Canada 2003
Thursday, September 25, 2003
I am drowning in stuff, so I don't have the time to update this at the moment. I really try to finish my thesis *soon*... I will write more some other day.
posted at 22:47
Saturday, September 13, 2003
Been doing this and that lately. Mostly tried to keep up with my emails and to push my thesis forward. Only had partly success on both fronts. ;-)
We saw Lord of the Things - Battle for middle Mirth with a very mixed group of people last night. It's a really funny theatre play with spontaneous interaction from the audience. Some things were really cool - other kinda hard to understand.
Anyways, I am back to my thesis... :P
posted at 12:56
Friday, September 05, 2003
Oh well, so I am back in Vancouver since last night. After two weeks of travel - a total distance of 2,800 km by car plus hundreds by ferry - through tiny villages and small towns, Vancouver seems to be really big with its 2,5 million people.
Here is a short description of the trip:
Katja and me left Vancouver on Saturday, 23. August, at two o'clock. We headed towards Whistler and stopped at the Shannon Falls and the Brandywine Falls along the way. The later ones drop 600 cubic meter of water per minute - kinda impressive. Whistler didn't leave such a great impression and we continued our trip pretty quick (after stop a nearby lake for a while).
The greatest thing was Joffre Lake in the middle of the coast mountains. So beautiful! You have to check out the photo. The water surrounded by a massive forest and a glacier in the background really stunned me.
After an endless journey up and down the mountains and through the canyons, we arrived in Lillooet at eight o'clock. We found this place to be rather depressive at night, but kinda nice during the day. The dry mountains blocked the sun early in the evening and we took the wrong turn in the beginning. When we saw the rest of the town later, it was okayish - but nothing where I would like to stay for too long.
Sunday was a bit cloudy. We still stopped at 'Green Lake' and from there on we ended up lost on some gravel road. Both us were dead sure that we are about to hit the cross road, but we drove on and on... it turned out that we ended up about 100 km south of what we expected... oh well, *way* off track. :P
We stayed in Lac La Hache for the night.
Monday, was even more cloudy and we decided to get as far as possible. We only stopped in Williams Lake shortly - do to some 'war driving' so that we can check our emails - and we stayed in Nimpo Lake for the night. This day's drive was not too exciting. It was still great nature that surrounded us, but since we were used to even greater (mainly greener) nature a bit south... it was kinda shocking to realize how used you can get to even the greatest things.
Tuesday started not too bad, but in the morning we didn't yet know what we will face... We left our motel at about 10.30 and headed towards Tweedsmuir National Park. A really beautiful area with lots of lakes and the coast mountains again. We knew that the gravel road was closed about 100 km's ahead. There was sign that warned us and listed the shedule for when the road is open and when it is closed. It said that the road is open at 5.30 pm again. So we took our time. Stopped at the Rainbow Range and at various other places.
However, when we finally got to the construction side a guy told us that the road will *not* be open for the next couple of days... he had no idea when it is going to be open again and actually no one we asked had any clue what was going on. We only knew that we had a ferry booked for Friday morning and that there was no detour possible. (We could have gone to Prince Rupert, but that was *1500 km* away.)
Well, in the end, we decided to stay in Nimpo Lake (a village of five buildings) for the next two days. A great decision it turned out.
We saw black bears standing on the road in front of us. We went on a float plane trip the other day. Flew over endless forests and ice fields. Untouched nature. Hiked to the Hunlen Falls. And after the two days in Nimpo Lake, we kinda felt like locals. ;-)
On Thursday, we left at five in the morning to make sure that we make it through Heckman Pass this time. We heard that the road would be open till seven in the morning. And it actually was. We made it. :-) The pass was rather steep (20%) and very small (one car wide) with a deep canyon below us... Beside a horse that appeared in the middle of the night in front of us on the road (and scared the hell out of me), there were no more surprises. We saw another three bears crossing the road and reached Bella Coola at eight in the morning.
We took the 'Discovery Cruise' on Friday. This ferry leaves Bella Coola once a week for an extended trip (25 hours) through the fjords. *Very* nice.
*Oh well, I lost everything of what I just typed about the rest of the trip. So this will be shorter...*
On Saturday, we arrived in Port Hardy and drove to Port McNeill. We took a quick look at Telegraph Cove, but soon went on yet another ferry trip. This time to Alert Bay which is a tiny island 45 mins off shore.
Alert Bay was nice and quiet, we had great weather and enjoyed an awesome whale watching trip. A nice couple took us and eight other tourists from around the world out on their little boat. We spent four hours watching orcas, humpback whale and seals. A total of over 40 orcas swam around our boat. So cool! :-) Orcas are so fast and elegant. *Pffffft...* :-)
Afterwards, we visited the Natives' Cultural Centre which had a huge collection of Potlach masks and explained everything in a nice way.
On Labour Day, we left Alert Bay early in the morning as we knew that we had quite a distance ahead of us. After various stops in Campbell River, Qualicum Bay and at Sproat Lake, we arrived in Tofino on the west coast of Vancouver Island. It is more touristy than most of the other places we have been to so far, but it was still a nice little town.
Tuesday, we jumped on a Hot Springs Cove Tour. Nothing too special, but still quite nice. 50 degrees hot water flows into the ocean and you can sit there and relax. On our way back, the boat stopped to watch some orcas, a gray whale and very stinky sea lions.
Back in the motel, we decided to explore the Pacific Rim National Park a little. So we drove up Radar Hill, hiked along the Schooner Cove Trail and went to Chesterman Beach to watch the sunset.
The next day, we planed to head down the west coast of Vancouver Island, but our plans were destroyed by some road closure again. This time to extreme fire hazard... So we reached Victoria at six pm to stay there overnight instead. I have to admit that it wasn't too bad this time: Victoria is kinda nice, but I stick to my first impression that I find this city rather boring.
Thursday was our last day and we walked around in Victoria for a bit before we took the ferry from Swartz Bay to Tsawwassen in the early afternoon. We went to White Rock because we heard about its beaches. Well, to be honest, they sucked. So disappointing.
We went shopping in some Asian-only supermarket in Richmond and arrived in Vancouver at eight o'clock.
To sum it up: it was a great trip and I was impressed by Canada's nature, esp. the float plane flight was awesome. Bears that cross the road in front of you is also something that I am not used to. As you can guess, I took tons of photos, so take your time to check them out.
Now I am back in the office and hope to finish my graduation thesis very soon. Keep your fingers crossed. :-)
posted at 14:55