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Hi everyone, This is a very long email, which I guess you’re used to, but it’s kind of like a diary in the sense that it’s today we did this and then we did that. Thank goodness Tucki kept a decent record of everything we did and saw and let me use it ‘cause otherwise I wouldn’t be able to remember half of it now, it was so long ago and we did and saw so much on tour and ever since. Tucki and I missed the ferry from Bainbridge Island to mainland Seattle by a few minutes, and thus we were almost an hour late meeting our Trek America tour group for the first time. But it was okay, we called and left a message, and they waited. There were only 10 people in the group and our tour guide, Mike. Our vehicle was a 14 seater van, so we had space which was great, and all our luggage and the food and equipment boxes and tents and stuff went on the roof racks on top. Most of the group decided to participate in white water rafting down the Kicking Horse River. The river is named that because it was a race between Canada and the US to find a route to build a train track cross continent. If the US had found the route first, they would own much of Western Canada. But the man who ran the expedition was kicked by his horse, and left there by his team to die. But he recovered and caught up with his expedition towards the end of it. Can’t remember the details of the story. The rafting was heaps of fun. Jason, the other Aussie on the tour and I took the front positions, which generally bare the brunt of the ride. It was embarrassing because I’ve done so much rafting and before we went the guides asked people where they’ve rafted before. A few people said here or there, and then I rattled off about 7 countries covering most of the continents, and the guide was impressed. But then he was checking that everyone had their life jackets done up properly, and I was the only one that didn’t. Then, in a rapid Jase and I got hit by a big wave and I temporarily lost a contact under my eyelid, and couldn’t see properly, and then, further down in another rapid I lost my paddle down the river. Oops. We all had a great time. Even Tucki enjoyed it.  Although she said it was her first and last time. Every so often during the ride I looked back to watch the expression on her face. No comment. :o) Whilst we were in Kamloops and Yoho campsites, there were really, really, really long cargo trains, that travel along the cross continental rail road. These trains went all day and all night. Because at certain road crossings, where there isn’t much traffic, the rail company has spared the expense and not installed traffic lights or the boom gates across the road that indicate to traffic when a train is coming. Thus, to alert any road traffic the trains blow their horns 3 times, and the horn is really loud. An enormous honk. Luckily, I slept through the night without being disturbed, but light sleepers were woken 6 or 7 times a night by these noisy passers by. We suspected that the joke was on us, and the train drivers may throw in an extra honk here or there, because as irritating as it can be, there’s nothing anyone can do about it. Anyway, on the way back to the campground from rafting we stopped to look at the train line and the tunnels were built for it to accommodate the vertical gradient the train had to negotiate. When the train line was first built, the train descended 900 vertical feet in 4 horizontal miles. That is roughly 274 vertical metres every 6.5 kilometres. That’s very steep for a train and it was very inefficient and dangerous, so in 1907 Canadian Pacific Railroads built two spiral tunnels through the mountains enabling the train to gradually descend by increasing the length of the train track within the same horizontal distance. I need to draw a diagram to properly explain, but you guys can work it out. It looked funny because some of the trains were so long that while the front engine and first few carriages were coming out of the tunnel, the last few carriages of the same train hadn’t even entered the tunnel. I remember when I first started working at Macquarie Bank having just returned from a 3 month trip to Africa, and I joined the Macquarie volleyball team,  People in my work team said I should talk to a girl called Jenny Brady, ‘cause she was into volleyball and sports and traveling, we had similar interests, but she was on holidays in Canada at that time. When Jen returned, she put up a gorgeous photo of Lake Louise on her pin board in her work cubicle. The lake was a brilliant turquoise colour, which gave it a really strange yet beautiful appearance, and the surrounding hills were covered thick in evergreen trees.  From that photo I decided I wanted, at some stage, to go to the Banff region of Canada and see Lake Lousie for myself.  After our tour went through Yoho National Park, and had seen the beautiful Takkakaw falls, we went on to Lake Louise and Emerald Lake, both near Banff. They were both a strange milky, turquoise colour, not crystal clear like Jen’s photo. The reason was because it was the beginning of summer, and the parent glaciers was starting to melt, and when it did it brought down silt and dirt into the lakes and the dirt had not yet settled, it was still floating and hence distorted the colour of the water.  We hiked up towards the parent glacier of Lake Louise. It was a lovely walk, and we saw lots of squirrels and chipmunks. They’re such cute little animals, but unfortunately, because people feed them, they are quite tame and unafraid to come up to people and beg for food. Towards the top of the walk it started to snow, and we all went into the little tea house and had hot chocolate before walking back down. Back in the town of Banff, Tucki and I went into a stuffed Canadian animals museum before going to watch the Canada Day parade. Oh, and while we were waiting for the parade to begin, we made a quick stop in the local fudgery and “ohhhed” and “ahhhed” at all the different types of freshly made fudges and all the varieties of toffee apples. Normal toffee apples, caramel apples, caramel and M&M apples, caramel and nut apples, caramel and candy apples, chocolate and rainbow sprinkle apples, caramel and chocolate sprinkles. Every flavour you could think of. I tried a plain caramel apple, and it’s so much better than the standard toffee apple. For the three or so days we were in Banff I had a caramel apple every day. An apple a day keeps the doctor away. The parade was alright, lots of marching bands and the odd Canadian Mounted Policeman. I think that’s what they call the police that ride horses. Silke was a German girl in our group, and she had a camera with a little extendable tripod that she’d set up at every possible opportunity, set the camera on timer and run in and take a photo of herself. It drove us all nuts. At the parade, when there’s heaps of people to ask to take a photo for you, she didn’t trust anyone, set up her tripod, ran across the road to be in the group photo, and the tripod blew over and temporarily broke the camera. Also, whenever we went somewhere and had an agreed meeting place and time, Silke was always, without fail, the last one back and usually late. We’d all be sitting in the van ready to go and wondering “where’s Silke?” So whilst the parade was on, being about 6pm on a public holiday, Silke went to try and find a place where they could repair her camera. The parade ended and we all went back to the van ready to go back to the campsite but Silke was nowhere to be seen. The next day everyone in the group went to town to do email and stuff, and I didn’t feel like going. I think I made the right decision because just after the others left I saw 3 deers just near where our tents were set up. They were having breakfast at a shrub where the communal fire wood was kept. I watched them for a while but then some kids on rollerblades skated up and scared the deers away. I went on a walk in the forest behind the campsite to see if I could find anything else, but didn’t. I did get horribly lost though. Not in the forest, but when I came out of the trees and back into the camp site, I was in a different section. The camp site was so huge that when I finally arrived at one of the entrances and asked how to get back to my section, they told me it was about another 3 kilometres away. The rest of the group and I arrived back at roughly the same time and we headed off in the van to a walking trail and went on a nice hike to an absolutely beautiful destination called Boom Lake. There were lots of tiny wild flowers which Jase, the Aussie who is a horticulturalist at Beacon Hill Golf Course in Sydney, identified. We hung out there, sunbaking on the rocks, reading, eating lunch, and marveling at our spectacular surroundings. We did a quick walk through Johnson’s Canyon where we saw trees covered in fluorescent coloured moss and then had to get back to the campsite and get ready to go out for dinner in honour of Clare’s birthday. I was on my way to the camp site showers the following morning and saw a squirrel eating cornflakes out of a cereal box left on the back seat of a van where someone had left the doors open. People can be so absent minded. There are signs everywhere around these camp sites saying “Be bear aware. Do not leave food out”. Luckily it was just a squirrel and not a bear. It took 3 people to chase the squirrel out of the van. I’d found some brochures of things that I wanted to do and Mike, our tour leader was really accommodating and fit them in the schedule for me. The first the whole group came to, it was a small scale glass blowing studio. It was fascinating seeing the whole process. The studio has two ovens on 24 hours a day, 7 days a week to maintain the temperature. The artist was blowing vases for a trade fair in the US, but had works on display in the Hague and in exhibitions traveling around the world. He was talking to us as he sculpted and describing how everything works and how to get the different colours and effects. His work was amazing. Only one other person and Mike were interested in my second request, so Mike dropped everyone else off to do a hike and then came back and picked Saskia and myself up and we headed off to the nearby Husky kennels. There were 130 dogs kept here, not all huskies, but all capable of working on the sleds. At this time it’s summer, so the dogs aren’t worked at all. The owner said that she’s had dogs get dehydrated after walking less than 100 metres in the summer. All the dogs are kept on chains about 2 metres long next to their kennel. They of course all have different personalities and some of them are really strong and jump up on you, whereas others stay in their kennels and don’t like attention. They’re beautiful animals. We were provided with a typical Indian lunch, which was bread toasted on a fire, can’t remember what they called it, but it’s the same as damper, and also dried meat, same as beef jerky. We spent an hour and a half with the dogs, and came back absolutely covered in fur. I loved this day. I feel so spoilt because a lot of the options that we were offered I’ve already done elsewhere, and the glaciers in Antarctica and Patagonia being the biggest and best in the world, I nearly passed up the opportunity to walk on the Athabasca Glacier in the Alberta, Canada. It was highly recommended so I decided to do it. The glacier itself wasn’t that spectacular, although there were some beautiful blue crevices and a crystal clear stream carving out an ice cave, but the cool thing about the walk was that it started snowing and was almost a white out at some times. We were only on the very bottom of the glacier, but above it, where we couldn’t see is the Columbian Ice Field, a massive, well, ice field. I don’t know any other way to describe it, the name is pretty self descriptive. The massive snow dome feeds rivers which flow to the Pacific, the Atlantic and the Arctic Oceans. Our journey to Opal Hill was an eventful one. Driving along to the start of the hike we passed a couple of Black Bears. Then, at the very start of the hike, there was a female Moose and her Calf right on the track. We had heard that there were two young Grizzly Bears somewhere up the top of the Hill and we were all keen to view them, but of course from a safe distance. The hike was really steep and we passed people coming down who had seen the bears, and we grew more excited and Mike grew more cautious. Our group all hike at different paces so we kept on having to wait and group together, because when trekking in bear territory you should never have less than six people in your group. There was a couple hiking at roughly the same pace as some of our group members, and the had a dog with them, so we really wanted to get up top before they arrived and the dog potentially scare the Bears away. At the top it got really cold and windy, but it was spectacular.  We looked but couldn’t see the Bears, but it was still a beautiful place to be, so we enjoyed it until some people couldn’t bare the cold any longer and we headed down. As we were leaving, completing the loop circuit we saw another couple with telescopes out, so we went over and there, a couple of hundred metres or so away were two beautiful Grizzlies. We watched them run and play and roll around in the grass on the slope of a hill, as they put some more distance between themselves and us. When they felt safely enough away, they crossed the track we were standing on and ran up the other side of the valley as we all watched in awe at their speed and grace. We decided as a group that they were far enough away from the track that we could continue on the same route, and the couple with the dog was a little further ahead than we were, so on we went, watching where we were going, but keeping an eye on the Bears. At one stage they threatened us by charging a little way down the hill and then stopping and glaring at us. Mike got us all together and led us in a fast walk, some debating that it was a run, back to where we had come from. The best thing to do when being hassled by a Grizzly is to play dead, and that takes away the fun of the chase for it, and hopefully it will lose interest. Even though the Bears seemed far away, we all knew that they can run fast and had we ignored it’s warning to back off there could have been some trouble. But as it was, there was no problems and everyone went away satisfied and excited that we’d not just seen the Bears, but had a little, distanced encounter with them. Saturday I did three hikes. The first and longest one was on a track that passed by 5 smallish but dazzlingly coloured lakes. The second I was in a bad mood for because between the first and the second I’d checked my email and received notification that Inti Wara Yassi, the animal refuge in Bolivia where I did the volunteer work was going to be shut down and the 300 animals that reside there will be shot. I stormed through this hike not stopping to admire the views or bumble along with the rest of the group. The third hike was at the top of the Whistler Gondola, which is a cable cart, not a canal going boat. I’m not sure why the Gondola doesn’t go to the summit, but it doesn’t, so Silke and I walked to the top. We could see the massive road between Bannf and Whistler called the Icefields Parkway, winding away as far as the eye could see, and we could also see the 5 lakes that we hiked around earlier in the day. ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ On our way to Wells Grey Provincial Park we were driving a long a major highway when we saw a naked man walking up a small rest area road parallel to the highway up ahead. Mike pulled the van off the highway just to make sure our eyes weren’t deceiving us but the man dashed away and into the bushes so we assumed that we saw correctly. Once we arrived at Wells Grey and met Chris, our guide for the next two days, and a couple of friends of Mikes, we got kitted up, and loaded our canoes for the paddle on Clearwater Lake across to the campsite for the night. The ride was about 3 hours long, and I steered the first half of the way. I steered very, very badly. I was okay going left or right, but I couldn’t keep the damn thing going straight, I was always meandering one way or the other and then overcorrecting, and we were trailing behind the rest of the group by quite a long way. Tucki did the steering for the rest of the trip and did a much better job. The next morning Tucki and I went on a paddle in our pyjamas and our life jackets and I practiced my steering, but all to no avail. The lake definitely deserved its name, the reflections were fantastic, but unfortunately it was overcast, so the colours weren’t rich and crisp. Some of the group went on a hike and Conny, one of the girls from the Netherlands, slipped and fractured her wrist. Whilst the others were hiking, Tucki and I had a better idea, we took out our sleeping bags, lay on a couple of benches around the fire and played Canasta and ate Oreos. But as soon as the hikers got back it was all systems go to pack up camp and get Conny back to the mainland and to a hospital as soon as possible. At the next campsite we were warned that a kids camping group had been careless with packing away their food and there had been reports of a Black Bear in the campsite and to be extra diligent in putting things away in the van or rigging them up in the trees in the pulley-system nets that were provided. A few of us were playing volleyball on the court in a sandpit and there were paw prints in the sand. The next morning on I woke at about 6:45 to go to the bathroom and just as I turned onto the path outside our little area for our tent there I was face to face with the bear, less than 10 metres away from me. We made eye contact, we were the only ones around, but I just turned and walked the other way down the path, and when I turned back I saw it rip a mouthful of berries or foliage off a low shrub and then disappear into the bushes. I so wish I had my camera, but then again, it’s probably better that I didn’t. I went to wake Tucki up to show her but the bear was gone. It wasn’t a huge bear, but it was so beautiful, shiny brown coat and adorable face. Later that morning we saw further along the footpath a pile of bear poo, and in it was a foil chocolate bar wrapper. And we heard that some kid’s rain fly on his tent had been ripped by a bear. He had deodorant in his tent. I spent this day by myself dawdling around Whistler ski-resort town, and reading my book and not doing very much at all. Tucki went on a long bike ride with some of the others in the group. Then when it had cooled down a bunch of us went to play tennis at a local sports center. Dave, Clair, Jason and I were on one court, and we rotated partners every set. Who ever was on Dave’s team won the set. Tucki and Silke played on the other, and we saw Silke giving Tucki serving instructions and demanding that Saskia, who was umpiring, be strict and call the foot faults. I was just thanking my lucky stars that I was on the other court. In the car park of the campsite we were staying in there was a bear-proof bin, which is the size of a big dumpster and has a heavy lid with a little gadget that you have to push in whilst lifting the lid up. On the morning we were leaving we’d found everything had been thrown out of the bin. It looked like someone hadn’t closed it properly and a Bear had got in and went through everything. It was a massive mess. The sad thing is, that while it was 99% sure it was a person’s fault, rather than the Bear learning how to use the contraption, if the Bear causes too many problems it will probably be shot because it is too much risk to the people. It’s a very sad world we live in. Everything revolves around what is best for the humans. Our next stop was Vancouver where we visited the Museum of Anthropology at the University of British Columbia. This is the uni I wanted to go on student exchange to, but you’re not allowed to go on exchange if fail any uni subjects, so I wasn’t allowed to go. I think that’s about the only thing that I wasn’t able to talk myself into or out of in uni. Anyway, the museum was quite good, and we saw and leaned about the native Indian totem poles they used for their houses to signify what family or clan they came from. We also saw this amazing wood sculpture of a huge clam with baby children coming out of it, and on the back of the clam was a huge Eagle. I think it was called “The First Moment” or something like that. We then went down to Stanley park and played some Frisbee before going out for our farewell dinner at a delicious Mongolian restaurant where you choose the ingredients and sauce and stuff, and give it to the chef who cooks it in front of you on a huge hotplate. Our full day in Vancouver we had no set itinerary so Tucki and I decided to take a wander through the huge Stanley Park. We strolled around and looked at the artists and their work and went to the aquarium. Here we saw two animals that I’d never seen before. The Baluga Whale, which is pure white and very massive, and the Sea Otter, which is such an adorable animal who float on their backs, and in their natural environment, wrap themselves up in seaweed. I’m reading a book about Alaska, called Alaska, by James A. Michener, and it’s a Faction (Fact/Fiction) book about the history of what is now the 50th state of the USA, the State of Alaska. Previously it was owned by the Russians. And it has an awful history very much revolving around the trade of Sea Otter pelts in exchange for guns, rum and molasses. Not only did this absolutely decimate the Sea Otter population, but also the Native Alaskan population. Apparently, after the introduction of rum and molasses, the natives drunk all through the summer seasons, and left themselves no time and in no physical state to stock up on food from the fertile seas for winter when the seas froze over. We then took the ferry over to Vancouver Island where we did a Whale watching tour and saw a Grey Whale and it’s calf. We only caught glimpses of their heads and tails, but we still got the gist of their size. We were on a little speed boat type thing and the Whales were unusually close to the shore, they were scraping the moss or whatever nourishment they could find on the rocks. I guess they knew we were there by their sonar detection. That is, rather than using eye sight or sound, they sense things by sending out signals and calculating the direction, size, distance etc. of objects by the time it takes for them to receive the echo signal bouncing back from the object. They didn’t seem at all concerned or curious though. They just kept on going about their business. We also saw a few Sea Lions and Seals, but nothing compared to Antarctica or the Galapagos Islands. See what I mean about how I feel very spoilt having had and taken all the opportunities that I’ve had. The rest of the day some people went on a hike, but I just hung out on the beach, played a bit of Frisbee and read my book. The next day we had a free day in the pretty little town of Victoria, still on Vancouver Island. The main streets were lined with old fashion light poles with beautifully manicured hanging flower baskets. A group of us went to the Butchart Gardens, which are known to be one of the most beautiful gardens in the world. They were beautiful, but I though they’d be more special given their reputation. It was a pleasure just to wander around. In the rose garden section they had so many different breeds of roses and a little sign saying their name and which country invented it. For example, Octoberfest from New Zealand,  Thanx Mom from Canada, and Fred Loads from the USA. You name it, there’s probably a rose named it to. Baby Michael, Charming Diana, Arnold, Bing Crosby, the list goes on. Ah yes, Tucki has been kind enough to include in her itinerary summary that I’m using to write this email, that that night we went out for dinner and I had 3 deserts. All shared with other people, but 3 deserts. I’m such a pig. But what’s a girl supposed to do when she can’t decide? We caught the ferry back to Seattle the following day and this is where the tour, and thankfully this story, comes to an end. We were dropped off to explore Pike Markets for half and hour, which is partly a fresh food market and partly where they sell arts and crafts and stuff. Then the van dropped Tucki and me off at our hostel in the city. Everyone else was staying at the hotel recommended by the tour, and everyone else was complaining about the price of it and how far away it was from the city. The next morning, before Tucki and I went for our respective flights we went back to Pike’s market and watched them throwing salmon from a massive crate on the floor up and over the display counter to the stall workers who would cut and wrap the fish. I’m not sure but I think it was an auction style sale, using the term very loosely.  The guy would only through the fish once someone had agreed to buy it after looking at what he pulled out of the crate. The rest of the transaction was completed normally at the counter after the fish had been appropriately dealt with. We also went and had a look at the infamous “chewing gum wall”. Need I describe it? Well, at this time I was late and had to run for the airport bus to catch my flight across the country to the East Coast. I left the hostel sandwiched between my two 75 liter capacity packs. I’d bought a new one in Canada, which was more suitable for hiking, and fit me a lot better than my original one. Two huge packs, stuffed to the brim and these tiny little legs trotting as fast as possible underneath. Everyone I passed either followed me with their eyes, smiled at me, or made a comment. Oh well, some things just need to be done. I arrived at the airport and queued up for about 20 minutes to check my luggage in and get my boarding pass. Here begins the problem. The lady told me that according to the computer I was on a 12 o’clock flight, not a 2:30 flight. My ticket said otherwise. What had happened, was that whilst I was uncontactable in the jungles of Bolivia, part of the two stage flight had been cancelled, so someone changed me on to a different flight but couldn’t get in touch with me to tell me. Without making an extra payment, the earliest flight I could get was at 11pm that night. Bugger! And the computer system won’t let you check your luggage in any earlier than 6 hours before the flight. And I really didn’t want to wait around the airport for 2.5 hours just to check my luggage in, so I put it in storage and went back to town for the rest of the day. Tucki had already left the hostel for her own flight, so I was on my own. I spent the day in the Seattle Library looking up books about writing a resume and cover letters and stuff, ‘cause I’m really nervous about having to do all that stuff and get into the “corporate world” swing of things when I get into London. Anyway, it was a boring and lonely day but so be it. I’m so relieved I’ve finished this story. Only a month and a half late. I’ve got to get stuck into my East Coast stories now.  It was awesome to see Tucki again after 7 months and we both had a great tour and a lot of fun. Thanks Tuckster for inviting me to come with you. Until next time everyone, Nique