Easter
weekend – Saturday 23rd to Monday 25th April
Up
and off to Chilliwack on Saturday on the Greyhound. Gina’s dad, George, came into town to pick me
up as they live up near the camp around Cultus Lake which is 28km from town.
Sunday
went to church for the first time since Costa Rica. It was great!
Only knew one song but the pastor preached a good message and then
afterward we tucked into a turkey dinner (tradition here at Easter apparently)
and all filled ourselves to the brim.
Spent the rest of the afternoon tucked up inside as it is cold out (and
seems even colder for me going from hot sticky humid Mexico to cold, rainy
Canada).
Week of the 26th
to 30th April
Sorted my social
insurance number, took a wander up Teapot Hill and round back to ‘home’. Great views of the lake and surrounding
mountains from up top. Saw a squirrel on
Thursday – so cuuuuttte!!!! Also the first day to wake up to a skiff of snow on
them there Canadian hills (brrrr). We
then got four seasons in one day (felt like I was back home… ;P) and ended the
day with a win for the Canucks in the 2nd round playoffs - yuss!!! (welcome to
Ice Hockey - my new favourite spectator sport) :D
The rest of my time this
week was spent uploading (or trying to) photos to my blog. I finally gave up on this unproductive
exercise and found a free website place I could upload them all to instead. So, if you’d like to see them go to www.intrepidmelbe.weebly.com instead of this
blog. If you click on the title on the
home page it will link back into this blog.
Sunday
1st May 2011
Potluck
lunch after church then we were off to Harrison Springs. Lovely place.
40mile long lake, mountains, thermal springs etc (much like Lake
Wakatipu before all the tourism). The
day was gorgeous and sunny (finally!) and although it wasn’t quite warm enough
for shorts it was nice to be warmed through for the first time all week.
After
our wee excursion it was time to pack and head off to camp where I’ll be living
for the next few months. Met the ‘A’
team (people who help set up camp for the summer) and we got put into our cabins
– I’m with 3 girls, all at least 5 years or more younger than me but they seem
mature for their age which is good.
Monday
2nd May to Thursday 2nd June
Okay,
so it’s now the 2nd of June and as you can see by my lack of
writing, not much excitingness (great grammar right there! ;P) has happened
since I’ve been here. In terms of
wildlife, I’ve seen some deer (a couple around camp even) and one night on our
way to dinner we passed through some trees where there were a couple of squirrels
chattering away and playing tag with each other round and round a tree. We were only about a metre from them – they
are soooo cauuuttte!!! They must be the
cutest vermin ever created! There was a black
bear spotted a couple of days ago behind the office so a warning was sent out
to those of us working in the bush that day, and someone saw a coyote on their
way to work the other day. Other than
that I’ve seen one bunny and lots of funny little birds that grace us with
their presence around camp each day. The
people are about as interesting as the animals themselves. Lots of jokes regarding accents (I’m usually
on the end of those..sigh…;P) and the core group of A-Team that’s been here are
a pretty cool bunch, despite most of them being quite a bit younger.
The
Snelgroves have kindly let me borrow one of their bikes so I’ve been on a few
bike rides, a couple into town (the first of which I took a wrong turn on the
way back and ending up biking an extra 17ish kms, so about 73km rather than
56km – not fun!) and a couple up into Columbia Valley where you can see the
border between the US and Canada in the mountains. It just looks like a firebreak does back home
– just a strip of nothingness between the two sides of trees on the mountain
slope – crazy!
Last
weekend and this weekend I’m doing a high-ropes accreditation course so I can
work up in the trees during summer – fun!
Last weekend we learnt all the basics of rope tying, belaying techniques,
how to rescue someone up high on the wires in between the trees (not for the
faint of heart let me assure you) and how to instruct at the low zipline 30ft
(10m). This Saturday we’re going to be
concentrating on the high 60ft (20m) zipline and the ‘leap of faith’ (trapeze
that you jump onto in midair from a platform high above the ground in the
trees). Then on Sunday we get tested on
everything so will be a full-on day.
Looking forward to it though, it’s a lot of fun. Although, if this wind doesn’t die down that
could make things a little more interesting than anticipated…
This
week I’ve also learnt how the low ropes course (what we would call a confidence
course or team-building exercise course) and archery range are run (very
similar set-up to a rifle range back home) and have helped out belaying at the
indoor wall, which is fun because you get a chance to climb in between the
groups coming through, plus it’s great to see the smiles on the kids’ faces
when they make it all the way to the top (especially because it’s a pretty
tough wall to climb, even not many adults make it up successfully).
A
few of us went swing dancing on Tuesday in the top of someone’s barn (yes it
was big and fat and red like the ones in the movies) which was heaps of
fun. I was beginning to feel
dance-deprived so now I’ve had my ‘hit’ for the week/month lol… It’s pretty much like our Rock ‘n’ Roll back
home; definitely not like West Coast Swing which is what I thought I would find
here on the west coast of Canada where it originated and is meant to be everywhere
(haven’t seen it yet and no one seems to know what I’m talking about when I
mention it – hmmm odd…)
Not
sure how much of Canada I will get to see now as the work I was meant to get
here has not eventuated as planned and now most of what I’m doing at camp is
voluntary rather than paid. I haven’t
looked elsewhere for work because there’s only a few weeks til camp begins so
there’s not a decent amount of time for me to be able to give any employer even
for casual work. Bit of a pity but I
guess it just means I will have to save my pennies again when I get back home
so I can return here one day to have a look around.
Righto,
think that’s about all for now. The food
and lodgings are good, although now we’ve had more staff arrive so things are
getting pretty cramped in the cabin and with the change from business and youth
groups to school groups the food isn’t nearly as good as when we first arrived. But I have a roof over my head, it’s warm
inside (if not out) and my belly is full unlike so many unfortunate people in
this world so there’s nothing to complain about really is there :)
That
is all for now. Til next time, take care
all and I hope those of you back home are wrapped up nice and warm as the brunt
of winter begins. It is supposed to be
the beginning of summer here but at the moment you would think we were in the
Southern Hemisphere rather than the Northern right now…
