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.
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.
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