Good Morning Whistler !!!  Well it’s a 6am start and we’re wide awake and enjoying the sun coming up over the mountains …. 7:30am and Lewis finally wakes up.  8am and we use Skype to call Lewis’ mum and dad and then I take this doll called Spike outside to photograph him on his “travels”.  Well without trying to bore you too much, who or what is Spike? Well he is a doll character used to try to engage with kids and get them into school.

Well now that we are up and dressed, we go downstairs and next door for breakfast where we have eggs benedict with Canadian Bacon and hash browns.

So now that the we and the vehicle are fuelled up we program the SatNav for Savonna and oh my god what a drive!!!  What an incredible drive through the mountains so of course the journey took god knows how much longer because we just had to keep stopping to admire the view.

We arrive in a place called Pemberton where we stopped at a Gas station to try and buy a map, but sadly they had sold out.  Due to us being British the guy asked for help with his crossword with the clue being “8 stone in the UK” and the answer was 3 letters !!!  Well we couldn’t help him with that one so we moved on….

When we arrived we were advised that if we were going anywhere outside of towns or cities that it would be wise to have a bear spray, so whilst we were in town we stopped at a shop called Spud Valley where we bought a large bear spray and holster and a new knife to replace Lewis’ old trusty Beretta which has seen better days….

So we continue to drive through the most magnificent mountain scenery where you wouldn’t believe that we see another Ford Escape, the same as ours, as in the same colour.  Well it turns out that the number plates were 1 digit out and that they had rented theirs from the same company but had picked theirs up from Calgary and were driving to Banff…  Who would believe that you travel all that distance to meet a Scottish family in our vehicles “Brother”..

After bumping into the Scottish family we drive down the road for a kilometer or 2 and then stop at a gas station to fill up.  They seem to have a very strange rule over here where you have to pay for your fuel “up front”, but were both very pleased to see just how cheap fuel is over here for us British !!!

Well we finally arrived in Savona and were pleased we hadn’t pre-booked accommodation as this place was nothing to write home about so we swiftly moved on up the highway to Kamloops where we stayed in a Sheraton hotel.  To be perfectly honest we have decided that we were just spoilt with the very first hotel we stayed in Whistler…..

WIth jetlag kicking in nicely it was back to the hotel to flop out after we had eaten.

We woke up ridiculously early this morning-wide awake by 6.30am! What to do?

The owner of the log cabin told us of a trail that we could drive that leads to the top of one of the mountains so we put the cameras in the car and off we went. Take a right by reflection lake we were told-how hard could it be??

We found the road and I use this term loosely as it’s a forestry “road” which winds 14km up a mountainside……half an hour later, with Lewis doing his best off roading efforts, and having seen our first wildlife of the trip- three deer, we reach the top of the mountain and wow-the view as the sun lights the mountains.

We were not alone- we met 2 guys who had slept int heir cars overnight so they could go paragliding first thing! We watched one of them launch himself off the top with a very flimsy looking chute!

Onwards to the Wolf centre where were spent some time listening to the work they are trying to do and realising how wolf like our two hoolies are! As we arrived, we were greeted with howling- apparently that doesn’t happen often so we were honoured!

Now in MacDonalds as we missed breakfast and it’s nearly 2pm here…… and having a giggle with a very large couple who came in and made everyone else feel skinny….order 2 go-large third pounder meals and when they were asked what drinks they wanted, she said-” Oh I’d better have a diet coke” and he said ” I’ll take a coffee but I guess I should have sweetener in it”!!!!!!!

We were thinking of heading to Banff but as Lake Louise was closer we’d go there first instead and stop there for the night.  We drove into Lake Louise village and up to see the Lake.

Well Lake Louise is just breath-taking, stunning, scenery that just takes your breath away.  The Lake itself is a spectacular blue pool that is fed from the Glacier behind it.

Eventually we tore ourselves away and headed back into he Village to secure some accommodation where we managed to find a place and so checked ourselves into the Lake Louise Inn, which to be perfectly honest isn’t the best hotel we’ve stayed in, although it’s certainly the most expensive.

Dinner was in the bar on site where Lewis had a Bison burger and Kim had Nachos and we were entertained by live music with musicians just doing an open jam session.  Have to admit the guys were excellent!!!

Well we can’t stay in the bar all night and so we head off to bed where during the night Lewis started to feel really lousy and we work out that it’s basically altitude sickness, but he’s OK and we look forward to our next day in this wonderful country.

Hi folks it’s day 3 of our Canada trip and although I feel i’ve been up all day and all night, I’m getting behind on writing this blog, getting photos uploaded etc… :0(

Please bare with us as it should be sorted and upto date within the next 24 – 48 hours and will then be easier to keep upto date.

At least you all know we’re both fine and the bears haven’t eaten us yet !!!  Talking of bears we haven’t seen a single bit of wildlife yet… Maybe this is because it’s sooo hot over here and everything is sooo dry… It’s like a tinder box, so it’s not surprising there have been reports of a few rather large forest fires….

Anyway, we’re off to Revelstoke this morning (Saturday) and blog will be sorted :0(

I’m still new at this blogging thing, so will take me a couple of days to get into the swing of it.

Breathtaking!!!

These photos were taken from the plane over Greenland and Baffin Island.  The landscape from 38,000 feet looks just spectacular, but there is another side to it… How come we can see so much ground that isn’t covered with snow?  It’s September, shouldn’t it all be under a nice thick blanket?  Maybe there is something to be said for this global warming thing..  On the other hand maybe one could also suggest that it’s just a cyclical thing this planet does?

The flight generally was fine, that’s if you enjoy flying Comedy Class on a long haul flight that is.  The plane was delayed by an hour and we arrived in Vancouver at 13:30 Pacific Coast time which is currently 8 hours behind UK time.

So we get off the plane and then stand in a very long queue to meet the Canadian Immigration Officer… Well this is where Canada can clearly be separated from the USA.  Not only did we NOT have some official keep telling you to keep your feet behind the line, but the guy at the desk was smiley and actually friendly… That beats the American versions who generally seem to have a face like a slapped backside… :0)

We got over to the car hire company and collected a nice brand new Ford Escape and have to say it’s very quiet and very comfortable. You’ll see some photos of it later.

Now how does a foreigner work out where they are nowadays?  Simple… You take your SatNav with you and plug it in.  OK so we are definitely “foreigners” and so got the SatNav out and programmed it to our hotel in Whistler thinking this should be pretty easy.  Humm maybe not quite so easy when the screen tells you that your journey time is going to be 7 hours over 450km!!!  Surely that can’t be right when everyone keeps telling us it’s about a 2.5 hour drive.

We ignore it and decide to work our way across the city with just the basic map given to us by the car hire company…  Well an hour later and we’re still in Vancouver :0(.   Eventually though we do manage to make it out on Highway 99 and the real journey begins.

What a journey!!! The scenery is nothing short of spectacular.  Put the Lake District and parts of Scotland on steroids and that’s not even close to this place and you know what the nice thing is?  The Canadians don’t seem to take the beauty of this place for granted… :0(

So we got up at 4:00am (UK time) and finally got to the hotel in Whistler at 2:00am (UK)!!!  Yep you could call it a marathon journey so it was so nice to just check in, get to our rooms and crash…  Oh boy did we crash out!!!  Don’t know what all this jet lag thing is about, but we’ll get onto that later…  Why else do you think I’m sitting typing this at silly o’clock in the morning!!!

Well the plane from Gatwick was delayed by an hour… I suppose fair enough when your going to be sitting in an aluminium tube for the next 10 hours!!!

Our seats we’re next to each other, but a very nice young Canadian lady was prepared to swap seats with my so a) Kim and I got to sit next to each other and b) I actually had better leg room… Well thank god the 3rd passenger in our little section was a lovely english lady flying out to Vancouver to stay with her daughter and luckily she had a sense of humour and with the three of us chatting and laughing the time actually didn’t go too badly.

Vancouver here we come….. Yes the eagle has landed and god help the Canadians!!! I mean do they really know what they’ve let themselves in for?  Hummm probably not :0)

We collected the car which is actually a lovely Ford Escape and headed off for Whistler.  An hour and a half later and we were STILL leaving Vancouver, or should I say trying to leave…  Heading for Whistler became heading for Seattle and my SatNav told me that Whistler was a 7 hour drive and over 480km!!  Hummmm I don’t think so….

We finally made it to our hotel in Whistler at 19:00 and I’m sitting trying to keep my eyes open whilst typing this as it’s either 05:20 on Friday morning UK time or only 21:20 on Thursday evening so my body doesn’t really know whether it’s coming or going…

Before I depart from the night, what are our first impressions?  Well quite simply absolutely breath-taking… STUNNING!!!

Nite nite all from two very tired travellers who have been on the go for over 25 hours now :0(