Another Fantastic Day

The Yellowhead highway is supposed to be one of the more scenic in Canada, and it is certainly very nice. Cedar and birch forest with mountains for background - whether snow covered or not. Much of the way to Prince George is National or Provincial park. Mount Robson was the first...

The view back toward Jasper from Moose Lake (it had rained all night and had just stopped raining)

The view toward Mount Robson from Moose Lake

The view of Mount Robson from the other side

The highway is the main route between Edmunton and Vancouver, so you would expect a lot of traffic. This was more cars than I had seen so far, and by the time I was within 100km of Prince George I had still seen less than twenty! And there were no towns or petrol stations for 200kms. Just forest and mountains.

Miserable

It is raining. It has rained off and on all day. At least it is not snowing, and hopefully it won't tonight. I am keeping my fingers double crossed. I do want to leave Jasper tomorrow for better places.

Jasper is a miserable place to stay the night at this time of year. There is only one place to camp, and that is a special winter camp ground out of town with electricity but just about nothing else. And it is raining. Everyone is camped on a big asphalt parking lot, and there is one set of toilets and lots and lots of people. Everyone is cheek by jowl. It is like a used RV lot - and it's difficult to park because it is so full. At other times of the year there are lots of camp grounds open, but not now. And you are supposed to self register by filling out an envelope and I don't have a pen. However, the facilities, though sparse, are better than those at the campground yesterday. It's no wonder that the town itself seems full of RVs on the streets - although they wouldn't fit if they all came here. And everyone is happy, and that makes up for it all. The Canadian who loaned me his pen lives 40km from here, and says it's amazing because the trees all have leaves, and they shouldn't fo another few weeks.

My electronic devices are playing up. The phone doesn't like places where there is no reception, and keeps trying different providers every 2 minutes. This wouldn't matter if it didn't give you a buzz and two beeps each time it tries. It has been doing this all day! My GPS doesn't have Jasper, so it thought it would take ten hours to go 250km, and kept on directing me the wrong way. The guy at the petrol station halfway here said it happens to a lot of GPSs - he called it the Bermuda Triangle of Canada. And when I got here it had no streets. In the past, I have been able to ask it to tell me all the campgrounds, and go to them, but the nearest campground to Jasper according to the GPS is 250km away. Like all of the things I had read about to do in national parks in Canada, the campgrounds I saw on the way in were all shut, so I was feeling a bit desperate when I arrived. Unfortunately I got here too late for the information centre to be open. However, the first people I asked gave me a map and directions here, which was wonderful.

Today was supposed to be the most scenic in Canada, and it was pretty good, but with low cloud, grey skys and the time of year (when snow is half melted), places really didn't look their best. For instance, here is a picture I took today of the place that everyone thinks is the most beautiful place in Canada. You've all been there, so you should recognise it - but you may not, because it really isn't anywhere near as chocolate box perfect as all the places I saw only yesterday. The back two mountains had just been revealed, but there should be more in the white gap.

I'll give you a hint. This building is the chalet there - although I think it was built after your time. All guesses can be as comments to this post. Actually, now I look at the picture, it has a beauty all of its own, rather than the chocolate box beauty you normally see here.

And people seem to think that they can do idiotic things when they see a black bear - like park in the middle of the road far too close to it. Even worse, the next person who comes along parks in the middle of the road next to the first person. I saw two black bears today. Both were minding their own business, being very active, grubbing around in the bushes at the side of the road, a couple of metres from the road. The main reason I saw them was because of the cars - the second bear had attracted three cars. I also saw a lot of deer - probably about 30 (but only a couple of people seem to stop for deer, and they had pulled over to the side of the road). Fortunately the Kootenay park has deer fencing on both sides of the road. The active bears might be one reason everything is shut.

So now that I have got all that off my chest, I can tell you about how good today was (and it was good)...

All the roads today were spectacular. The scenery was wonderful.

I saw glaciers!

I am getting used to driving the RV and driving today was a pleasure, as well as seeing stuff that I have always wanted to. Tonight I have a chance to use features of this RV that I may need later. And I can get to sleep early, and leave late (I don't want to leave early in case there is black ice).

Snow

Maybe a picture saves a thousand words...

Where I had lunch (I took the photo on a sandy beach)...

My campsite for tonight...

Canada

Well, I made it to Canada today. I'm in Hope which is very nice - flat valley, pointy mountains covered with trees and a sprinkling of snow on top. I got up late this morning, and I needed to get supplies, so that took most of the day. Tomorrow will be different!

RV

Today was pickup day. The RV is practically brand new - certainly up market from the one I drove in Australia!

I went by bus. On the way to the bus stop, I visited the Seattle library. You should look it up - it is quite an amazing building both inside and out - almost an Architect's nightmare!  The bus trip was quite long, and took almost two hours, but it was interesting seeing the Seattle outer suburbs.

Fish

Ginnie took me to the Burke museum which has a very interesting collection of indigenous Pacific artefacts - especially from the north west of America. 

The Alaskan fishing fleet over winters in Seattle. To accomodate the fleet, Seattle has dug out a cancel between Lake Washington and the sea and put in a lock because of the difference in levels. That meant the salmon couldn't get to the lake, so they built a salmon ladder next to the lock. Unfortunately it is the wrong time of the year to see any fish climbing the ladder, but it was fabulous of Ginnie to take me to visit the lock and ladder because it certainly was interesting.

We then went to the fishing wharf and saw the fleet and the memorial to fishermen who have died.

After that we visited a local beach and saw the damage beavers make on the way there. I had never appreciated just how destructive beavers can be! Once we reached the beach we saw an enormous marina for pleasure craft. What a great day!

Glass

I have finally figured out how to get better wifi reception. It took me days to get the blog posts published, even though I had three bars, but if I do it from my bedroom, reception is consistent, and things work, even though I still have the same number of bars.

This morning I visited the Seattle Center, which includes Chihuly Garden and Glass. They were having a Japanese Cherry Blossom festival. Unfortunately it was raining heavily, so the garden  was sodden, and the enormous glass ornaments in the garden weren't glittering. However, it is quite spectacular.

The last picture includes the dancing flowers which are in a separate part of the Seattle centre and have solarpanels in the flower to allow them to move. They weren't dancing, and a person I talked to was surprised that they were supposed to dance, as he had never seen the do so, even though he works there.

Pioneer Square

Some time ago I met Frank and took him to Healesville Sanctuary, so today we met for lunch. Seattle has much more variety than I saw in LA, so we ended up having Indian, which was good and cheap. We had an excellent time.

Before he came, I wandered down to Pioneer square, which is where Seattle started (more or less, because they actually first settled where Ginnie took me on the first day). It was even steeper than the way to Pike Market! I didn't realise that I only got to the edge of the area, so I was disappointed when I turned back. There were a lot of older buildings. Next time, possibly tomorrow, I'll know where to go.

Pike

Pike Place Market is renouned as one of the markets of the world. I've seen it ranked in the top 10, but the internet is inherently biased towards the US (for instance look up the 10 largest canyons in the world and many sites claim that the Grand Canyon in the US is the largest, when it actually comes in at about third or fifth, and quite a few lists only include US canyons). It certainly reminded me of the Grand Bazaar in Istanbul, but it has a lot more eating places, and fresh fruit and vegetables that the Grand Bazaar doesn't, and it's smaller.

The fish tossing shop is in Pike Place Market, but unfortunately I couldn't get a photo of the fish tossing (there was a crowd watching), but I got this one instead - which puzzled me a lot. Why would Chilean fish come from Australia?

The first ever Starbucks store is in the market too. They have a special card you can get, but the queue was out the door.

After I visited the market, I went to the Seattle Art Museum. As well as European, modern and classical art, they have indigenous art from the South Pacific, North West America, Africa and from Australia (including a number of the most intricate Arnaham Land bark paintings I have seen). And then it was getting late, so I wearily climbed back to where I'm staying.

My apartment is in a nice area, and is very close to all of downtown Seattle (for instance it's only one kilometre from the market), but it takes a lot longer to get back, because it is all uphill, and the hill is quite steep. I thought I was getting just a room (it was the cheapest place I could find), and I knew it had kitchen facilities, but it is a beautiful Art Deco building, on the building register for Seattle. My (small - it is their cheapest) apartment has a small bathroom and walk in robe, a separate kitchen complete with oven, full sized fridge etc., and a large sitting area. The bedroom only just fits two single beds. It was cheaper than any Airbnb place that was available, closer to town, and better quality.

First Day in Seattle

San Francisco was warm but covered in cloud, and the whole trip to Seattle was cloud covered until we were almost there. I was surprised at the mountains out the plane window - there was the occasional cub taller mountain covered with snow when everything else didn't have any.

As we landed one of the big ones was very close - I guess it was Mount Rainier.

Seattle was in sunshine, and when Ginnie picked me up we went across to west Seattle where you can see Seattle spread out before you. 

The gardens here are very nice - much better than the ones in normal places in LA. And the irises are out.

Travelling again

We are currently flying over Noumea (actually Tadine), and I can see it! Soon, we will be back to yesterday. Although the plane is almost completely full, I have a window seat, and there is a spare set next to me. Unfortunately, the babies are pretty close by. One of them has been crying a lot, and a small child keeps on screaming.

Farewell Central Australia

I climbed up the hill at the edge of the centre of town, but didn't get to the top, because even at 7am it was a bit too hot for me. I didn't see any of the sights either, for the same reason. When I come back I will!

On our flight out, we passed over Lake Eyre and the painted hills again - a perfect end to a fantastic trip!

A Town Like Alice

Today I packed up, clear the van, and went to Uluru for the last time. It was still cloudy, so the rock wasnt red, but I saw the rock in the rain, and I saw Lake Eyre full, and I saw everything in flower around Uluru, so I couldn't expect everything.

And on to Alice. The country along the Stuart Highway soon became hilly - not what I expected (more flat land) - I don't know why, as I knew that the McDonell ranges surround Alice Springs. The ranges are very weathered sedimentary rocks. When I come back, I must see all the canyons with which the McDonell ranges abound. Although they are reasonably close to the rock and the Olgas, they are so different.

Alice Springs was also different to how I expected it to be. I don't think any building is over two stories, which makes the town very flat. It's also very spread out, so every building has a lot of land around it.

I really loved the main street which is a mall and meanders like a stream.