29-30th March, Vancouver, BC

Back in Vancouver, snow was falling, ironic as it is supposed to be spring conditions. Sitting in the office on Saturday watching the snow fall and fall as large clumps sliding off the building was quite nice.

By the following the day the snow had all melted. Here is a shot from my apartment window.

After a big half day at work on Sunday, Leo called up and asked if I would like to come fly his kite at Jericho Beach. Why not? It was a beautiful spring day in Vancouver, a balmy 8 degrees Celsius. We caught a taxi and the driver spoke loudly to his mate on his mobile phone in pahsskwami or some language like that for the whole trip which we thought was quite rude. The wind was gusty and awesome to fly a kite with. The sun poked it’s head from the clouds for most of the afternoon while Hornado and I got the kite in the air. Leo was getting in some practice before heading to Mexico for some kite surfing. Leo dominated and I went better than the last time. Towards the end I swooped some kids walking along the beach unintentionally and landed the kite numerous times like a John Denver plane ride. Ooops! It was a great way to spend an afternoon. Vancouverites love seeing the sun and if it isn’t raining they embrace the fine(-ish) weather.

A few beers at the local sailing club and then back into town. Leo and I caught up with Belly, the guy that pushed me around the slopes of Whistler months previous, We were lucky as the Loose Moose did $6.95 surf and turf. We washed that down with a few tins with another bloke and his missus, who we have snowboarded with, Jason.

24th March - Vancouver, BC - Points North SK

Today, I was embarking on a trip that I wanted to do but wasn’t expecting I was going to do it. I was heading to site in northern Saskatchewan to check on the progress, discuss some of the work I had done and review the project with a group of analysts. It took nearly a full day of travel to get to Points North and I am so glad I got up there. The trip went via Edmonton and Saskatoon. It was funny to see these cities with isolated snow patches and semi-frozen lakes. Very different from autumn when we were through there last.

The Rockies were snow covered.

So were the fields. And the lakes were frozen over!

The boys, Dave, Corey and Matt met us at Points and it was a beautiful clear sunny day and a touch below zero at -16 degrees C. Officially my coldest temperature, good for Australian, but pretty warm for a Canadian! The airport looked so different with snow piled up around the tarmac that had been ploughed off. The lake was covered in nearly a metre of snow.
On arrival to camp, I was so surprised to see it. All of the tents were surrounded with snow and the roads were covered in a layer of hard packed snow and ice. I got to my original tent I stayed in when I first arrived what seemed a long time ago and got set up (and put on my warm clothes).

I went for a walk and snapped some shots. The snow was up to 1m deep in places and you would fall through it up to your crutch. It was tough going walking through it.

The tents looked quite different from the summer season with all of the snow on them.

Our summer tent was nearly hidden from the thick snow!

In the fall, the guys cleared a small area and made a snowboard terrain park on one of the drumlin edges. I got to see Glasglacius and Cooktits nail some of the jumps.

Cooktits hit a ptarmigan while driving today and we were told it was good eating. Our chef cooked it up and to say it was yummy was an overstatement. The taste was a bit too gamey for me. It looked like a rhinocerous beetle in the baking pan.

Smokes ended up reading that night while I walked around in -20 to snap some shots, like the icicles formed on one of the logging shacks.

16th March, Perth - Sydney - Los Angeles - Vancouver

I had to go back to Canada to complete some consulting work. Tan and I got up early Sunday morning. It wasn't much fun saying bye to Tan, but the trip is only for three weeks.

In the tranist lounge, Ben Lee was hanging out and he caught the same bus as me. A chance encounter and it was a spin out seeing him again. In Sydney, I hung out in the lounge and took some shots of the CBD. It is amazing, both Tan and I have been to Sydney airport a number of times but never got out and visited it. Overseas, as soon as you say Australia, they say Sydney and then ask what it is like. It looks great (on the TV and magazines). We both agree Sydney is on our travel list for this year.

An overnight long haul flight and like ground hog day it was Sunday again, a function of travelling over the international date line. I arrived in LA, and grateful to see my bag come off the plane. Last time, LA lost my bag which pissed me off. I put my bag through connecting luggage and walked to another terminal to catch the flight to Vancouver. Ben Lee was in front of me in the queue at immigration. In the distance, I could actually see snow capped mountains!!

The flight was nice, seeing the Pacific Coast states of the North-West. Like twice before, I flew over the Cascades and got to see volcanoes. This time covered in a lot of snow and the surrounding lakes were frozen over. Cold! In comparison to the 41 C day in Perth last week this place has a big difference.

On arrival in Vancouver, I sorted out some immigration stuff and then I got that sick feeling. I had arrived in Vancouver but my bags hadn't. Now I'm a fairly relaxed guy but not having a bag of clothes in cold Vancouver made me feel very disappointed.

I have a little word of wisdom for you travellers out there.

STAY THE F*CK AWAY FROM LA AIRPORT AS THEY ALWAYS LOSE YOUR BAGGAGE!!

This is the third time in three months my bag has gone missing and it is the only pitfall in the fun of travelling!

Brendo cooked a great roast with fantastic gravy. Catching up with Leo, Andrea, Brendo and Lesley was awesome. Brendo and I ended up hitting the town until everything closed. I was a little tired.

It took four days for my luggage to turn up and I was mildly f*cked off with Alaskan Airlines and dreading going through LA on the way home.

It wasn't until the weekend, until Leo and I hit the turps. We had beers including the massive 250ml French beer called Boris. A group of ended up at the Copper Tank, which has lots of memories and then back at Jen's place where we played Rock Band on PS3. I am crap at the Playstation Guitar! Another late boozy night.

6th February – Toronto, Canada – Ocho Rios, Jamaica

With the three hour time difference between Toronto and Vancouver we ended up landing in Toronto just after 7.00am. The flight was fairly turbulent and we kept getting lower and lower and then suddenly there was the tarmac. Not that we could see it, because it and the rest of the airport and the whole of Toronto had been covered in a blanket of snow. No wander so many planes had been cancelled or diverted. We hopped off the plane and cleared through immigration to the International Airport. We stopped for possibly the most unappetizing breakfast that included yellow rubber eggs. Not too tasty. I then stocked up on the some duty free as it was one of the few flights that we would not be transiting through the US for, hence unable to bring much onto the plane in the way of liquid. We then had to hang around the airport for around a further two hours to wait for our connection to Montego Bay in Jamaica. We just sat and watched the snow plows in action trying to remove all of the snow and ice around the airport. We saw 19 snowplows at one time (and we could only see a section of the airport) working overtime to enable the flow of planes to occur. We finally boarded for Jamaica and taxied out along the runways when the pilot advised that we would have to stop at the “De-Icing Station” to have all of the snow and ice melted off the plane. These machines lift up high off the ground with long spray machines that spray the aircraft with warm water (coloured green or orange to show where it has been sprayed) and all of the ice and snow slid off and then we were off. Bring on the warm weather!
Lifting off from Toronto we could see that the whole city was under a blanket of snow. We quickly went into the clouds and that was Canada gone. On our approximately 4 hours and 40 minute flight to Jamaica we passed over a lot of the Caribbean. We could see the Bahamas and its’ capital Nassau.Next, we flew over the top of Cuba. Both looked amazing and the water was clear and turquoise from the air. We finally made it to Jamaica and we flew along the coast. Jamaica was so green, hilly and the water was clear. Alarmingly it had its airport right on the water so we were sitting around 20 metres above the water and still could not see the runway! Never mind, we landed safely and it was warm!!! It took us well over an hour to clear customs. We whizzed through immigration and we were off on our two hour trip to Ocho Rios. The bus left, stopping for beer (as Jamaicans do).We just ended up sleeping for part of the journey being so tired from the red eye flight and long day of travel. It was dark by the time we arrived in the hotel. We had dinner and a drink and crashed early, ready to explore Jamaica tomorrow!

3rd February – Whistler – Vancouver, BC, Canada

Tan and I woke up first out of the group in the condo. Our check out time was 10am and we woke up at 9:30am. After our shower Tan did the rounds waking everyone up. There were a lot of sore heads after the late night. We cleaned up and when everyone was nearly ready, there was a knock on the door. Four young blokes turned up just we all had finished packing. The give away was that one was carrying a vacuum cleaner. So that was a good cue to call the taxis to go into town.
With our gear dropped off we hit the Irish pub for a quick breakfast. Belly, Mick and I were very keen to hit the slopes. During breakfast Brendo had a wave of nausea which wasn’t much fun. We parked him up outside in the cool air and it didn’t take long for him to feel better.

The three of us hit the lifts with Jaimie following a few gondolas behind. At the top of the gondola the view was magic! Mick was keen to practice by himself on the slopes after a fall the day before. I, on the other hand, was keen to try anything Belly and Jaimie had to throw at me! With only 500m of boarding under my belt for the day, we hit the Peak chairlift. This took us to the top of Whistler. It was a cool -10 C but it was party cloudy and the view was absolutely unbelievable!! A full 360 degree panorama greeted us. We stopped for a few photos and then we were off down the slopes. Our first run was on the icy side of the peak. At one stage I fell and the icy slope was like a big slippery slide. As soon my edge grabbed I slow down and composed myself to board down. Jaimie and Belly were great. They were quicker than me but always stopped to make sure I was alright and could catch up. Back up another two chairlifts and we were on the peak again but we went the other way. We went all over the mountain, hunting out relatively fresh snow. One black run, was a steep slope where I could put my hands out on the slope while going down. Towards the base of it I had to get quite a bit of speed to get through the powdery bowl. I stopped on a ridge and made a video of me snowboarding and after about 30 seconds I crashed. The snow here was really soft and it was more funny than sore to fall.

We hit more slopes and ended up going down a black run full of moguls along a ridge with drop offs. I felt confident and took it easy. Once off the ridge we met a awesome slope full of powder that was sensational. At the base of the chairlift we consulted the run map and realized we could get something similar by hitting the Glacier Bowl. We did and it was that good, we hit again, with 7 minutes left before that lift closed. Such a memorable run, and the best fun I have had in a while (and I have done a lot of fun things too). Belly and Jaimie pushed me hard and I rose to the challenge, very sore and exhausted.
We broke up and boarded into the Whistler Village where everybody was hanging out. Tan, Brendo and Toni spent the best part of the day being pampered in a day spa and drinking hot chocolate.

The limo arrived at 5:30pm and the driver wasn’t concerned about speeding. This guy flew down the mountain and got us into Vancouver in no time. At this stage we didn’t really care as we were all tired after our Whistler Rock Star weekend “Living the dream!!”.

2nd February – Whistler, BC, Canada

Tan and I woke up a bit late, admired the pile of snow on the balcony and then walked down the icy road to the base of Blackcomb Mountain. After a quick breakfast, I geared up and then went up the chairlift then onto another. Here I was ready for my first run, a blue or intermediate run. I was a little risty at the start feeling the edge on this different board and the run was a little icy. I made it successfully to the bottom and then hit the next parallel run and threw in a few jumps. I was feeling good by now! I waited for the group after a few phone calls, six of us met at the bottom of Jersey Cream chairlift. Belly, Jaimie and Toni on skis and Horn, Andrea and I on boards. We cruised down the start of the run I did previous and then decided we would hit a black (or difficult) run. On the way I hit a jump and got about 1m of air but I had a flat landing.

The black run was a little ambitious. It was full of moguls, though at least the top of the moguls was soft and powdery. I took a lot of powder as I graded my way through the piles of snow. I made it to the bottom of the moguls, a first for me, thinking that it wasn’t the best run to try for my third day on the board. It was still lots of fun.

We ended up going up near the peak of Blackcomb and work our way along a mix of blue runs and the occasional green or easy cat track. Following Horn down the hill and seeing what jumps he was hitting gave me confidence to nail a few on the way down. Near the top of the mountain, the snow was more fresh and powdery and just a pleasure to snowboard through. The crashes were more pleasurable as they didn’t hurt at all!
We had a late lunch, chili, of course, and then hit the same area. We went down a steep moguled black run called Heavenly Paradise. We took it easy, as Leo twisted his ankle. After that I went back to the top and boarded all the way down the mountain to the bottom. When I realized I had gone to the wrong spot I went up the slowest chairlift ever on the beginner run to get back and around to the base of the Whistler and Blackcomb gondolas. With one more day under belt on the slopes, I felt quite confident to hit small jumps, link turns and board switch heel side – pretty impressed. Along the way down, I boarded into an awaiting Brendo and Tan, who had spent the day watching Logan’s Run (dreadful 60’s flick) and James Bond. We walked the 500m down the ski slope to Black’s pub to catch up with the rest of the crew. With some indecision, six of us stayed in for booze and food with the idea of cooking a BBQ. All but one of us were Aussies, so a BBQ sounded like a great area. But first the hot tub beckoned us all to come in, so we did, complete with champers and Coronas. The hot water on the aching muscles was exactly what the doctor ordered.
Well, it was way to cold to cook outside, so Belly and I started with the snags in the fry pan. We had no oil and the Canadian snags aren’t like ours which are filled with fat and oil and the occasional bit of meat. We cooked the snags in a mix of water, hommus and beer. Very untraditional but we had limited (no) supplies. It turned out well!