on stalks by the time we reached the apartment. We had found the apartment on a website called “owners direct” back in March 09 and although we had been concerned as to what it would actually be like, I’m pleased to say we have not been disappointed, with fine views out over the village & valley.

During our first week, the resort lives up to its nickname of Big Whiteout and the fog sits on the mountain constantly, so much so that we can hardly see across the road let alone anything else. After a tentative week of skiing through mist laden slopes and hugging a few trees that appear out of the gloom we are ready for our first guests, Kat & Debbie. They arrive on the Saturday and fortunately bring the sun with them, so much so it’s a barmy 25 degrees in the apartment when we arrive back up the mountain; at least they get to see the view from our balcony, which we haven’t even seen yet.

Kat spends the week skiing with us on the slopes where you can at least now see the trees. Although Debbie is not the most outdoor activities person, she certainly throws herself into the week and we are all amazed to hear her complaining that she is to warm, especially after the 5km snowshoe trail.

                                    

On the final day, what was going to be a photo shoot in Jan’s skis, leads to Debbie having a go on the nursery slope, where we had to prise her out of Jan’s skis after a couple of solo runs down the hill, could this mean Europe for skiing next year!!

                                                  

We had a great week together and after catching up with all the news from Suffolk, I’m definitely pleased we chose travelling to broaden our horizons. Although this is going to be the longest time spent living in one place since we left England, time is still flying by

                                              LUNCH ON THE BALCONY

Our third week up here is spent with Ann & Ralph our good friends from Suffolk.

who aim to improve their skiing skills during their time with us.

                                                   RALPHS TORTURE BOOTS

Although Ralph needs no encouragement to parallel ski and is soon comfortable on the slopes, Ann takes a little longer to overcome her fear of hurtling uncontrollably down the slopes, but before the week is out she is quite happy skiing down the slopes amongst all those Swiss skiers!!!!! They are actually the ski patrol, but Ann mistook the white cross on their back for the Swiss flag , an easy mistake eh Ann! Jan’s sister Judith & Colin are our last visitors from home, and after going for the relaxing

Sunday like we did with all our other guests, Judith decides that the open air skating rink cannot be missed after all she say’s I enjoy skating! Well the two sisters take to the ice, Colin & I opting to sit this one out, someone’s got to look after the bags. Jan has trouble getting into motion a lot of skate slippage and going nowhere (well it has a been a few years), where as Judith is off and well into her first lap before Jan even leaves the side. But it is on the last turn that disaster strikes and Judith crashes to the ice with a nasty bump to the head, even though Colin & I don’t have skates, it doesn’t stop us from taking to the ice to administer first aid which is much easier said than done as we slide across the rink out of control, Colin, still grasping Judith’s handbag which he was minding while standing at the side, makes for quite an entertaining sight, meanwhile Jan is still trying to get her skates into motion over on the side, if it hadn’t been for Judith’s injury it would have resembled one of the old black & white silent movies with laughter breaking out all around. But I’m pleased to report that after a check up at the ski patrol hut with the doctor (Ann that’s where all those Swiss live) Judith whose head is a little sore, is given a clean bill of health and she gets the all clear for skiing the rest of the week. Although the doctor encouraged us all to get helmets before venturing onto the slopes as concussion injuries as we are now finding out are the most common injuries treated here at Big White be it on the ice or the slopes. Another good weeks skiing with no more injuries I hasten to add, means we can return our guests

back to the airport all in one piece, hopefully everybody enjoyed their stay in Canada with us, we certainly enjoyed meeting back up with all of you. We now have another two weeks here at the ski resort, and now that we have helmets, we hope to improve on our between the trees technique, instead of our into

the trees technique! Jan has a couple of snowboard lessons booked so standby for an update in the next edition, if all goes well lookout Charlotte your mum will be after your board.