Vancouver

Chapter 7 – Langley and the Cloakes

We finally arrived in Langley after our exciting journey from Kelowna and were very excited to see Carl, Jan and Dan after so many years. Apart from the setting and house and Chester, everything I could remember about the Cloakes was still very similar. Since we had experienced true Canadian winter on our drive we relaxed and slept preparing for our next adventure in Vancouver. Dan is a pretty good tour guide, though we are ones who like to explore a little slower than he is accustomed to. For example, on our drive into downtown Vancouver, we managed to miss the turn off to the photo gallery he needed to visit. We also somehow managed to visit the dodgy street in town with prostitutes and drugs – clearly visible – and glimpsed the Gay street all at the speed of light before waving goodbye to the tower and downtown all together and heading into Stanley Park. Having looked at a map of Vancouver a million times, we still managed to be lost once Dan guided us through downtown and into Stanley Park. But what a sight! This huge Park with millions of trees and tons of wildlife right on the shore line of the harbor as many of our photos can depict better. It really did take your breathe away and make you feel in awe of the greatness of our God and the mystery of his creation all over again.

Of course this didn’t last too long as Dan decided we really needed to go and experience the Aquarium which was only a short walk away. WOW!!! I haven’t really been to many aquariums and I don’t ever recall being overly awed by the few I have seen but this was an incredibly enjoyable experience. There were interactive toys for us boys and creepy looking underworld creatures and loads of fish and jelly fish and dolphins and whales and and and and and….. It is really hard to explain how cool it was so I will let some photos do the talking this time. This was also the day that the whole western coast of Canada moved an hour forward signifying the time change preparing for spring. We had forgotten and so thought that we had more time playing and exploring and were wondering why we felt so hungry. Eventually we overheard that this time change had happened and realized it was 4pm and we hadn’t eaten lunch. To top off this incredible experience, while we sat down for lunch at the highest point of Stanley park, it began to snow outside and painted everything white and so beautiful. As this was our first experience of Vancouver, we now knew that things could only get better for us in future explorations.

Since there was so much around us to explore and loads of variety for the Cloakes to show us, Dan decided we needed to see the beach one day and took us for a luxurious drive to White rock beach. You will never guess what they have at White rock, well yes a big painted rock. Crazy!!! It was so beautiful and for us a real treat to be at the beach after a very long time. Of course, we couldn’t really swim as we would become ice sculptures to be presented in one of their galleries but just the smell of the ocean in the air reminded us both of Durban and Cape Town. Dan had some photo home work to complete and unfortunately it wasn’t the greatest weather for us to be walking around at the beach with the wind howling around us, but we managed to make the most of it. We left after a short visit and headed in land to a small town very close to Dan’s house in Fort Langley where Jan wanted to take us inside the Fort and explore the heritage of this small place in BC.

We had explored most of Fort Langley on previous occasions going in to the smaller shops and managing to find an Alpaca clothing shop. Soft delicate fur clothes that made you feel all warm inside. Anyway, Jan took us up to the fort where we were able to discover the history of the fort as well as British Columbia on the whole. Fort Langley was the first place constructed by the British company called Hudson Bay which came up the Fraser River to find and deal in the fur trade. We got to play with some of the dead animal’s fur in one of the buildings where they used to strip the fur off and stretch it out before making a top hat or coat out of it. What made the fort particularly interesting was the interactive gold digging and iron making activities we could try. Unfortunately though, we arrived too late and were unable to do any of the cool activities.

One of our real treats coming to Langley was being able to spend time with not only Danny boy but was seeing Pierre and Robbie De Flourio. It has been so many years since I had last seen these two after spending many youth and holiday clubs interacting and playing the fool with them. We had so much fun meeting and seeing everything that they were getting up to and their girlfriends – Laura and Betty. We spent a few evenings watching some big screen movies on their flat screen in the basement. Another treat I didn’t mention was our visit to Nic – their sister – in Kelowna. It was a crazy time trying to coordinate our relaxed life with Nic and her husband Stevens. Eventually we were able to come through and visit her on a weekday morning for tea but we then didn’t get to meet Steven. It was so cool to see how well they were doing and especially to see Nic nearly 8 months pregnant and excited for their new bundle of joy. We also got to meet their addition to the family, a golden Labrador called Sofie. It is gonna be very sad to say farewell to all these guys again but has been such an awesome privilege to spend time with them all.

And so ends another exciting experience, until more news keep on living.

pics of Kelowna

Kelowna experiences

Chapter 6 – Kelowna farewell

Unfortunately, as with every place we have been to, eventually it is time to say farewell. I can prolong this as we haven’t covered much of the adventure we had in Kelowna. For example, I still haven’t mentioned the tubing experience or Mike showing us his work and a very hush hush project or the snowing experience and many others. Where to start? I guess the next best thing to do on snow if you cannot afford the high prices of renting skis or snowboards would be to climb on a big rubber tube and fly down a snowy hill spinning in clockwise circles unsure as to whether the hay at the bottom would in fact prevent you from continuing your descent to the car park. This was to be our first tubing experience at Silverstar ski slope above the city of Vernon. Tubing is a lot more fun as it requires much less work and thought. I mean, all you need is a rubber tube big enough for your bum to fit in, an Australian guy who hooks you up to the pulley system and another Australian guy who flings you recklessly down this 50 degree slope. Simple!!!

So we arrived at Silverstar midday for a good afternoon of tubing and then a beautiful sunset. Tubing was not quite what I had imagined. As with most things, I still think I have a pretty vivid imagination when it comes to thrill activities yet in this case I hadn’t finished putting the whole picture together. Who knew that it was difficult to stop a tube flying down a hill close to 40km/h on snow? If you did, then did you know that hay on snow provided enough traction to stop a tube coming down at those speeds in a mater of 20 meters? If your answer to these questions was yes, then you have been tubing before or you are just a genius. So as you would guess, I was first up and ready to go down with Ang and Mit. We decided to go as a threesome with our tubes linked up and the poor Australian guy lugging all three tubes to the edge and then trying to put some “super” spin on as we plunged to our doom. I say poor Australian in a sort of South African ha ha ha way!!! With the rush of the wind in our faces and the thrill of the ride soon over, we began the next incline with hay in our mouths and snow in our hair. Over and over and over again until eventually the sun began to set and the chill factor rose to a point where it was more fun being indoors than riding down the slope with the wind brushing your face into near full paralysis. As snowboarding was the highlight of things to try in snowy weather and I really enjoyed cross country skiing too, tubing gained the third position – a proper snow fight may have gained it but we never really had one.

One thing Kelowna is renowned for and we couldn’t fully do as the weather hindered it, was the beautiful walks along the lake and up the mountains. The only real hindrance was the snow which prevented certain walking experiences but also aided the perspective of the walks Ang and I were able to take. Many of these walks included going downtown to the old part of Kelowna nearest the lake shore (beach as it is referred to). One such walk we took downtown was to visit Corbin’s favorite video store called Leo’s to hire some movies. Unfortunately our previous movie hiring experience was failed and so we were hesitant as to what to choose. In the end, we walked out with nothing and decided that the lake front would be a much better walking experience – which it was. By about 2:30 we ended up near the library so instead of coming home empty handed we went and got some magazines to browse through. Sometime during our browsing, the weather changed from a sunny day to strong wind and plenty of snow. This was one of our first proper snow storm experiences since arriving in Canada. It also wouldn’t be our last but it was magnificent and so picturesque and cooolllldd. We made it back home safely with our pile of library magazines and a good memory of our day with the first snow storm we were outside in.

Another walk which was memorable was our dinner with Mark and Kerrin – friends of Mike and Mit - who invited us over to visit and walk up Knox Mountain. This was memorable as we got to meet some great friends of Mike and Mit and we got some good experiences with them. Knox Mountain is the one closest to where we were living and had a pretty impressive view of down town Kelowna and Glenmore. The hike back from the view point was more interesting as it was icy and very close to the edge of the mountain. We made it safely back for some delicious supper and then some fun. Ang says I am an addict when it comes to talking and day dreaming of one day owning the new Nintendo Wii. Mark and Kerrin have to beautiful children who play the Wii and I was able to have my first ever Wii experience. Memorable!!

But as with past adventures we soon had to say farewell to Kelowna and our new family (well my new family). It was very hard to say goodbye to Corbin and Kelsey having grown attached to them both and knowing it would be a while before we saw them again. And off we went on Saturday morning driving west through Kelowna and out in some white powdery snow. Who knew that a few minutes after we had left that morning they issued a warning to travelers heading through to Vancouver that the pass may be very risky and most should avoid it if possible. But here we were, already on the highway heading over the first of our Mountainous passes when the “Blizzard” struck us. You probably wont believe me if I say that we could not see the road in front of us. We couldn’t even gage where the side of the road was. But we knew where the middle of the road was as we heard it a few times under the tires. I suppose the two blessings for this experience was that Mike was driving which meant we could all look away and close our eyes at the most frightening parts and the other was that there were cars in front of us meaning we weren’t alone. Now thinking back to the experience, I am most grateful that God was with us because my attempts to help Mike push the brakes from my side of the car were useless. But we safely made it through the worst part and came out at Hope to find sunshine and 5 degree weather. That’s all I have to say about Hope!!!!

Joking aside, when you come visit Canada, a place renowned for its weather shifts you have to experience them all and survive to truly say that you have been there. I have been there! We will miss our Kelowna family and all the fun experiences we shared with them. Until our next chapter in Langley, ting tow tae…

Snowboarding and skiing

Chapter 5 – Kelowna continued

Since we were going to be in Kelowna for a while, to go in detail through the daily events would probably bore most. So to prevent a decrease in our blog hits, I will fast forward the daily stuff and illustrate or depict selected highlights from our experience here. As it turned out, the first week we arrived in Kelowna was the same week our cousins were on reading break from college which gave us some time to do crazy outdoors activities together. One such activity we did with Corbin and his girlfriend Jess was go and watch Slumdog Millionaire at the big cinema’s in Kelowna. I don’t think it is out in SA just yet and recently at the Oscars it received 7 Oscar awards and was a really brilliant movie with a fantastic story. It was just unfortunate about the ending – where they broke into a Bollywood song and dance which Ang and I really found annoying.

But enough of that, we also went on a day hike through one of the parks nearby with Corbin, Jess and Kelsey. It wasn’t a very long hike but we got adventurous as we came down to alongside the creek in the valley. I think the creek was called mission creek which was still pretty iced over from all the snow that had fallen near Christmas. As of yet we still had not seen a substantial snow storm. I am getting a little side tracked. The reason I say the hike got a little more adventurous was because we decided to walk across what was a fairly solid piece of ice and snow (basically over the creek) which is very risky since if it broke we could’ve all fallen into the creek and possibly drowned. But guess what, we let our cousins go first so we were fairly safe he he he he he!!! No, it wasn’t really that dangerous we think because the ice was thicker than 7 inches which is apparently safe enough to walk on. However, that wasn’t where our adventure ended, it was only the beginning. Having escaped certain doom with the creek, we soon encountered our next obstacle, a snow covered mountain side with gaps of small rock clusters which when you stood on them felt as though the earth moved under my feet. So we began the incline and found the going tough up the side of Layer Cake Mountain. Eventually, we gave in and the mountain beat us – for now – but it was really funny watching Corbin hike up the side only to slide down every so often due to the stones. The mountain won today but it won’t be long before the snow is gone and the hikers would win. So we headed back down and crossed the creek once again and moved on down the creek to see how far we could go. The end came soon enough where the river had iced completely over and we could see down the canyon mouth. What was surprising for us was to find 2 old beaten and completely crushed cars at the bottom of this valley. Questions like where did they come from, who crashed down here, how did they get here and so on crashed into our brains and couldn’t be answered. So having searched around by these strange cars we eventually headed back home from a rather eventful hike.

We took a detour past one of Corbin’s favorite stores namely VV – Value Village. It is a thrift store where people go and drop off their old used clothes and where we could go and find some really cheap options for skiing, snowboarding, warm clothes and various other amenities. Speaking of skiing and snowboarding, let’s move onto Ang and my first expedition at Big White. Having never skied before – except for our first experience of cross country skiing, I was scared at the prospect of moving at speed down a hill with absolutely no control. I chose to go snow boarding whilst Ang wanted to ski. Figuring that I had skate boarded before and enjoyed the idea of having my feet close together than being able to spread them apart in the splits as would be possible with skis on. I felt I had more control with my feet planted together. Big White is about 1 hour away from where our cousins live and it costs about $55 per person for a regular day pass excluding renting equipment. Thankfully, they have a Friday night special which most residents know about and costs $5 per person from 4-8pm. It is such a bonus because there are also specials on rented equipment which means we don’t feel like we are spending our life savings just to experience the mountain and snow. Corbin told us that the night we went skiing was the first time he had ever seen the top of the bullet – the highest point of the mountain range we were skiing down. It was amazingly beautiful and so crystal clear that we could see so far into the distance and at the surrounding views.

Obviously this was not the highlight of the evening. Once we were boarded up and ready, Corbin walked me through the tunnel where on the other side I donned the board to my feet and then learnt the basics. Firstly, how to stand and balance – pass. Secondly, how to control side movements with the boards edge – possible pass. Thirdly, how to stop – huh! Once shown I was then guided down the bunny hill slope and was scared out of my basket. You see, even though the bunny hill is the easiest slope, for a new comer it was still a slope with obvious obstructions and when brakes was the hardest thing to learn on a snow board it made the trip down even more interesting. Well, as with any new experience, there was a trial and error stage. My only trial was the error I made on the longest steepest part where my board caught the wrong edge and I was hurtled head over heels into the not so soft snow. Breaking nothing, bruising everything I got up slowly, recovered my dazed senses and began to make my way down very slowly and carefully. What takes a good snow boarder close to 5 minutes took me nearly 50. But I wasn’t going to give up and I went for my second lap before the siren sounded for me to get all my clobber back to the rental store. First experience done and I had the bruises to show for it. But it has to be one of the most memorable experiences of my trip thus far. We did come back to Big White for 2 more snow boarding adventures where I was a lot more confident and eventually was able to pick myself up off the ground without rolling over and I could charge down the face of the bunny hill looking forwards instead of up the hill. This time I managed to do the trip 5 times, once making it down in 20 minutes falling 10 or fewer times. On our third trip Ang and I stayed close together and were growing more confident. We eventually broke a record cruising down 6 times and nearly getting to the bottom in 5 minutes without falling.

And now for Ang’s say in the matter.. I decided to go out on the iced mountain in ski’s rather than snowboarding as I was never really any good on the skate board! After getting through the boot fitting and explaining to the confused Australian working there that my left foot IS a whole size bigger than the right I was set to go. With my aunt and uncle on my side (I will be referring to them as Oom and Mit) the pizza slice lesson began.
I think the scariest thing to learn as you start flying down the mountain is how to stop yourself…it took me quite a while to gain this understanding while remembering which foot to put the weight on when and turn. As soon as I would pick up too much speed or feel like I was going out of control…I would just flop down. This was quite funny actually- this is where the ‘One-sies’ came is handy and ensured I didn’t have wet pants by the end of the night. Once I was two thirds of the way down the bunny hill I finally started to grasp the whole concept (with lots of patience from Oom’s side) and then it was time to go home.

The second and third experiences were a lot more successful with no falls and the confidence to ski with our camera in my pocket. We were both able to get down the hill in a couple of minutes each time which was a huge improvement from our first lesson. Overall it was a great experience and was so much fun to share it with family and each other. Until our next chapter, when we eventually have to say farewell to our family and Kelowna and move on to our new destination in Vancouver.

Kelowna

Chapter 4 – Kelowna and the great Canadian outdoors

The drive probably could’ve, actually should’ve taken an hour or 2 less as a result of the fact that our beloved bus driver was also playing postman for most of the Rockies as we traveled south towards Kamloops where we would change buses before hitting Kelowna. I forgot to mention, we also changed time zones during the bus trip and at some point they decided that we entered a time zone of an hour’s difference which made the trip so much longer. But we did eventually arrive and were greeted by a smiling and very welcoming Ching family – excluding K Dawg (Kelsey). As we quickly found out, Kelsey was away in Victoria visiting and partying with her friends. So all our bags were swept up and we were whisked away to 28 Chelsea Gardens which was to be our home away from home. It was so great to finally meet Ang’s extended family and being here in Canada.

We were awoken earliesh Saturday morning as the plan for the day had already been set into motion after last nights eventful dinner chatter. The plan was for us to go and explore one of Mike’s hobbies out here in the great Canadian outback known to many as cross country skiing. For me, this was the very first experience of putting on skis and gliding through snow. I have worn skis for water skiing but this was to be a completely different experience. For those readers who have never skied before let me try and illustrate through words, exactly how awkward and frightening it is to be out of control even when you’re under control. Basically, it is like running on really long sticks tied to your feet that if you were to pick up completely from the icy surface, you would either slip and fall or even stick one in the surface at a bad angle allow for further greater discomfort and pain. Thankfully, Ang and I were able to avoid the second kind of “pain” however; there were a few close instances.

I as per usual was the first one to bail when I tried to navigate off the allotted path. As it turns out, they realize that there are some newcomers to skiing and in order to accommodate and help gain experience, they make pathways for us newcomers to stand in and glide through to prevent too much falling and possibly to also keep us out of the way. This made the experience so much more invigorating allowing us to enjoy the scenery and getting around the courses rather quickly. I have to admit, the best part of the skiing was definitely the down hills as you didn’t have to do too much work and you could go much faster. We learnt fairly quickly that although I was bigger than Ang, this didn’t mean that I would fly down the mountain faster. Instead it was the complete opposite as I was actually able to create more friction with the snowy surface causing me to go slower and her to catch me up. The problem with this was she spent most of the time behind me and we both were not very capable of stopping. So during our final run on the squirrel, Ang caught me up on the long and treacherous down hill. I was struggling to gain speed and could only hear the sharp high pitched wail of my beloved wife as she was careening towards me with no hope of stopping and I had no hope of escaping her descent. WHAM!!! I get taken right out by Ang breaking bones in every possible place – only joking. We did crash but I got taken out worse and it was a big joke for us to laugh about. Stopping is still something we both struggle with as you will find out when we write about our Big White experience.

So that was our first skiing experience which was tons of fun and definitely something we would both love to try again. This was not going to be the last action for the day as we had a hockey game planned for Saturday evening watching the Kelowna Rockets playing some other western league division team. We arrived a little earlier and were lucky enough to watch the teams warming up. We were sitting so close to the ice you could almost feel the particles splat on the glass protector as the players moved around hitting the puck at their keeper. These were seats I would’ve dreamed for at a soccer or rugby world cup final – front row in the action type seats. The game began and crash boom bang… it was the end of the first period before I even knew I was watching hockey. It was such an intensely fast paced game that you really struggled to keep up with what was going on. I think coaching this sport has to be the most insanely uncontrolled thing to ever do in life. For example, the starting line up changed within 2 minutes of play after which ever 2-3 minutes new players would emerge onto the rink whilst those tired would get off the ice asap. Next would be the movement on the ice. These guys would fly around the rink in the time it would take me to blink. Similarly, the puck (that’s the ball in this sport) would shoot around the rink like it was wired and being chased down by greyhounds. On a few occasions we were lucky enough to see the puck zing around right in front of our eyes at eye level. I was disappointed though as the puck never left the rink and I wasn’t able to catch one as a memento. But that was were my disappointment left because the game itself was incredible and I enjoyed every minute of it. In the end, Kelowna rockets thumped their opposition by 5 -2 which in ice hockey is a hammering. Go ROCKETS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

This was our second evening in Kelowna and if it was anything to go by, our time here was going to be action packed and full of fun and exciting things to do. For more, you will just have to wait for our next chapter from the great Canadian outback.