Expedition Canada

Today Friday April 3rd, 2026 Heathrow - Easter Saturday April 3rd, 2021 - Not normally this busy! Five years ago today we arrived in Canada.   April 3rd 2021, at the height of the pandemic, on Easter Saturday.   Quarantine Dinner - allegedly! Departing a very empty Heathrow, we arrived at a very heaving Toronto Pearson, where all international flights were being routed, so arrivals could be consistently and systematically Covid-screened; sent off with test kits to the local mandated hotels for a few days of enforced quarantine and carrier-bag food deliveries to the hotel room door.  Yuk. And no bloody wine list!  Four hours from plane door to hotel room door. We could not leave the hotel room until we had a negative Covid test, which arrived after two days, enabling us to travel onto Vancouver with a second test kit to be completed during our remaining  quarantine.  A further eleven days of 'lock down' in a ground level suite, with access to the g...

Happy New Year Ok, OK, I know I do a lot of sunsets (and sunrises) - but they are so beautiful Sunset over Vancouver Island (iPhone) Well, as feared in the last blog, it turns out that coming from a new joint email address our festive messages ended up in a lot of folks junk folders. W e sent e-Christmas cards as Canada Post were on strike for several months before Christmas.   So if you were thinking "we didn't get a card from the Cronks this year", check your junk email.  If it isn't there, then our email list was clearly in error (or you have changed your email address)!   It seems e-Xmas messages are starting to replace snail-mail (not surprising if you go on strike before Christmas) and probably arrive nanoseconds after they were sent. We had several.  Our first batch of the more tactile traditional cards arrived from the UK Fri Jan 10th, apart from a couple that must have been posted last summer, or maybe even Christmas 2023! Winter seems to have bypa...

Wolf on the Loose Tue July 30 Pet not predator Just back from a week in Whistler where we took advantage of not having Jack with us and were able to spend a lot of time up the mountains and in bars, where dogs are banned. Promoted as 'dog friendly', compared to the UK it is anything but.  More of Whistler later. Morning walks along Bonniebrook beach almost came to a halt a few weeks ago, before we headed North, after I came face to face with a large wolf gambolling along the road heading for Jack.  What do you do when a wolf heads towards you?  I had no idea.  It had, what I assumed was a tracking collar, but turned out to be a domestic dog collar.  His name I discover is Rudiger and he has a reputation for escaping from the compound his owner created for him with 12' high fences with an overhang. He wanted to play with, rather than consume Jack, but it was still an initially unnerving experience.  Rudiger has been the source of much social media commentary...