A few more pictures - Kicking Horse to Panorama

Kicking Horse, top of the world. Heaven with snow, hell when it's hard packed - the picture on the top is a green or a blue run, seriously...



Driving here gets easier and easier. This is nothing compared to the road to Fernie.



















Emily takes to the air at Panorama, an underated hill near Invermere. Town was lots of fun, resort was small but perfectly formed. Ground still hard though.

Invermere high street, exit tumbleweed stage left...

These are Australians doing what Australians do on Australia Day.

Better late...

JB/Jan 19/Trying to leave Banff
If the bears shit in the woods, why can’t we? Because there isn’t a winter campsite for three thousand fecking miles, that’s why…

Time I did a bit of catch up. Please take this blogsplurge with a pinch of salt - it's been a long, cold day and a longer colder night. Had a top time with Craig and friends in Ottawa although not much on the picture front due to inebriation. Much respect dude, and thanks for putting us up. Loved Montreal, too. In fact, loving pretty much everything about the country so far – the colours are incredible, people have been really friendly and the snow’s great.

Hadn’t quite realized what a headache managing the motorhome was going to be, though. Feeding and caring for our mobile frozen shit wagon takes up most of the non-skiing day. Driving it is equally fraught. It has blind spots the size of Belgium in which to lose logging trucks and school buses. It sways. It slides. It tips alarmingly when large lorries go past. It eats petrol (12mpg on a good day).

It has kept me awake every night so far. It's retarded, annoying, expensive, unreliable and requires constant supervision. And yet neither of us would change it for a hotel room (yet). Now I understand what caring for a child is like. And why it makes you stupid.

Marginally truthful plus point: there are only about six roads in the entirety of Canada and unless you happen to be physically half way up a mountain they're all dead straight. Even playing cruise control chicken we shouldn't get too lost. However, icy switchback mountain bends with vertiginous drops are actually harder to navigate when your co-pilot decides that in-van flash photography is the new game for today. Who knew?
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JB/January 22 – somewhere between Lake Louise and Golden
There's no TV reception, and if the radio worked we'd be able to pick up one of the two (count 'em) local radio stations that are available at any given time playing you songs about Jesus and trucks. Mobile phones are paperweights.

Towns? Blink and you miss 'em. There are places listed on the map which we never saw in broad daylight because the 9 and a half residents probably live in burrows or something.
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JB/Jan 27/Invermere/Posted on McWireless
At some point I'll get round to writing about skiing, fun people, or all the great things we're seeing and doing. But there are more important issues to deal with first.

Today we had (yet) another go at dumping the tanks. It worked! The little van coughed it all up, and we're so proud. We know what the expression 'feeling a shitload happier' means, too.
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JB/Jan 27/Invermere to Not-Quite-Fernie/On Canadian wildlife
It's bloody everywhere. Big horn sheep, deer, elk and coyotes all over the shop. They live next door to America and yet anyone would think these people didn't know how to use firearms.

Today we got a sign reading High Impact Area (uh?) followed by a picture of a moose diving through a windshield (quite a difficult pictogram to articulate, but there you go). Anyway, what the fuck does High Impact Moose mean to a driver? They wear body armour? They're fired at you from roadside catapults? Help, please.
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JB/Jan 27/Yes, Em, they do mean what they say in the weather warnings...
We didn't make it to Fernie – last bit of the road was closed but we'd turned back before then anyway. Nasty beyond belief. Sudden zero visibility and huge winds blowing us all over an iced-up road that just wasn't there any more. You can't throw a U-turn in this tanker either. Definitely a good call to turn back once we could. We'll have another hack at Fernie when the weather improves (not tonight, it's -28), but Kimberly beckons for now.
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Tips for Driving Across Canada in the Winter (part 1)
1 Animals have right of way.
2 Shit doesn’t stick, it freezes
3 Learn to like songs about trucks
4 Don’t eat spicy food in small living spaces
5 Drive on the right when you remember
5 Some people need their mittens on string
6 There’s never an excuse for Celine Dion
7 Motels have really, really nice staff. Look lost, they’ll help
8 There are NO winter campsites within a 500 mile radius
9 Canadians don’t fuck about with weather warnings
10 You cannot get Christians in the Christian Supplies shop, no matter how drunk you are
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Invermere!

Today we triumphantly emptied the poo tankfor the first time! It's really not that bad actually (or at least what I saw from inside the van as John cursed when brown water went over his feet wasn't too bad).

We're in Invermere (the hill is Panorama) in BC, and it's nice. They've got the best ice cream parlour in the world, Gerry's Gelati, and if you are ever in Canada, never mind where, come here and eat the ice cream. And the paninis. But mostly get a big plastic bowl and ask for half a dozen scoops of whatever you likes (from about 40 flavours, all home-made - just don't try the nuclear blue one, it's bubblegum and it's wrong). There's also a bar attached to the Best Western where we plugged in and another establishment that might nearly be called a club! Well, folk were getting their knees up and beer was being sold: it's the nearest thing we've seen to a club for several hundred kms!

We'll post pics and tell you all about this town in the next couple of days, but tonight we are driving (those weather warnings aren't serious right?) to Fernie - it's about 6pm and we hope to be there by 10. Wish us luck!

p.s. It's also been four days since we showered.

Sighting of legendary beast rocks Canada!

Today John and I spotted an amazing animal in the woods when we were driving back from Calgary...the fabled Loch Ness Moose! I have been hoping to spot a moose since we got here (though hopefully from a distance, because apparently they're most commonly seen flying through your windscreen), and while we were driving in the dark through dense trees I spotted a pale, moose-shaped thing and we stopped. The moose turned out to be a moose-shaped thing covered in snow, and I was v disappointed.

We also had another surprise driving back from Calgary tonight when a big SUV spun off the road in front of us on the highway and ploughed down the bank into a snowdrift! We stopped to see if the people in the car were ok and it turned out to be a lone girl about 20ish who was driving to meet a friend - she was pretty shaken but otherwise fine, and although we tried to help her get the car back onto the road it couldn't get up the incline and we ended up driving her to the next town (where she was headed anyway) to her friend's house to call a tow truck. Was pretty scary seeing the big car in four wheel drive spin off the road, but the conditions are fairly extreme - we will post a few pictures of snowstorms we have driven through for you to see!

Now, the reason we were driving back from Calgary to Banff AGAIN is that in the Great Saga of The Strange and Unemptiable Frozen Poo Receptacle, once again our water tanks and pipes froze and the furnace broke and we had to drive to Calgary to get a replacement RV. They assured us that our old RV was broken and this new one would be tough and stand up to the (minus 28C last night!) cold. So for the last time (I really, really, REALLY hope), we are on our way north!

We also recently tried our first live music night in Banff (don't do it), and our first nightclub in Banff! The club was good fun, all rnb and hip-hop, which John does not love but which he took manfully. There was also a punching bag machine attached to a meter thingy, and it measured how hard you punched the bag....so of course we had a go. We then attracted the attention of a couple of very white, very tattooed, very biceppy 18 year-old skinheads who wanted to join in, so naturally we let them have a go, and it developed into a weird macho contest between me, John, and a pair of skinhead (army recruits? /Neo-Nazis? /youths?) They were really quite intense so in the end John and I went to dance and leave them to their angry manly bag-punishing. That was quite odd.

Back in Banff now. Sigh.

Em

Montreal

The way we're doing this blog is all a bit ass-backwards at the mo, sorry, but basically we were in Montreal for a couple of days during our first week when we were on the east coast of Canada, after we'd visited John's friend Craig in Ottawa.

The fog was really really thick, but the city was great anyway, and they have this mad system of underground walkways which mean that you never actually have to be above ground to shop, jog, go to work, go to a restaurant, or whatever! We walked around aboveground because we wanted to see everything, and we actually spent about 4 hours walking to find the shore because John insisted he wanted to see it.

We did find the promenade, but the water proved a bit more elusive.

I wasn't quite as pleased as John to reach this point, but we did see some gorgous bits of architecture and explore the city, which is great by the way, very vibrant, with lots of different areas - and the shopping is legendary!

This is the face of impressedness at having found the water after three hours.

We stayed in a hotel in the middle of downtown, and the best thing about the room (aside from the seafood salad bigger than me which cost about £8 on room service!) was this window, and the views:

When the fog cleared a bit we saw some fantastic views of the city, and they have old stone churches and new glass office towers side by side, which looks odd but very pretty.

Unfortunately the fog rolled in when we tried to leave the island, and driving out this was all we could see!

And this is the Dodge Nitro we rented for a week - it was a tank! Good practice for driving the RV though!

More Banff Pictures

Ahhhhh.

Doesn't that just make you want to be sick?












"Oi, this is a local road for local people."

Apparently elks are the most dangerous animals in the park. This photo was taken while trying to coax the passing little deer to come and say hello. I think next time we'll use the zoom.










More of the road to Banff!














It's pretty on the way to Banff.













John having a little jump in the powder.

We didn't exactly have to fight tooth and nail for a place in the campsite! Everyone sane seems to put their RV away during January. So we drove round for a bit, smashing through snowbanks, until we found the perfect place to steal internet from the nearby resort, right next to the showers (lovely big heated shower block with loos - these things become important when you know you'll soon be seeing whatever you put down the toilet in the RV again) and near the bus stop which takes you to the slopes.

Poser.

We accidentally ended up on quite a steep mogully gully on our second day, which proved a bit much for me. So I adopted the bum-first approach, and it was very successful - I think I managed a good third of the run backwards.

Pro skier. Not even slightly out of control, but flying through the air with grace and poise.

Banff pictures

John makes some new friends.

Or not.

Local wildlife. The elks are everywhere!

Nother horrible view on the way through the Rockies to Banff. Even the cement factory looks great on a postcard.

Just off the Bow River outside Banff

Goddam paparazzi.

2 old blogs moved from previous blog site

17th January 2008.

We're having an...interesting day today. We tried to empty the black and grey water holding tanks (aka poo tanks) and are having some technical difficulties. The weather also got a little colder today, but it was a gorgeous clear day and the views have been stunning. We are in the middle of the Rockies! I will post pics but we are having some technical difficulties there also...unfortunately I am being left in charge of some of the technical bits (though not the driving just yet!!) so some are being tackled somewhat creatively.
Yesterday we did some great skiing at Sunshine and I wiped out in a massive way, but luckily the day before yesterday I bought a helmet. This was good because I hit my head really hard yesterday! John didn't see it, so when I finally came shuffling over the hill he kept taking my picture and yelling encouraging things....those are some grumpy pictures.
The Hot-Tub Deer continue to snuffle round the van- I think they think we're going to feed them (which we'd like to but I don't think Mars Bars and salami are good for deer). No more coyotes since the howling chorus of last night though. They love the trains (or maybe they hate the trains, but at any rate they like to sing along to the trains) so we have a nightly chorus from them.
Today was pretty much taken up by me limping round the van refusing to move my sore neck/knee/arm (*serious* wipeout yesterday, *big* wimp today) and trying to empty the poo tank. More on that story as it unfolds....right now we are heading into the hundredth round of the Intergalactic Scrabble Bonanza! You have to make your own fun out in the woods.
Em


12th January 2008.

We did our first day's skiing today (Saturday 12th), the day after John's birthday - and for his birthday he also got a 30ft motorhome! We drove to Banff in the middle of the Rockies, which is absolutely stunning, just jaw-dropping mountains and lakes, covered in snow and huge trees. Bee-yoo-tiful. The haipin mountain paths are a bit tense though - also we cannot really turn the thing round, so once we are going in a certain direction, we are going that way and there is no stopping us.
We're staying just outside Banff and we skied today at the 'local hill' (a mere 30 runs or so of blacks, blues, jumps and 4 chairlifts), called Norquay. Weirdly you say it 'nor-kway', not 'nor-kee', which immediately made it obvious we didn't know our way around the area. We are also staying just a few km from Mineewanka. (Sorry...but come on!!!)
We also saw a family of coyotes after breakfast today (just hanging out by our van in the park, looking....er, hungry really), a load of really large deer (one edging suspiciously towards the outdoor hot tub at a nearby hotel, and several jaywalking down the (narrow, icy, tree-lined, poorly lit) roads, with absolutely no concern for traffic.
Tomorrow we're going to drive to Sunshine, nearby ski resort, and have a go at that. It may or may not involve hairpin turns on cliffs with no railings and 200ft drops down canyons, but realistically probably will. We'll write it up tomorrow!
p.s. john is going to upload some pics in the next couple of days, some of which involve me, bum in the air going backwards down a mogul field. but some are of other lovely canadian panoramas.
Em

Pictures - The road to Banff through the Rockies!

The road to Banff through the Rockies!

New blog address

Here it is, the actual, genuine blogging article!
This is our new (and permanent!) blog address! We shopped around a bit more on the net and found this one much more user-friendly and with a much bigger upload limit for pics etc, so we switched.
Em and John