Weather Bomb

Damp Squib

Thu Oct 28th

Nick and I settled down to watch the F1Q

My son, pictured right, says I talk to much about the weather.  Because he's now a Canadian citizen he seems to have forgotten that Brits like to talk about the weather; but advice headed.  Suffice it to say it has been damp, but hardly explosive.

Nick was over on the Coast this weekend but as he was 'out Friday night' was quite happy to watch the F1 Qualifying with me on Saturday afternoon.  It was clearly quite riveting - we both slept through it. 

Sunday morning we'd just finished breakfast when a visitor popped by.  We have no idea how it got in, unless when Fred got up to let Jack out at dark o'clock it slipped into the mud room unnoticed. 

After about 5 minutes flying up to all the open doors it headed off out.  Big fella, but not sure what type of bat it was.

After the excitement of the breakfast visitor and with Fred immersed in final house removals and  furniture shipping lists, Nick and I headed off to Cliff Gilker Park which he'd not seen before.  The main entrance was closed because of partially fallen tree next to power lines, so we went in via the Forest Service Road.  A great walk as there was nobody else around.  

After dropping Jack back home we went off-roading up to the Dakota Creek Falls.  We'd walked it in summer only to find the water was little more than a trickle.   Summer's hour long walk was reduced to a 15 minute drive in Nick's Toyota 4Runner.  It is quite impressive over what was an unmaintained logging road.  In fact it was so unmaintained that we had to build a pile of rocks against a drainage pipe where the rain of the last few weeks had washed out the track.

Despite the rain and rushing creeks elsewhere the falls were something of a disappointment.  

As the rain (oops mentioned the weather again) was setting in we headed back.  

So far so good -  Whistler Mountain!

On Monday I ordered our skis so that I can pick them up next time we're in Vancouver.  Regular snow-reports (there I go again) are coming in of the conditions in Whistler and the season starts in less than a month, on Nov 25th, snow permitting.  It's looking promising, though there has been no snow in the village yet.  We're booked to head up to Nick and Lizzie's apartment on November 30th for three days.  Can't wait.

Tuesday saw the arrival of the teenage twin sons of friends in the UK.  They are in Canada on two year working visas, though one of them will be popping back to the UK and then Dubai to take part in a Rugby 7's competition.  They are both playing for a Vancouver club while in BC.  While the 7's rugby player went exploring up on Mt Elphinstone on a mountain bike for several hours on Wednesday morning, I took his
brother down to Cliff Gilker, only to find it was now fully closed off to the public, still awaiting the fallen tree to be cleared.  After a quick visit to Robert's Creek Falls instead we walked along Bonniebrook Beach where we first stayed on the coast and it was a different kind of coastal scenery to the mountains and falls.

Some years ago a rockfall had pushed a bank of stones and rocks on to Bonniebrook beach, about two metres high and twenty metres wide.  The action of the torrential rain driving down the small creek over the last few weeks emptying out onto the beach had scoured out the rockfall at beach level and the gap was now ten metres wide, such was the volume of water that must have cascaded down.  The once sandy beach is now littered with rocks.  The power of nature.

While our visitors explored Gibsons on Thursday, Fred played her regular Thursday ladies tennis session and I followed up a piece in the news about BC starting Covid booster shots.  We don't have Personal Health Numbers (PHN's) as we are not resident, or so we thought, but a box on the immunization website, asked you to ring if you don't have a PHN. 

A five minute call later and we had both established that a PHN had indeed been earmarked for us (based on our Super Visas and Covid test on arrival in Canada we presume) and we are now in the Canadian immunization system for flu jabs and Covid boosters.  We remain impressed by the efficiency and effectiveness of Canadian Covid management, which started on our screening when we arrived in Canada and continues today. We may need to pay, but was a sensible joined-up approach!

Our brief walk at Roberts Creek was along the pier.  A Belted Kingfisher, usually a nervous bird when people, and dogs, are around.  It happily sat there, more interested in fishing than Jack who was eying him from a couple of metres away!