Expedition Canada

And Fog Mon Jan 31st Howe Sound sunrise For most of last week Howe Sound and metro Vancouver seem to have been socked in fog, only clearing as rain arrived just before the weekend.  Once the rain cleared, clear cold skies produced some stunning sunrises.  The pic on the right is looking towards Vancouver (it's behind the distant mountain) just before the sun appeared over the  mountains and bathed the Sound in orange light. With modern satellite and radar technology, I had thought fog horns were a thing of the past.  It's certainly not the case on BC ferries who in fog, sound their fog horn every two minutes.  It's loud!  On my ferry across to Vancouver on Wednesday for a workshop part, the bridge announced that any passengers on deck "should watch their ears" (is that an oxymoron?), "as the fog horn will sound and it's loud".  Quite why anybody would be on deck in zero visibility, temperatures close to freezing with the ship going full tilt is beyon...

Quiet News Week Mon Jan 24th Howe Sound The week since the last post has flown by and you might reasonably assume it has been jam packed with adventures.  I'm not sure where the time has gone, but it's not been spent climbing mountains, hiking trails or other outdoor pursuits.  Too cold for anything water based! The latter part of last week, we were absorbed in a potential house purchase.  We got a heads up on Tuesday that a property in one of our preferred locations was coming on the market  and went to see it first viewing, first thing on Thursday morning.  We liked it so had a second visit on Friday, before putting in an offer.  The three bed house was on the coast near Bonniebrook, where we spent out first month on the Coast.  Nice quiet location, but needed some work for an additional bed and shower room that influenced our offer.  We went in just below asking and were unsuccessful and suspect it went above asking.   The search cont...

But in other news....  Mon Jan 17th Ferry departing Langdale heading for Horseshoe Bay Hurrah I hear you cry, he's not going to talk about the bloody weather again, 'we've had enough of the snow'!  If it's any consolation so have we!  It's now all over on the East coast, lots of it! Today it's Barclays 'Customer Service', self-unloading log barges and local wildlife. Our difficulties with Barclays arose  when we sold Eastcourt House  because  they had not cleared an old mortgage 'charge'. It led to a formal complaint from us and offer of £150 compensation from Barclays back in November.   This was after spending £100 on phone calls from Canada aside from numerous useless chat sessions.  The registered letter to Barclays accepting the offer and closing the complaint never arrived as Royal Mail were ' unable to deliver the letter as nobody was in '.   Two one hour phone calls at the end of last week, one of which was abandoned as the ...

Just as the crampons are due to arrive! Thu Jan 13th Dakota Ridge After nearly four weeks of snow and ice, temperatures have climbed above freezing and storms together with heavy rain Tuesday and overnight Wednesday, have cleared most of the ice and snow except where it's ploughed up at the edge of the road.  Having both gone over on the icy roads we, along with nearly everybody else on the Coast who didn't already have them, have ordered crampons to reduce falls and slips.  Inevitably they will arrive after we need them unless new snow arrives.  That said we'll have them for next winter!  They are, we have decided, an essential accessory. The heavy rain and wind caused quite a bit of damage around the southern coast of BC as it coincided with King (Spring) tides.   Low lying areas around Vancouver were flooded and logs washed up on the beaches. The sea wall around Stanley Park, a circular walk and cycle route that goes under the spectacular Lion's Gate Bri...

Except on the Driveway Fri Jan 7th Wednesday morning ferry queue to Horseshoe Bay I remember chuckling at news in the UK about how local authorities were not so good at clearing snow and dealing with icy roads.  In fairness the UK does not usually see a huge amount of snow, certainly not as much as BC.   That said, road clearing teams in BC have struggled to keep up.  Labour shortages due to Covid have not helped.  Salt is now in short supply locally, with no more due until February.  The snow that arrived overnight Wednesday left another six inches on top of what was already there.  The dual-carriageway up from the ferry terminal in Langdale, which the large trucks take slowly with their hazards on in warm weather, was blocked when I took Jack for his morning constitutional.  Several large trucks and trailers were 'parked' up and cars were coming back down the 'up lanes' as something was blocking the road further up. Before I ...

Oh, and more snow! Mon Jan 3rd 2022 Happy New Year all.  We find it hard to believe it was nine months ago today that we arrived in a locked-down Canada, having departed a locked-down UK. We have vivid memories of arriving at a deserted Heathrow airport and going straight to the front of a check-in desk, nobody in security (so much so the security manager was keen to joke and chat and show off his new technology) and then on to an empty Air-Canada aircraft to Toronto.  The only brief delay was the Canadian embassy official  checking we were legitimately allowed to travel under their pandemic constrained reuniting family policy. [Note to friends wanting to move to Canada, export one of your youngsters, get them to apply for Permanent Residency and then they can sponsor you to apply under their reuniting family schemes].  On arrival in Toronto, getting through immigration, Covid testing and transport queues to our designated quarantine hotel was ama...