Xmas Beers at the Alibi Room

Xmas Beers at the Alibi Room, originally uploaded by cleangetaway.

Christmas brews!

Global Syndicate

Looking forward to seeing these guys perform with DJ WHOO KID on Boxing day, should be sweet!!

better late than never....

I always feel like I am rushing blog pics. Been meaning to post some of these for a while, still more to come as well...

Cold but busy!

Well the temperature has plummeted to daytime highs in the negatives! we are lucky here though as it only gets to about -6 or 7 at night and the daytime sits between -2 and 0. Over east ist been way colder and the forecast tomorrow for Manitoba had temperatures as low as -45c!!!! Im loving the sunshine though and have been able to get out quite a lot too shoot. I'v had an interesting week or so recently, I have started working in uniforms distribution with CSC which is helping with cash flow. I met some photographic clients on the street last friday morning and ended up shooting 15 photos for their website which is launching soon with their new business, a law firm operating out of Gastown. The project was a lot of fun, spending several hours around the revived area near the waters of burrard inlet, shooting the buildings, alleys and streets. It was pretty chilly and many times my fingers lost feeling, but the sunshine made for some great shots. I also did a shoot with Garrett and his guys down in Yaletown last night, should be plenty more work there in promotions so looking very forward to that. Its amazing how things have happened lately, just got to keep it going and things will get sweeter. Mt Baker looks like the new years destination, still dying for some snow action!! should be a fun trip down south of the boarder. Hoping to get to seattle at some point for a xmas present, eyes are on a nice prize that will bring my photography up yet another level. Im excited!! still need the 70-200 fixed and now my flash gun has died too, so need to find out whats going on with that!! Wireless flash gear will be here soon so I will need some working flashes to play with it!!  couple of shots below from the Gastown shoot and the trio from last night to post soon...

Winter / New Camera finally!

Hmmm, well the first day of Winter was a beautiful one! Its supposed to be nice right through until next week, where monday is due to be a max of -7c (Its definitely colder without cloud cover, but whoah!!) but tomorrow the forecast could change to blizzards for Thursday, so we'll see. Either way its been nice to be outside without it raining.

New Camera is in my hands and boy is it impressive so far! Hope to take it out repeatedly while the weather is good and shoot as much Vancouver as I can. Desperately need a new mid focal range lens, will need to pocket some coin for a bit and flog an old one to fund it, but once I have that I will be in serious business!

Met some interesting people in the last week or so, lots of opportunities popping up, lets see what I can make of them! Cant wait to get some time in the snow too, everything set to go just narrowing down insurance options, not having a repeat of the ankle experience!!


Couple of shots from the 50d.... I should have bought this a long time ago....

Under the Bridge Downtown (Burrard Bridge)

Lightning fast! 6.3 frames per second

 Seymour & Georgia

Wet ride - Mt Fromme, North Shore.

Since late September I have been recovering from a serious ankle sprain obtained on the "last ride of the season" in Whistler. I have been dying to get over to the mountains on the north shore and get a good taste of the famed north shore trails. At last weeks Halloween festivities I made some arrangements with Keith to try and get out over there before the weather made it totally impossible. Boy am i glad we did.

Watching the weather all week it appeared it could be touch and go, but after plenty of early morning rain on saturday, it died off, so we agreed to go for it. Parked up off mountain hway and started pedaling from the dirt road. Seven grinding switch backs later we finally made it to the trail head for "Seventh Secret". I managed to pedal the entire way. The only time I actually stopped was to take a photo (turned out to be 2 mins from the trail head anyway). This may be nothing for some people, but a milestone for me. It snowed on us briefly on the ride up and by the time we had gotten most of the way to the top, the trees and the road were covered in an inch or two of fairly fresh snow. It looked stunning, I was very excited!!

So we dropped into the trail and I realised at that moment that at no point prior to now, had i even given thought to the fact that I was about to ride in rain and heavily wet conditions, a stark contrast to my hot, dry, dusty summer of riding. That was smart! My rotors howled like a banshee as i braked down the first few declines, a sound that faded as they built up some heat. The trails were well built with many stones bedded into to give it definition and no doubt stop it eroding away, the amount of water flowing down the trail in parts ranged from a trickle to a gushing creek! I was already wet but within minutes i was soaked. I couldnt have cared less!!

I was concerned about grip levels and it took me some time to trust my tires in the wet on rocks and wooden features. Fear of falling and re-injuring my still unstable ankle was hampering my confidence pretty badly, but all the same, I was having fun dashing down the more open sections, splashing my way though huge puddles and trying not to fall off elevated ladder bridges. There were some cool features on "Pipeline" the next trail we connected with, Its all new to me but Keith was commenting on some new woodwork that he hadnt seen before.

Some of the steeper descents had so much water going down them it was liking riding down a waterfall, I have ridden in wet weather before, all the time as a kid, but I have never experienced anything like what I discovered on Saturday. I nearly fell into a creek as i crossed a narrow bridge, and decided it would be fun to scare the shit out of myself riding along the very edge of a ladder bridge about 4-5 feet off the ground for some distance before straightening up, its remarkable what you can do when you have no choice.

We took a lower section of the Baden-Powell trail and connected back up with mountain hwy, buzzing down the steep bitumen road back to the car. As i jumped off my bike, both front and rear rotors were steaming away, but dissipated to fast for a photo. 

I would love to have a go at the trails here in drier conditions, but as I said, the water and mud really made for a fun experience, and seeing snow like we did at the top had me stoked for whats to come :)

Halloween parties

So the end of October comes and with it the arrival greater darkness and a Halloween frenzy. I knew it was a bigger deal here than other places I have lived, but the extent some people went to was mindblowing. The same way we see people go to town on their houses and front yards with all sorts of xmas decorations and lights, you will see skeletons, eviscerated zombies, pumpkins and spider webs adorning front yards and houses everywhere.

I saw some really cool carved pumpkins on one house, one on every step on the way up to the front door, each with a different face, some of which looked very evil and uninviting. As i stepped out my front door dressed like an old codger in a last minute effort to come up with something. I heard the sounds of children along my street knocking on doors "trick or treat!" I had never seen or heard that before.

On the way to Matt's place I saw a guy dressed as beetlejuice, I swear he had just come from the make up artist or something, his attention to detail was outstanding and the standard of outfit was fit for the screen. We had a beer or two at Matts while we got organised and then headed out. We walked past a house at the end of his street where an old lady was laying in wait at her front door. We had walked past when she swung the door open shouting "you want trick or treat?" she unload bags of chips and assorted lollies and chocolates into our bags and pockets and we went on our way, bewildered that she actually stopped us on the street! She must have been trying to get rid of all the left overs she had, it was getting kinda late for the kiddies by this stage.

Fireworks are going off everywhere and mist is settling lower on all the streets, or is it all the smoke from the hundreds of fireworks going off, I dont know. We get some beers even though we are heading to a party with free beer and then wait for the bus next to a cemetary, fitting.

The party was awesome, free booze (home brew, it was reported to be ordinary before we got there, but i thought it was alright!), cool people and some funny costumes. There was a mexican, 2 hulks, a flasher (yes in a beige trenchcoat!!) zombie lady gaga, ricky from trailer park boys, pimp, hookers, plenty of sluty whatever the hell they are sposed to be's, darlec, dr who, beer keg, cowboy, wheres wally, bat bitch, a clockwork orange characters, fairies, yada yada. We chugged the free beerand shot the shit with everyone, and even got out on to the balcony for some fireworks. One dude shot one and hit a bus that went past, right on the windsheld!! Sadly we had to leave to head back to another party back our way before the last bus left. I walked out the door of the place as the rolling stones "I cant get no....... satisfaction" was blaring on the stereo, and the place was jumping. i had a gut feeling i shouldnt be leaving, which turned out later to be justified...

We took a long bus ride back to our neck of the woods, we had been out near UBC which is a fair hike west of town. I was chatting to a butler and a maid on the bus, about kiwi and ozzy accents, travel experiences etc, the butler was drunk and his maid girlfriend seemed to be very publicly insistant she was going to take him home and have her way with him. Hmmm. There was also a guy on the bus who I feel was the character of the night, he was dressed as Raoul Duke, the Hunter S Thompson character from Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. Not only was the costume well done, including the cigarette in the cigarette holder, but he held character for the entire time, he had the speach and manerisms down, even had the suit case full of drugs, minus the acid, ketamine, blow and ether...

Arriving at the next party, the tunes where loud and the house was full. But the sad thing was that the police came and shut it down within about 20 mins of us arriving. Dang. There was another party happening but it was back in the direction we had just come. On top of this, Matt was wasted and Marissa wanted to take him home, so it was pretty much the end of it. I was tempted to go check out this other party, but considering the amount of time i had spent traveling around town already, i didnt want to go halfway back again to a party that was ending or worse gets the finger from the cops. So i thought back to the moment where I walked out of the first gig and felt like i shouldnt be leaving, should have listened to my instinct!

At least this place was on my street, so it wasnt far to get home! It was a memorable Halloween experience thats for sure. My costume started out being Bill Cosby but morphed into Biff (the grandpa biff) from Back to the Future because i couldnt get an afro wig or a grandpa hat to top off ol Bill. Most Canadians though i was "Mr Rogers" who of course i had never heard of, but rather than try and explain, I just went with that, and most people wet themselves. Too easy.

Another birthday party this friday night down with the Ladner gang, should be sweet!

Colour Management!

Well this is fun, more setbacks with the site, colour management issues causing poor display of colours and black and white contrasts meaning back to the drawing board on how i display my images. hmmm. Im using a mac where most of you are probably on PC and also using various different browsers, there are so many combinations to try and cater for!

Just another road block, I'll get through it. Explains a lot about previous issues I have had and even why some of the images i post here are not always very punchy.

Lots of reading is sorting me out, now its just the time in changing the settings of my images or changing the way i show them on the site, or both. Make a decision.

getting there!!!!!!

TEST IMAGE

lets see how this looks...

progress, and setbacks, managing the two...

Ok Site is inching closer. Have just spent hours narrowing down folios, resizing images, hunting through old work for images i cant find etc. I just need to create flash slideshows and away we go. I am finding it difficult to categorise some of my work. Travel is often represented in photographers folios of work, problem with that is probably 85% of my best work was taken overseas! may need to create new categories later but for now I'm sticking with what I'v got.

Had an interesting day shooting earlier this week. Took out my gear to try and trouble shoot some autofocus issues that have arisen recently. At first I thought I had lost the function on my 70-200, effectively turning it in to a long, heavy, expensive, manual focus lens. not good. Turns out that the problem has worsened and now now of my lenses will autofocus, indicating issues with the camera not the lenses, both a blessing and a curse. Also have error msgs on screen and mirror freeze ups as well, eeep. Removed battery grip, errors went away, but autofocus still bung. Took photos for the rest of the day manually focusing everything, I actually got some great autumn shots so it wasn't all bad.

I attempted to clean contacts on camera and lenses when i returned home, which got 2 of 3 lenses autofocusing , but 70-200 still wont have a bar of it.

New camera. Been wanting to upgrade for a while, now i NEED to upgrade. Was always thinking of 50d but just in the last few weeks Canon have released the 7d, and oh my god is it a beast! a rather expensive beast, but an investment in many years of great photography. Canadas pricing, or more specifically their GST and Provincial Sales Tax (applicable in BC and always added on to the price at the end ???????????? why dont they just include it in the price if you have to pay it?) can jump into the freezing pacific ocean. Might have to see what else is possible.


Still dont understand why colours just arent the same when i post shots on this blog, but anyway, a couple from the other day.

maps

These are the two road trips i have completed since arriving in Canada, Im gonna discuss a few of the cool things that happened along the way in more detail soon.....

apologies for the crude tracing and arrows of directions, its the best i could do quickly. Red trip was first 3 weeks here, blue trip was from 6 July to 1 Sept. click for a larger view...

Roadtrips

So I havnt fulfilled my promise to write more, not even close.

whats happened? Well I'v been away for 5 months already, 5 months!

I purchased a little Nissan Ute (little in comparison to the huge "trucks" they have here, and trust me some of them actually do qualify for the term truck!) at the start of July and then made plans with a new friend on the north shore to drive to Calgary for the famed Stampede. We followed hway 1, first stopping in Revelstoke, surfing with Chad again. Another stop in between Lake Louise and Banff at Castle Mountain Wilderness lodge, before arriving in the home of the Flames.

7 July - 20 July After some shenanigans for stampede and a bbq for the UFC100 event, Craig hitch hiked back to Vancouver and I turned my focus to aquiring a bike for my summer of epic riding in British Columbia.

drumheller

21- 23 jul  Fernie
The drive down to Fernie was kinda long, but some great Albertan scenery out the window. Country music on almost every radio station i could tune in!As i headed south I could see out to the east the huling range of the mighty rockies looming on the horizon. The last couple of hrs of the drive brought me slowly closer and then into this gargantuan strip of rocks. I arrived into Fernie, a quiet little summer town, and met my host for the next couple of nights. A cool guy who does a lot of white water rafting and works as a guide locally. He was heading to the Nahanni NP in the Norhtwest Territories after I left to do a 9 day rafting tour. Sounds fantastic!

I rode out of town a bit and tackled the combo of Hyper Ventilation / Hyper Extension. I should have done it the opposite direction to how I tackled it, as i spent some time grinding up the exposed side of the mountain in the host sun and then came barrelling down the other side in the trees, both descents would have been equally exciting. But whatever, dusted.

I slept out under the stars every night that I was there and it was absolutely fabulous. The clear skies and minimal light pollution gave me a wonderful view of every star in the sky. The third night I was kicking around at a local jump park practicing with my still relatively new (to me) bike. I noticed an evil looking storm front coming in and could see the flashes of lightning coming through the dark brooding clouds.

I booted home as the darkness encroached and set up my camera on the roof top deck under the shelter. The lightning was amazing and the wind and rain that came with it was swift and heavy. I captured a great shot of Lightning striking the top of the bowl at Fernie Ski resort. My first decent lightning photo, I was pretty stoked!

I was going to ride at the fernie bike park but car troubles set me back and I ended up missing out. I satyed an extra night while I tried to sort it out, its a long story, in the end I tried to run out of there to the next bigger town to try and get  it sorted. The local services where useless. Things went well until about half way between places and the car nearly died, in the middle of nowhere. Luckily she limped into cranbrook and a mechanic foudn the problem and fixed it immediatly. They were good people there, I made friends with the owner and his sidekick, I was working on my bike in the workshop while they fixed the car. Afterwards I sat around and chatted with them for a while, they seemed most interested in my little trip and in divulging information on the local area. McGibbons was the name of the place, if you ever break down in Crankbrook, go see them!

24-27 jul From Crankbrook I drove north along the east coast of Kootenay lake. It was hot and sunny but there was no shortage of storm clouds in every corner of the sky. Threatening to band together like a  bunch of street thugs. I finally arrived at the ferry crossing and had a bit of time to take some photos in the unique afternoon light. Some guy was blasting Jimi Hendrix from his car in the line up, i rather enjoyed that.

Ferry crossing was a lovely journey, once I reached the other side I still had a short drive around the arm of the lake and across the bridge into Nelson. I got a great feeling as I got my first glimpses of town, turns out i was in for a memorable few days in Nelson.

There was a street market on when I arrived, I wandered around checking out the scene and soaking up the music and the atmosphere. After trying a local pie, I met up with my host Rob, and followed him out to a friends place where they were having beers and playing call of duty on  the biggest television I have ever seen. after a couple of hrs i followed rob back to his place, got changed and headed back into town for a look at Nelson nightlife.

I went into town the next day to get the lowdown on the riding spots around the area. Mountain Station is the local scene, I drove up the hill at the edge of the city area and parked before pedalling up a series of fire roads that were criss-crossed with bike trails ranging from intermediate to extreme. At point I noticed a kicker on one side of the road, quite highly elevated, that easily would have sent the rider across the road 15 odd feet in the air!

I enjoyed the afternoon on the steep decsents and technical trails, my learning curve was as steep as the trials but it was great experience, however it was nothing compared to my ride the following day.

Robs mate house was a short drive from the forestry road that takes you up the side of a mountain where a large number of well known Nelson highlights are located. We had driven a long way up in his F150 when we met some other guys who were going as far as the trail goes, then going to park and then hike-a-bike to the top, before coming back down a relatively new trail called "powerslave". So i switched parties and though my stuff in with those guys. When we finally got somewhere were we could pull off the extremely narrow trail and park, there was someone actually working on a section of powerslave, we had a quick chat and headed for the top.

It was hot and there were lots of mozzies, but the effort was worth not only the view from the top out over the lake and Nelson, but the looooooong decent back down. It was some of the steepest, roughest, most technical riding I had ever encountered, but with 2 local guides leading the way I couldnt go wrong. It was fast and flowing in some parts, some great wooden features, rock wall descents, shale hills, it was sensational. We even saw a moose. I should mention that one of the guys had a dog with him, just a small one, he kept up with us the whole way down, he was one cool dude!

knackered at the bottom I head back to robs, the trail came out only about a click from his house, I showered and crashed early that night, but what an epic day!

I was blown away further by the weather patterns here, the way heat and sunshine mixed with humidity and thunder storms that just came and went like the milkman. The sunsets were A1 too! and then at night if it wasnt a lightning show, the stars were dazzling bright in the pitch blackness. Robs place was on the other side of the mountain from town so no light pollution. It was seriously so dark with any artificial light that you could not see a thing. Ultimate blackness until your eyes adjusted.

28-29 jul I strapped up the bike and headed for Rossland. It wasnt a big drive and I stopped in fruitvale to meet up with a friend i had met in vancouver earlier. We had a couple of beers and some lunch, then i continued on to Rossland, the home of the world famous 7 summits trail. Did I want to ride it, yes. Could i in my condition and in this heat (its been over 30 everyday since i left Calgary) perhaps not. 31 ks outside of mobile phone reception on my own, I chose to ride the trails of the local mountains behind the quaint little township, whos main street looked like an old country town out of a western film, with a wide road down the middle and lots of old buildings.

I stayed with Mark in his apartment not far from the town centre. We had a lot in common and organised a ride with some of his friends for the last day that I was going to be there. The local mountain was fun but i needed more time, the trail markings were poor and hard to follow, a local guide would have been very beneficial here!

The ride we did as a group was awesome, we shuttled to the parking area and then cycled some distance further up to the top of the trail. Whiskey was fast and flowy with some slower steep descent areas, some cool jumps and fun obstacles. Very enjoyable, although it was a little strange to be the lead rider this time, I was often waiting for them to catch up, but all good, it was just great riding with other people!

I will never forget the old lady who lived next to mark, she drank wildcat beer and loved Australians!! (the nicest people in the world apparently!!) she was an amazing character.

30 jul I heard from a Danish friend of mine; Kenny, and they were headed for Banff from Jasper. We met in the USA on a 3 week tour of the western dessert areas. Been mates ever since. He and his parents were travelling around Canada so it made sense to catch up.

I left Rossland and headed for Banff. I had to back track a bit to get to the highway to take me north through Radium and Invermere, through the kootenays national park and then round to Banff. I was trying to get to Invermere in time to get a half day ride in at the local bike park, but i forgot to factor in mountain time change and lost an hr so that kinda screwed that.

I went up to radium to try and find a place to stay but there were no hostels. I went up the road a bit to radium hot springs and chose to soak it up a bit for a while. I went back to town, and watched some amazing storm fronts rolling across the far hills and straight for us. I grabbed some food and drove back up the highway 10 mins and sat and watched as this huge cloud bank slowly blew over and then drenched the area with solid rain. I realised at this point that the evening sleeping in the back of the ute may not be to ideal. But, I tried it anyway.

After being moved on from a couple of places, I found a spot down near the local timber mill where i could pull off the road and not be seen. It was raining still and everything was wet and muddy. I tied down my tarp and tried to settle in in the back. I spent nearly 2 hrs trying to get to sleep, being attacked by mosquitoes the size of blowflies, wondering what every single sound outside was and being generally uncomfortable. I gave in in the end, got out, and saw 3 deer within 10 feet of where i was standing. Better than the 3 bears i guess.

Ended up getting a couple of hrs sleep in the front seat and then waking up at 5am. I packed up (had to move a lot of stuff in the car to get comfortable in the front seat) and headed back for town, grabbed some breakfast and then went to get fuel so I could make it to Banff. Radium had other ideas. There were 3 fuel stations on 1 intersection. The first one, the biggest, the girl tells me "sorry we are out of fuel" hmmmm. She then volunteers the information the the Chevron across the highway is also out. But the Husky on the other side of the road still has some, but they are almost out too. Out of interest i asked when they were being refilled, the truck was due the following day!!!

Its about 6.30am, the sunrise is quite nice and the clouds from last night are dissapearing, its going to be hot again. I see beautiful photographic opportunities arising everywhere, but i cant go anywhere because I am parked in the Husky service station that apparently has some fuel left, waiting for it to open at 7am. At first its just myself and a guy on a motorbike, both of us itching to get going. By 7am, there is a line of about a dozen vehicles behind those of us that have our vehicles at a pump. Its 7.30 before the staff member responsible for opening up rocks up for work, obviously hung over as hell. She spends another 10 mins remembering how to turn the pumps and then the free for all ensues. I fill up and bail, but wonder how many other behind me would get to fill up before the tanks run dry and then everyone in radium who is low on fuel is going nowhere!!

The drive through the park to Banff was stunning, I missed some of the best light due to the servo debarcle, but still got some great shots on that drive, would have taken possibly one of the best photos of the trip if I could have found somewhere to pull over, but in this particular spot there was about 6 inches of shoulder and then railings. I drove almost a k before i could stop, so i missed it. Golden sunlight filtering down through the trees as it peaked over the top of a hillside, beautiful pink and purple mountain flowers glowing brightly on the forest floor. It was a massive scene would have been an impressive shot, damn.


31 jul - 1 aug banff - kenny
2 - 3 aug golden - kicking horse, mt seven
4 - 5 aug revelstoke
6-8 aug silverstar resort- hammers, riding shooting, fires
9-10 aug Sun peaks - riding
11- 16 aug whislter - crankworx, riding
17 - 19 aug squamish, the chief, kiteboarding
20 - 23 aug okanagan party
24 - 26 aug victoria - whales, parliament building
27 - 30 aug courtenay, bear, mt wash, bearclaw jumps
fern st
afl finals
granny
whistler
ankle
celestes 21st
beer pong
house warmings
thanks giving
new house

blogging isnt really that hard, what are you afraid of!

yet again i have failed at the blogging. Really gotta change that!

Car washes in vancouver, as in a manual one where you wash the car yourself with the spray gun and the brush. Couldnt find one, and one guy even said with a smile they dont exist!! I know of some way out of town, but in the downtown area, no go!

I stuffed around preparing the "truck" for a guy to come and have a look this morning, but in the end he couldnt make it. It has been a dismal and rainny day, sposed to be like that all week.

Ankle was really bad again last night, well actually its some of the tendons in my foot and even the lower parts of my toes that are giving me grief, and its only when im in bed!!

have been making space in my room for bookshelf, just to help keep me more organised. Starving hungry, chicken salad time i think, then more work on website and some excercise for my ankle.

Autumn colours here are stunningly beautiful, and stand out well over the surrounding grey!

and its been a while.....

BOOM! the first 5 weeks have gone past rather quickly. A lot has happened and as time went by my list of things to write about got longer and longer and so I started to put it off. Bad idea. Now  i have a rather large project ahead of me and i must admit its a little daunting!

For those of you who cant be bothered reading through paragraphs of thoughts, events and stories, or if you just cant stand to read about how some other lucky person is off traveling the world while you're stuck at work (totally understand) This a run down of some of the stuff seen and done, and there are some pics at the bottom.

For the rest of you (hey where did everybody go?) I shall elaborate on the stories of shenanigans, great places i found myself in, and the people I met in more detail some time soon...

in random order (chronological wouldn't make sense would it?)

A380 flight to LAX, got an exit row seat, with more leg room than business class, happy as a pig in brown stuff.

5 hr LAX layover, still havn't slept.

Flight to YVR and finally I succumb to exhaustion, 30 odd hours and I was toast. only got about 90 mins sleep though.

Missed couchsurfers on first night, couldn't be assed stuffing around, too tired, straight to hostel, crash out.

First few days exploring Vancouver, Capilano bridge and the north shore, Stanley Park, downtown area and a visit to Brians for some beers. Weather beautiful.

Whistler next, sea to sky highway is a great drive, despite quite a lot of Olympics roadworks. 

Zip trekking, mountain biking, golf and some nice live music from whistler village, what a great place to be. I road all day on my birthday as planned, not all trails were open being so early in the season, but I still had an awesome day. Crank it up was my favourite trail, rode it repeatedly!

The drive to Revelstoke was long, but amazing, so much wonderful scenery. The Shuswap area and accompanying lakes are looking great, ski boats line the frontage of numerous marine outlets.

Checked out the hot springs, old growth forests and waterfalls, there is something awesome everywhere you go!

Despite nice weather, many trails and attractions are still closed, a long, cold, snowy winter left a lot of places still inaccessible.

Driving through Glacier National Park opens up more unbelievable scenery, the mountains through here really start to tower over you.

Northern Lights wolf Sanctuary is eye opening. Hiking with female Wolf "Maya" is very impressive, she is photogenic, but very skittish. A beautiful animal. Never though I would get so close to one out in the open.

Head through Banff to Canmore, meet up with old roommate from London and have a pretty awesome night on the juice.

Climbed Chinamans peak the next day hungover. Best hike, views and experience of the trip so far. Hard work, and not even a big peak! one mad bastard climb up with his unicycle and then rode down it!!

Explored Banff township and Lake Louise area, saw Moraine Lake as well. Lovely places, quite cold here, both lakes still frozen over, but melting. 

Had a run in with a large bear on the wrong side of the wildlife fence along the highway. Not sure if it was a grizzly, but it was bloody big, ended up running right behind the car!

Icefields Parkway drive from Lake Louise, not as eye bulging as I expected, again a number of lakes and water falls still very iced up. I think the Glacier national Park region is more impressive. Went as far north as Columbia Icefield, worst weather of the trip on arrival, 6c, dark clouds and windy. upon departure an hr later, the wind had gone and the sun was shining.

Headed back to Vancouver via Kelowna. Its hot here, almost 30c. Its a very summery place even though there are a number of ski mtns close by for winter. Wing night at local pub, i gorged. Tried the "Johnny Cash" wings (stupidly hot) not my cuppa really.

 Roadworks force a detour back to Vancouver, lose almost 2 hrs to delays etc. 

Next trip was to Vancouver Island, ferry from Tsawwassen (spelt something remotely like that) to Nanaimo and then drove across the island through Port Alberni to Ucluelet.

"Ukee" is a small place some kilometres from the larger, more touristy Tofino. Its very surf cultured, laid back. Everyone knows everyone here. 

Saw the main beaches of, and I will use the slang, Wick and Flo. Ocean temperate might as well be below zero. Surf... I don't think so.

Stayed in a beautiful big house and got a pretty good introduction to this area. Saw Sea Lions, Bald Eagles, bears, and Whales. Ate amazing sushi, (salmon country !!) went fishing and ocean kayaking. 

Had a great beach fire on a secluded beach 2 nights in a row, huge big cliff face on one side and a nice little inlet on the other.

Will also mention the weather here for the week was the best in history. high 20's to 30 everyday. Got sunburnt, swam in a bloody cold but bearable lake (with snow on tops of the mountains in the background!!) and got bitten by the worst insect in the world - Blackflies, I am still itching weeks later.

Camping, now this was a hoot! soooo much happened that if you want the full story you will have to read the associated post. Got lost in the dark then punctured. got found, guy rolled his 4x4, we somehow got it out the next day! Shooting tournaments with rifles and shotguns! Insane off roading, another car nearly over a water fall. Drinking, beer bongs, and accidents leaving me with more cuts, bruises, sprains and swollen limbs than the guy who rolled his car!!

Have been visiting local areas since returning, such as Granville Island, Richmond, Burnaby and White Rock. Now looking for the next adventure!

right, so some photos and a video maybe and then I'm done for now. Gotta go do somethin!

I have learnt my lesson, I wont leave it so long in future!!

I think this video was taken driving through Glacier National Park

Seton Lake, could be wrong on this one, my bad. was in the middle of nowhere!

This big Lake was actually dammed at the right of shot, hydro plant.

some nice afternoon sun coming through near this random waterfall

Maya, one of the cooler shots I got of her sneaking out of the bush.

Between Golden and Banff somewhere, Yoho National Park I think.

The view from Chinamans Peak, over the edge goes straight down!

making his way down!

Parts of Lake Louise where melting

Peyto Lake viewing was only possible through 15 minutes of snow!

But this was the view, though still frozen you can see how blue it is!

Humphrey, he looks friendly right?

Athabasca Glacier & the Columbia Icefields Centre

Heaps of sea life on Vancouver Island

Awesome Beach fire spot!

It took us 2 hrs to get it out. (it was on its left side when we got there, and the engine still ran) it came flying up that embankment backwards and landed on the road in rather spectacular fashion!

just days

only days from departure, excitement builds. Camera ready and keen for action, the Pacific ocean is all that stands between me and the adventure of a lifetime ....

So ecxited for this amazing journey of discovery....

stay tuned :)