Canada - part 3 - Winter

This is a real Winter!

2008-01-01T18:55:00.001-08:00

A new year so reason enough to update this website again, because I have been neglecting my fans a bit :-)
Since it’s been a while, a lot has happened, so I’ll try to make it as brief as possible, so that you don’t read yourself asleep.
My last news was when I flew back home end of September and so that’s what I that. I made a stop for 2 weeks in Germany, Munich and Hamburg, where I managed to catch up with a lot of sleep and some European cultural events. Then my next stop was home sweet home, Antwerp, where I spend another 5 weeks, working as I might add. Since I left Lake Louise as how I arrived there, broke, I was kind of forced to work. But that didn’t ruin my spirit, at least not the first 3 weeks. I found some jobs serving and as a cleaner in a milk powder factory where I was offered already a full time contract. Unfortunately I had to turn this dream job down, since I already made some other plans to travel a bit more, damn bad luck!
Anyway the work gave me something to do and made it able to catch up with my friends, and I had a lot of catching up to do. Sad but true I found out that it takes a lot longer to earn the money then to spend it :-).
I also have some happy news to share and that is that on the 23rd of November, a couple of days before I left, I became an auntie of a little girl, named Lore. With some delay My brother and his girlfriend are proud parents now and I was lucky enough to witness it all.
29th of November, 4am, my brother drives me to the airport of Paris, where my 24 hour trip starts to get back to Calgary. For all those people who have never been to the airport in Paris … don’t. It’s the worst place I have ever had to fly from, such a spider web, and after we finally found the terminal where I was departing from, It took my brother another half an hour to find his way out again.
So now back In Lake Louise, where I can experience the well known Canadian winter. The first week of my arrival it was around –25 degrees, which made me feel like my nose and my longs would freeze every time I took a breath. The first weeks I had to crash at a friends place, because there wasn’t a room available yet. So I practically took over the whole room, having the couch pulled out permanently, my over weighted suitcase on the only space left in the room and here and there clothing pieces floating around. I can say it took a while to get my stuff together again when I ended up moving, definitely with my energy level and my never ending motivation of packing.
After a couple of days working as a painter, I started working in transportation, which organises the ski busses between Banff and Lake Louise. I’m responsible for selling and scanning tickets on the bus, awesome job, as my colleague always says; “90% of the job is showing up” and that’s what I do. The days are quit long, most of the time we leave around 6am and get back home at 5pm, but we have a break in between which gives us the opportunity to go for a ski run or just to have a nap in the van (which is necessary sometimes).
What else is there to tell? Well I had my first experience preparing a turkey dinner for Christmas. Me and a friend managed to stuff the bird, bake it, make gravy and made it even taste good, victory! During the holidays we had some party’s going on, this in combination with to much food and alcohol, as usual, so one of my new years resolution will be … no I’m not even going to try, because I know I’ll fail, so what’s the point in disappointing yourself?
Anyway I hope everybody is having a good time, enjoy the holidays and a Happy new year.
Ps. Pictures will follow

Pictures say more then thousand words!

2007-09-27T10:00:00.001-07:00

A Mid Summer Dream

2007-09-27T06:46:00.000-07:00

At the moment I’m spending my precious time on the airport from Houston. I flew out of Vancouver this morning at 8am, so that means I left my bed at 5am, landed here at 2.30pm and will not leave before 10pm. My journey will not be over then, because I’m flying to Paris first, where I have to wait another 4 hours to catch a 2 hour flight to Hamburg, aaarrggghhh!!!!

I shouldn’t be complaining because after all it is a very cheap flight (about 100euro), but still I’m losing more then 36 hours just to get over the Atlantic ocean (even longer then flying to Australia). After my nice, isolated summer in the Rockies a big change coming back to civilisation. The first shock I had when I arrived in Vancouver after a 14 hour bus drive. Again a big and modern city, but at least here you have the ocean and the mountains close by. It’s a beautiful, multicultural and relaxed city and I can see why a lot of foreigners get stuck here.

My last 2 weeks in Lake Louise were grand. We closed the hotel on September 15^th, my official last day as housekeeper, with a nice dinner and some drinks with all the staff of west Louise. The last days at work were really relaxed and chilled out. We cleaned up the hotel, scraped the paint of the balcony’s (even started painting but came that then to the conclusion that doing it by hand would take us way to long, so we’ll leave it up to the machinery) and all sorts of other small jobs. Going on hikes wasn’t really planned anymore, first of all because of the weather change (winter has started in Lake Louise and even on the day I left it was snowing on ground level as well) and because of the lack of interest (or maybe energy after a long night) of certain people J. I still did my share by walking to Lake Louise from our hotel or back, which is about 13km.

More isn’t there really to tell, I can just say that the money I saved during the rest of the season was easily spend these last weeks (in the bar unfortunately, but hey you do have to say goodbye to everyone). I made some good friends and had heaps of sun, even so good that they convinced me to change my winter plans. Yep again some changes, I did a really lousy job in planning my whole year ahead and now I know why I shouldn’t have bothered, because there’s always something that changes, you’ll never know what the future might bring.

So when I fly back in November I’ll spend the rest of my working holiday in Lake Louise, but this time it’s gonna be even better. I got a good job offer which at least allows me to earn some money, a nice room where I can stay the whole season, fun people around me and a free ski pass for the whole ski area in the Rockies. I know Whitehorse would have been a nice experience as well, but this was difficult to refuse and this year is not only about seeing Canada, it’s also about meeting people and having fun with what you do.

I’m looking forward to the winter now, but also to catch up with some of my friends and family, we’ll all have some stories to tell.

2007-09-05T16:38:00.000-07:00

The end is coming near, only 2 more weeks to go before I’m moving on, it seems time is just racing by and still so much things to see and to do, aaaahhhh!
Off course together with the end of a season also come a lot of goodbye party’s or any other good reason to drink and eat J
We had a Mexican night, soft ball finals celebrations (lost or won) in the bar (some local teams have a kind of competition during the summer), birthday bonfire and barbecue, … hangovers, and more to come.
I managed to do another couple of walks, this time a bit more relaxed. I walked along the ice line trail of the Yoho valley, where you actually just walk next to some glaciers. You can see waterfalls forming out of the glaciers and off course spectacular views and some climbing is involved. Another hike was to rockbound lake, a lake hidden between steep edges and behind Castle Mountain (a mountain range not far from Banff). Our guides were a bit confused about the name in the beginning, but we found it. I just walked back from Lake Louise to our lodge, which is about 14km and goes straight through bear country. Tomorrow is Lake O’hara on the agenda and Friday probably a sleep in day. Work is getting more and more quiet anyway, so lots of times we can finish earlier then normal.
What happens in 2 weeks, well I’m making a city trip to Vancouver and then I’m flying on to Germany. Yes that’s back to Europe again, but I had an almost free flight and this way I can save some money for the winter. I can pick up some missed European culture, like the Oktoberfest, just the Belgian beer, catch up with friends and then prepare very well for the hard winter that awaits me end of November. More about that later, now I’m going to enjoy the last bits of summer!

Picture Time!

2007-08-19T19:52:00.000-07:00

Takakaw Falls

Skoki Valley with a view on Mount Temple

The king of the world: 3500 metres high

Lady of the temple!

2007-08-17T20:22:00.000-07:00

Half August, only 2 weeks have past since my last writing, but so many things have happened that I don’t even know where I should start. After the Christmas party I spend one of my days off at Herbert Lake, pretty much the only lake where you can stay in longer then 30 seconds. We had a picnic, some beers, a nice swim and the evening ended in the bar in Lake Louise and at Dance night, this is a weekly party for all the staff of RCR. It was my first time there and actually my first time out of west Louise since I got here, so it was pretty exciting. Unfortunately it was totally not my thing, but we had some beers and some laughs and at least I know what everybody’s talking about now and I know I’m not missing out on anything.
In the first week of august we had another big staff dinner, roasted pig. It was pretty cool to see a whole pig hanging on a roast, it reminded me a bit of the comic books Asterix, where they always have a huge buffet with a wild pig in the end, it looked so tasty.
Off course on my day off I went on another hike with the usual company. We walked the plain of the six glaciers at Lake Louise, where you walk all the way up to the tong of the Victoria glacier. After that we drove up to Emerald Lake, another gorgeous lake in the middle of the mountains and made a small walk there (5 km in 45 minutes, not that bad). Our last stop was the Takakaw Falls, the second highest falls in Canada, not far from our Lodge. It wasn’t as impressive as the Niagara Falls, but much nicer because it’s in the middle of nowhere with no tourists around. Despite the bad weather we had it was an amazing day.
The next day I tried to sleep in a bit and tried my running skills once more. There’s an old highway which is closed for traffic and which runs from our hotel all the way to lake Louise, it’s about 12 km, so a good exercise and a pretty high chance of seeing bears (which is less attracting if you’re running alone). That run I saw two big black bears and on another run a couple of days later I even saw a mamma bear and her cub. I didn’t see them until I actually was right beside them (about 5 metres away), but besides a scare nothing happened. I was just pissed off that I didn’t had my camera with me.
That week we also had a big birthday party for all the staff members who have their birthday here. Again free food and drinks and some stupid games made the evening a success. (My evening ended in the toilet unfortunately, my stomach couldn’t handle all the greasy food in combination with punch)
It’s Friday evening at the moment and I’m exhausted after my last 2 days off. I first went horseback riding for 7 hours, which gave me such a sour bum that I wasn’t able to go sit properly without feeling mussels that I didn’t even knew that I had them. The next day it was a rise and shine at 6am (even before sunrise) because we were going to climb Mount Temple, a 3500 metres high summit which rise above the Valley of then peaks and gives you pretty much a view over the whole valley around Lake Louise. We managed to do the hike on 9 hours, with a small detour which turned the walk into a mountain climb. The trail wasn’t always that visible and so we ended up on the other side climbing up with our hand and feet, pretty sketchy but when we finally reached the top after 5 hours, the view was definitely worth the pain (undescribable!). Proud and with a satisfied feeling we walked the right path down again, which wasn’t always that simple either with all the loos rocks and the steep descent (bruises can prove it).
So now I’m ready for bed and hopefully I my legs are willing to work tomorrow. When I get a chance I’m gonna put some pictures up which are worth while looking at.

Time flies by!

2007-08-01T16:09:00.000-07:00

July has come to an end the days keep on flying by. After 2 weeks of non stopping work, I had 2 days off again. Sleeping a bit longer wasn’t on the programme for me, I’ve been suffering insomnia since I got here. Can’t seem to sleep longer then just a couple of hours, although I’m feeling pretty tired. Our first day we spend on shopping in Canmore, groceries and alcohol. We had to stock up for our Christmas in July party that same evening. Yes, Christmas it was, at least according the Australian standards. Summer reminds them of Christmas time, and it actually really felt like it for as long we stayed inside. We had our Christmas tree, decoration, a nice meal (roast chicken with sweet and mashed potatoes), free alcohol and off course not to forget, presents! Secret Santa brought me 3 oreo ice cream cookies and a nice picture of a dutch guy who was posing for us on one of the walks we did J
A party with free alcohol and the boss behind the bar doesn’t really end well and off course the next day the bruises on some peoples arms explained it all. Luckely I didn’t had to work and I had a nice, boring and relaxing day, sitting in the sun, eating my oreo ice cream.
Now we’re back to work as usual, there are some new staff people again (the crowd is getting bigger) and I got another pay check. Becomes off all the extra hours I did, it was pretty nice, I just have to be able to get the money now.
That’s pretty much the end of my life story up here, the main thing, I’m having fun!
pictures will follow.

Life is simple but good!

2007-07-18T20:21:00.010-07:00

A small update about my life here in Canada, I guess the pictures say it all!
We did 2 more hikes, the first upto the hidden Temple Lake. It's a climb up, not even on a real trail, but you end up at a small lake surrounded by high peaks.
The next day we walked up to Mirror Lake and a teehouse above Lake Louise, where we had a nice lunch. It's a small hut, where they serve fresch baked bread and teebiscuits. The people who work and live there are even more cut off of the world then we are, no running water, no electricity and no phones or internet, crazy, but the other side of the story is that they earn a lot more money then we do. After that break we walked further up to a lookout called the big beehive (because the rock looks like a beehive), where we had a surreal view over Lake Louise, which has a milky blue colour and the smaller mirror lake which is totally different. The walk ended with a refreshing swim in Lake Louise, just jumped in with my clothes on.
It were another 2 satisfying days off and now we're back to work. Talking of which, we got some good news as well: we got a pay raise of 1 dollar, jiepi!! I guess they really like team housekeeping :-)
It's been very busy last week, which is good for my pay, because it allows me to do some extra hours. I got my first pay check as well from the first 2 weeks, it's not to bad, but a lot less then what I'm used to in Belgium. Off course I'm in the rockies and my accommodation isn't expensive at all, so can't really complain.
The weather is also very good, even a bit to warm for me, today we had 30 degrees which makes the work even harder. The rooms are so hot and no airconditioning, well it's a good work out. Luckely we got a new member on team housekeeping, a Japanese guy joined us yesterday, something unexpected. To cool down after work I sometimes go for a swim in the pool, but that causes some whinging from the guests who catch me swimming and they're not allowed:-) although I don't think they would like the pool if they would know what I found in the water, a death mouse, very hygenic hey but to late for me.
The evenings go by playing pool, jenga or twister :-), playing softball, volleyball or badminton or just end up in the bar.

West Louise Lodge

2007-07-10T21:09:00.007-07:00

I've made a picture of the Lodge where I'm working and living, so you can have an idea how it looks like. It's already quiet old, so it doesn't look that fabulous, but I guess it's one of the cheapest places where you can stay here in the neighbourhood and with a car accesable to all the good spots. If you click on this title you'll get a link to the Lake Louise area.

P.O. Box 9, Lake Louise, Alberta - Canada TOL 1EO Tel: 0012503436311 (in emergencies or if you call late at night I might be able to talk on the phone :-) )

Along the transcanadian Highway, there's also the traintracks that crosses the Rockie Mountains. It's pretty amazing to see huge trains passing by at a very slow paste, because of the bears that might be on the track. They told me that there's a lookout where you can see the train going into a tunnel to cross the mountain and when the first wagon comes out of the tunnel you can still see the back end of the train entering the mountain.

I added another picture of the view you have of the lookout behind our Lodge, it's a good hour climb, but defenitely worth it.

Another picture on a walk along the train tracks with some girls from work, 2 Australian and one Canadian and with a beer spray! The girl on the right is my housekeeping partner :-)

And to keep the staff happy out here the managers organise some party's with free food and free beer. Like this monday we had a barbecue and pool party. The Lodge actually has a pool, but because it's not cleaned yet the guest can't use it, so a private party in the pool isn't a problem :-) After a nice dinner, a homemade malteser icecream slice, a swim in the pool with blow up boots and a volleyball, a sauna, we ended up with a dive in Wapta Lake outside our door. It's glacier water but still wasn't that cold at last time, good refreshment.

(Representation: Australia, New Zealand, Scotland but actually lives here)

The Rockies Rock!

2007-07-06T16:32:00.000-07:00

I had my first taste of the gorgeous ice lakes and the hiking trails here at Lake Louise. My first 2 days off have already come to an end, unfortunately, but there were great.
A collegue and I went first on a hike, called saddleback trail, which took us all the way up above Lake Louise. We had a great view over the ski hill from Lake Louise and the wide expanding Rockie Mountains.

It also made me realise that my body really needs some more exercise :-) hopefully I'll get to that.
After the hike we drove to the famous Morain Lake, 10km away from Lake Louise. It's a skyblue lake surrounded by the mountains.

It looked so tempted to jump in and off course that's what we did. The swim lastet about 30 seconds and was literly breathtaking, freezing cold. It was a hot day anyway so it cooled us down for a while and after an hour our clothes dried already. Before we drove back to the Lodge we took the gondola up the ski hill and had again an amazing view.
All this probably sounds really laim if you just read it, but it's just undescribable.

My second day I first had to go into Banff (about an hour drive) to do some groceries. You really have to stock up because you can go shopping just once a week and you always have to pay to get there as well. So with food for about 150 dollars (it's a lot more expensive then in any other shop outside the Rockies) I hope to get around for a while.
It was another gorgeous day so we walked up to a lookout right above the Lodge. Luckely I found another victim to join me, because they don't recommend going alone on a walk.

Conclusion: astonishing views, beautiful lakes, wildlife and a sunburn :-) (my body really needs some more vitamins E, although eating carrots defenitely doesn't help either)

Working Holiday!

2007-07-04T22:23:00.000-07:00

My working part finally has started. After a long 24 hours journey on the plane and bus, I arrived in the beautiful place called Lake Louise, it was actually the next morning that I saw the astonishing view I have outside my window, because I arrived in the middle of the night.

So now I’m living at the lodge where I work on the boarder between Alberta and British Columbia, in the middle of the Rockie Mountains, 15 minutes away from the town Lake Louise. It’s a bit more isolated then I first expected, but at least I don’t have to pay much for my accommodation. It’s a really expensive area and if you just want to travel around here you need to win the lotto. A night in the hostel is already 40 dollars and I checked for the prices in the winter, to ski for one day it’s about 70 dollars, so without friends or a job it’s not payable for a poor Belgium girl :-)
I haven’t seen much from the area yet, I started working the first day I arrived until this Thursday, 9 to 5.30pm shifts in team housekeeping. Our team actually consists out of 2 people, an Australian girl and me, woehoe. Two people for the whole hotel, which has about 30 rooms, is not really enough. It’s pretty exhausting and after one week I’m already an expert in making up beds and cleaning up bathrooms. I haven’t cleaned this much in my own place and I probably never will either, definitely after this work.
It’s nice though it keeps me busy and in the evenings we just hang around, playing silly games, watch television or if we’re allowed to go out (that means if someone wants to drive us to the town) everybody goes crazy. Most of the crew is from Australia or New Zealand, some Canadians and then there’s me, but everybody’s really nice and we’re having fun.
The managers are really doing their best to keep us happy, because apparently a lot of people left before I came here, which is also a bit understandable. The pay is lousy, without a car you’re stuck, we go for groceries once a week (which is still expensive if I compare to the east coast of Canada), no high speed internet connection, just dial up over the phone line which is really slow and only can be used after 11pm, no sell phone connection (or a small signal just enough to send a message), … but I’m not complaining, at least not anymore. The pay is everywhere the same, you don’t have to come here to earn a lot of money, we’re lucky with the accommodation prices and our team is great. On my days off I will cruise around a bit and hope to see more of the Canadian Rockies and it’s wildlife. Up till now I’ve seen a black bear walking aside the road and heaps of ground squirrels just outside my door (with small babies, cute but noisy, they squeak whole day long). When you go out for a hike, you’ve to take bear spray with you and you’re actually not allowed to walk alone. Black bears didn’t scare me that much but grizzly’s do.
Anyway tomorrow I'll have my first day off and up for a hike in the mountains, I'll try to keep this updated but pictures have to wait till I get to a high speed internet location because here it takes hours.

Carpe Diem!

2007-06-10T06:54:00.000-07:00

It has been another exciting week in Canada. Currently I'm back home since yesterday for 2 weeks, the 25th I'll fly out of here again, looking forward to it already :-)
Not that I'm not enjoying myself here. It's great to see my friends and family again, but I can't wait to see all the rest there is to see in Canada and on top of that I'll be spending to much money here, having a holiday at home (drinking and eating all the delicious things they don't have in Canada).
How did it all end, well I didn't die from the bungee that's for sure, you could say it was close though. After some sightseeing in Ottawa, the next stop was the bungee jump location and just by looking at the damm jump platform, my stomach already squeezed together. It's a 200 feet jump (I think about 70m) and they say it's the highest in North Canada, with a rebound off 160 feet, so you can enjoy it over and over again. Anyway I managed to get up there, but then the hardest part still had to come, jumping off the fucking thing, head first. I really haven't felt this scared in my entire life. I'm a bit afraid of hights but I wanted to try it so that I maybe could get over that fear (it might work backworths as well). I needed some time before I jumped and when I eventually did it, I had to close my eyes before jumping. After that it felt great, you bounce back up, feeling weightless for a moment and you get the rush over again falling down. In my head I was calmer then it looked on the movie though. You see me jumping in the air with my legs and trying to grap something with my arms (force of human instinct to survive I suppose). The adrenaline boost I felt afterworths made me feel good for a long while :-) it was worth it (for people who are to afraid of hights to do this, try skydiving much nicer). We ended the day with a nice barbecue at the best hostel I've ever stayed in, HI Esprit (worth going to when you're in the neighbourhood).
The next day another adventure was waiting us, Whitewater rafting on the Ottawa river, guided by Espirt. It was another great experience. A pitty it was raining all day and that it was 7° outside but that couldn't kill the spirit, we were going to get wet anyway, the water was even warmer then the outside temperature, we were just asking to get wet. Besides the awsome rapids we did, we also had a gorgeous view over nature. In the middle of the river, nature all around us, we saw a beaver swimming, a blue herron flying, another big bird (which name I can't remember) flying to its nest with a fish in its claws, ... we even saw a small bambi (cute).

Our last stop with the Moose bus was in Madawaska, the eastern gate to Algonquin National park. We spend another 2 nights here, went hiking in the park, chilled out for a bit, ... and got eaten by black fly's and all other flying and biting things around. If you didn't used liters of bugspray you would wake up with heeps of red dots the next morning and even with the spray, they would always find a sport where you haden't sprayed, awful creatures.
Then on thursday we drove back to Toronto, where we got confronted with the deathly traffic of one of the busiest highways in the world, 16 lanes for traffic and still jammed. I told this before, but it stays impressive.
That was the end of the Moose trip (after some saying goodby drinks on the bus) and also from my eastern adventure. I haven't seen everyhting yet, but at least I can say that I saw more of the country then some Canadian people, living there.
The next stop after Brussels will be the Rockie Mountains!

My plans for the next year

2007-06-03T17:59:00.001-07:00

Finally I've got everything a bit sorted out, about how my next months will look like in Canada. The last week it seemed impossible for me to make any decission, until Friday 1ste of June I finally saw the light.
My plan was to go home middle of july and stay there till end of august, because My Mexican friend was getting married in Germany, but the plans has changed a bit. When I've finished my moose bus tour I'll fly back home for two weeks, so that will be from 8th till 24th of june. The reason for that is because I frankly haven't prepared anything to stay away for a whole year and I think I'll need some winter clothes over here.
When I fly back to Canada I'll go directly to Calgary and there I start working in a Lodge, located at the gorgeous Lake Louise. I'll work in the kitchen and in the housekeeping for the whole summer season, probably till end of september I think.
Then I have time to see a bit more of the West of Canada, like Vancouver and Jasper National Park, ...
And then comes the best part of my trip: Beginning of December I will fly all the way up to Whitehorse, which is in Yukon Territory at the boarder with Alaska, where I'll do some voluntary work with Huskies. I applied with an organisation, called Muktuk, which organise dogsledging trips. I'm gonna stay there the whole winter and learn a lot about the dogs, even get to ride a sledge, awsome isn't it! I'm gonna be freezing cold, but I'll try to get a good isolation layer by then :-) which is working very well here with all the junk food in my sight.
Anyway can't wait to start the next part of my trip, although I'm having lots of fun now as well, finishing my trip with the bus.
I'm in Ottowa at the moment. We left Montreal saturday evening, after our bus broke down before we even left, so had to spend our day at the beer festival in Montreal, poor me! (they even had a couple of Belgian beers there). We spend a night in Mont Tremblant, a skivillage, and visited Omega Park, a wildlife park where we got to see Moose, deer, capricorn, wolves, beers, and all other North American wildlife.
Tomorrow will be the scariest day of my life, because the bungee jump is on the programme, I'm gonna pee my pants, but it will be worht it I gues.
So fingers crossed that the rope doesn't break and I'll let you guys enjoy my jump afterworths with some pictures when I've got the change.

Beautiful Tadoussac

2007-06-01T07:00:00.000-07:00

Back on my own, my friend left Montreal Saturday evening. We spent our last day packing our stuff properly, cleaning the car, eating à volonté at a nice buffet and writing postcards (it’s always fun that people get postcards after you got back home ;-) ).
I’m going on now with my bus trip and on Tuesday we left Montreal again towards Quebec city (I like to see everything a couple of times) where I just stayed one night. I’m really lucky with the bus company, because the group is very fun and very mixed the age difference as well, from 21 till 65 (these are the ozzies of course, always up for an adventure). The next stop was Tadoussac, it’s 250km north from Quebec city, a small village located at a nice fjord and the St. Lawrence river. Here the river is already 30km wide and what makes it special is that the salt water from the Gulf meets the water from the river. This makes it one of the best places to see whales. So that’s what we did, whale watching on a zodiac boat, a kind of speedboat which allows you to get closer to the whales then with the very big tourists boats. We spend 3 hours on the water and it was great, I’ve never taught to see so many whales and from this close by. They can have a lot of different species of whales in the river, but we only saw fin whales. But that was his money already worth while. These are whales that can get 25 metres and we saw them coming up to breathe very close by the boat. We didn’t see one jump or their tale but their bodies are huge and just amazing to see.
In the evening we had a private party in our hostel, which we had all for ourselves. We also had a similar beer taste, off course Belgian, and spend the evening with Leffe.
Thursday then, today, we drove all the way back to Montreal, so now I’m stuck here again. I’ve got to wait till Saturday until the next bus to Mont Tremblant leaves, so will pass the time with figuring out what to do next. I have to start working, but I’m not sure yet where that will be. You’ll find out soon!

The end of the roadtrip

2007-05-25T10:28:00.000-07:00

We left Prince Edward Island, with snow on our window! amazing the weather here, it was 3 degrees and when we got back to New Brunswick it was warm again. We had to cross the Confederation Bridge, which was build 10 years ago and crosses 12km of river, it's pretty impressive and very long for a bridge.

We headed to Fundy Bay, that's between New Brunswick and Nova Scotia, where you can watch the watertides, which reaches sometimes a difference of 45 feet (I think that's around 15 metres). They say this is the highest tide in the world and it goes pretty fast. We stood there for one hour and you could see the water coming in a metre every 10 minutes.

The rest of the day and the day after we spend in Fundy National Park, which is located along the bay. It offers some nice forests, lakes, views and animals off course (which made my friend a bit uncomfortable this time considering our last meeting with the black bear :-) ). We dared to camp one more night, but it was freezing cold (around 2 degrees) and because of the rain the last weeks all the wood was very wet, which made it very difficult to keep the fire burning, but we survived and our camping equipment was usefull one more time (defenitely the extra blanket we bought).

In the late afternoon we drove back to Quebec, because on the 26th we have to be back in Montreal to drop the car off and that was still around 900km away. On our way we passed the longest house bridge in the world, woodstock and we had some great views over the Apalachian Mountains.

We stranded in Riviere du Loup and had to speak French again, although the slang they speak on the other east part wasn't English either. It was more a funny dialect mixing Frech and English with a funny tone, very difficult to understand.
So now I'm sitting in Quebec city, which is a very beautiful city, with an old town to cruise around in, some nice restaurants and pubs, but very fancy as well. At the moment we drove more then 6000km already and if you look on the map, it looks like we haven't seen a thing, such a huge country. I'm swetting like a pig as well because overhere it's 30 degrees at the moment, which is a bit to much for me (I'm sure that all the people who know me well can agree with me on that matter). But we shouldn't be complaining, we had only a copple of days of rain, so we've been very lucky untill now.
It's end of May now and you do notice a difference of the amount of people who are walking around in the city. The tourist season is starting and frankly that brings the pleasure of travelling down a bit, so folks if you ever deceide to travel to Canada, avoid july and august and if you can go in may or oktober.

Atlantic canada

2007-05-21T19:08:00.000-07:00

Thanks to our locals we got some tips of things we should visit in New Brunswick and our first stop is Magnetic Hill. It's a small animation park just of the highway that we're following. At first sight there's nothing much special to see, just a small hill and a sign with instructions which you need to follow. The attraction is to drive down the hill, put your car in neutral and then just watch and see. What happens then is directly against all laws of nature, the car actually drives up the hill again without doing anything. It sounds pretty stupid but when you see it, you just don't get it and we were like little children who tried it over and over. Normally you even have to pay for this during the high season and I can amagine there's a traffic jam as well on top of that. Luckely for us it's still very quiet everywhere, so entrance for free.

New Brunswick isn't a very big provence so we arrived later on that day to Halifax, the capital of Nuova Scotia. This Provence lies directly at the Atlantic ocean and although it doesn't look that big on the map it's still much bigger then Belgium.
We stayed here in a cosy Bed and Breakfast, because apparantly it was a Canadian holiday this weekend and so all the hostels were booked.
With the crowd also came the shitty weather. The whole city was in the fog. It lies at the ocean but you couldn't see any further then 20 metres, even when we were passing the bridge towards the city we couldn't see a thing. This is also the first rain we have in weeks, so we can't really complain, but now we're a bit limited with our activities.
We first visited a small fisher village, Peggy's cove, south of Halifax, which has a lighthouse that supposed to be the most picturised in the world. The village itself has only a population of 40, but in summer you can't even see them anymore.
We drove on to Lunenburg, which is also a fisher village and the whole town is unesco protected. They have some old houses, English style and they are famous for lobster. Actually the whole atlantic area is famous for that and you can already eat lobster for 15 dollars if you want.

Because of the bad weather we deceided to drive on to Prince Edward Island, the smallest province of Canada, and skip Cape Breton (North from Nuova scotia), we can't see everyhting anyway. We took the ferry to PEI and found a great hostel in Charlottetown. Some people told us that we could do the island in one day, but again the distances look so much smaller on the map then in reality. They have heeps of birds here and off course a lot of beaches. Blue Herrons, eagles, Seals, Lobster,... all that you can find here. Now that we came this far we deceided to play the real tourist and treated ourselves with a huge fish dinner, lobster included. Eating lobster isn't the easiest thing to do, but tasty mmm... and damn cheap overhere.
Satisfied and full, that's how i feel right now.

Now serious again :-)

Thank you Miramichi!

2007-05-21T18:14:00.000-07:00

After making some stops at unusual rockformations (an Indianhead and a famous one in Perce) into the Gulf and after tasting the famous Quebec speciality 'poutine', which is fries with cheese and meat sauce (actually just spaghetti bolognaise but then with fries, which is not bad), we left Quebec behind us and entered a new Province, New Brunswick (our third in Canada).

The plan was to drive to another National Park and to camp there for one night, but our drive took a bit longer then expected. By the time it got dark we ended up in Miramichi, a town in the middle east of New Brunswick. We got some fuel, then deceided to get some coffee and donuts and then we thought just fuck it let's go to a pub and we can stay in the car for one night (at least if we move some of our stuff, it's amazing how fast you collect junk in the car and after a copple of days a car which can seet 5 people only fits 2 anymore).
So that's what we did, went to an Irish pub (which they have everywhere, with live music and is always fun) and got drunk with some locals we met there. There was a band playing 'Mooseknuckle', just some local guys who wanted some fun. The name explains why they don't want to hear themselves on the radio. For those who don't know; a mooseknuckle is the male version of a camel toe and believe me girls we don't want that! For those who still doesn't know what it means, I've put on a link, just click on the title ;-)
Anyway they were lovely people and by the end of the night we even had the choice between 3 different places to stay the night. Well the night became a morning and at least we had our first sunrise in Canada.

Fierce Creatures

2007-05-16T17:27:00.000-07:00

It's been a while since I posted my last news, but I haven't had any chance untill now to get to an internet connection, but don't worrie I'll not forget you guys. At this moment a lot of things already happened, the last time you've looked I was still in Montreal, planning to get my next bus to Quebec city. The plans has changed a bit though and right now I'm sitting in a hostel in the farest Northern point of Quebec. The bus trip with the Moose network has been delayed for an unknown period and instead I rented a car with a friend of mine, who deceided in a moment of crazyness, to come overhere for 3 weeks. The first days of his arrival we shopped around to find a cheap deal and even tried to find a real campervan (but that wasn't for our budget and even not for our drivingskills, 30 feet is a bit to lang for 2 people). We ended up renting a nice American car with the company "rent a wreck", which isn't this bad as it sounds like. So 1000 dollars and 2 days later we finally started our roadtrip. The first stop was a National Park west from Montreal, Algonquin Park, where we camped for 3 days. Yep we also bought ourselves a really cheap tent, one sleepingmat (considering the size of our tent, one matrass was plenty enough :-) ) and something to cook some easy travellers food. The high touristic season starts in juin, so we had almost the all park for ourselves. It was great, the sounds of birds, the frogs, the stars in the sky and a nice campfire to warm us up a bit. We did a copple of walks, saw a lot of beaverdams (no beavers though), a lot of moose, squirls, snakes, turtles (who apparantly also live there, I even saved one from crossing the street on his slow paste), rabbits, some strange chickens who make a noice like a starting engine (this is something we found out after a one hour chase after a beaver, what in the end seemed to be a bird), ... and so on. The wildlife is indeed amazing here in Canada and on these 3 days I saw more animals then 6 weeks of holiday in Scandinavia (the landscape is a bit simular with Sweden, the lakes en the forest).
After this campingtrip we had to go back to the city life again and went on our way to Toronto again. Yes very stupid because I just came that way, but well my friend had to see the Niagara Falls as well. So my second visit in a short time, but defenitelly worth while. It has been only 3 weeks since I was there the first time but everything had already changed. A lot more tourist, everything was packed, the boots were working as well and of course now you had to pay a lot more then before.
On the way there we also passed a very pitoresk village, Niagara on the lake, where they have some good wine vinegards and an old village centre.
Spending the evening then in a city outside Toronto, Milton, where we had a small reunion with John and a friend of my travelcompanion (who know lives in America but was in Toronto for work) and where we had the chance to stay in a nice hotel for a change. The huge bed (American size) made it all worth while.
Enough civilasation for then and on the road again back towards Quebec, but off course first we got aqueented with the Highways of Canada. It's amazing how difficult they make it. On the Highway around Toronto they have 16 lanes (two ways) with so many different entrees and exits that it wouldn't be possible to drive the right way from the first time. The same thing in Montreal and Quebec where we also made a bit of a detour before catching the correct Highway and direction (because everything is marked with east, west, south and north but it's not always that logical).
Now after 2 days of driving, shopping for food and some other equipment to use during our journey (that's something we always figure out when it's actually to late) we managed to get up North of Quebec. The drive was very nice, along the coast line of the big St. Lawrence river that then ends up in the Gulf of St. Lawrence. Not only the landscape has changed but also the weather. Up here the spring hasn't really started yet, so it's pretty cold and you can still see some snow here and there. We wisely deceided then to sleep in a hostel during our stay here, because camping might not go that well here.
We spended 2 days here in a small National Park, Forillon, which is also great to see wildlife and to enjoy the ocean's fresh air. I've learned already some interesting facts about porkypines, who live here with heeps and apparantly also live in the trees. If you look at the creature it looks so clumpsy and slow that you can't really imagine it sleeping in a tree, but it does. Then we learned about he black bears who also live here in high amounts. On these 2 days we saw 4 black bears and believe me when I say it was a bit from to close by. I would never had thought it was that easy to see one, but everytime when we started our walks after 1km we walked into a bear on the path. The theory is to walk back slowly, not to look in his eyes, clap your hands a bit and then it should go away, but one of the bears was really interested and didn't want to leave us alone untill we got back to the car. Very exciting all to see it from a distance, but this was a bit to exciting. Beside the bears we also saw a moose again, some seals who were swimming along the coast and some speedy consales birds (who managed to get to a speed of 100km/h).
It's just all to much to talk about, but the pictures will say it all. I hope to be able to put them on my blog soon so that you all can enjoy these great animals.

Quebec - Je me souviens

2007-05-05T09:05:00.000-07:00

Today my third day in Montreal, which is actually an island, and i've pretty much seen everyhting there is to see. The first day I walked around in the old centre of Montreal, saw some very nice buildings, the cathedrale of Notre Dam, actually they are trying to make a second version of France, although I don't think they succeeded well. You see some big contrasts between the very modern, high buildings and then beside that there's an old church or something, amusing! Montreal is divided in a copple of area's, like the latin quarter, chinqtown, the village (the gay area), downtown, ... and every area has his own things to do and to see.
At the boarder of the city there's a very big park, parc du Mont Royal, where you can walk around, have a nice view over the city or just lie in the grass for the whole day. They have some nice cycling paths as well through out the whole city and besides the old port, which is the largest fresh water port in the world. You can cross one of the big bridges and pay a visit to the islands as well, where there's a big theme park, a big plastic ball that's called the biosphere and you can cycle around on the racing track of the formula 1 track.
The second day we went to the Olympic park. They have a big stadion for over 70000 people, which has been used at the olympic games in 1976. It's a funny design with a big tour, on which you have a great view over the city and the St. Laurence river, and normally they are able to open the roof of the stadion but it doesn't really work. Besides the stadion there's the Biodome, which is actually an indoor zoo. They've created the rainforest, the antartic and some other nature enviroments.
I also now witnessed the nightlife in Montreal, which is packed and very diversed. Together with a whole international group of the hostel (Australians, Swiss, Germans, Argentinian, English, ...). We actually had to look for some good places and even then it was difficult to get in, because there were so many people. Like in every city, everybody comes outside on friday or saturday. Finally we found a nice pub where we sat on the roof terrase all night long, the summer is finally coming!
Anyway that's the story about Montreal for now. I've met already some nice people, like a Swiss guy who started his cycle trip in december 2005 in Argentinia and cycled all the way up to here and is gonna continue his trip till Alaska, cross to Russia and then further to Switserland, talking about courage! I've put his website on my links, so have a look.

Let the travels begin!

2007-05-03T13:46:00.000-07:00

On Tuesday, 1ste of May, the lazy life finally came to an end. John dropped me off in Toronto at the Global village backpackers and that's when the adventure started. It was a nice hostel in the centre of the city, but it was strange to be the backbacker again. Although it's so much fun as well, because everyone who's there knows how you're feeling and has felt exactly the same thing before.
After a good night of sleep, I left with the moose bus on wednesday morning towards Montreal. The first person I start talking to is an Australian guy (from Melbourne), Peter, who just spend the whole winterseason at lake Louise as a ski instructor, and guess what? he worked in Falls Creek as well last year in Australia, together with Selina, the friend that Lynn and me picked up last summer in Australia. Isn't that hilarious, such a small world!
(for those who don't really know Selina or Lynn, skip this part)
Back to our bus tour: we made a first stop at the big apple, an enormous statue of an apple, where you can also buy famous apple pie. They have sold almost 3 million of them and believe me when I say it's quiet good.
Our next adventure was a boot trip around the 1000 islands on a big river (looks more like a lake) somewhere around Kingston and Gananoque (for those who know some of the places here). Half of the islands is on the Canadian site and the other half is on American ground, which give you funny situations like the smallest bridge in the world that is a boardercrossing as well. There's also a very beatiful castle on an island, which has the shape of a hart, build by a rich person ages ago for his wife, but his wife never got to see it finished because she died. If you do want to visit the castle you first have to pass the boarder customs because it's American property.
After this lovely cruise we're hadding to Montreal, where we finish the day with a nice beer and some cheap food. Apparantly the Quebec service isn't that friendly as in Ontario. In a bar or restaurant in Canada they always assume that you'll leave a tip from 15% of the bill, but here in Quebec provence the waiters don't earn much money, so they really ask for the tip if you don't give them enough. It's unbelievable and so rude, but for them it's very normal. At least that's one new custom i learned today.

Holiday! oh yeah oh yeah - Celebrate! oh yeah oh yeah

2007-04-25T10:12:00.000-07:00

Hello Folks, More then a week has past and sad but true I'm still in Guelph :-)
Actually it's not that sad, because I'm really enjoying a copple of lazy days and that's something a person needs as well sometimes. The first week was really good to let everyhting sink in a bit, I mean the first days I wasn't really comprehensing the fact that I was in Canada and that I'm gonna be here for quiet a while, but now it's starting to come and together with this the planning of my trip finally is getting some shape. The plan to work first is already cancelled, I want to see something first. I found a travel company, moose travel network, which you can compare with the hop on hop off busses Lynn and me took in Australia. Depending which tour you want to do, the bus leaves in Toronto and makes a tour with different stops where you can hop off, stay a copple of days on the scene, hop on again and then move further.
Unfortunately for me the winter in Canada lasts till end of april and with the beginning of May everything else comes to live, as well as the departures of the bus. That's what you get when you leave to a foreign country without planning much :-)
But no complaints, I'll just stay a bit longer at John's place, his parents are very hospitable and I can enjoy some good Italian cuisine (his father has Italian roots and his mother has Hungarian roots). Although I haven't got much to do, my days pass by easily; go for a run, plan the rest of the trip, grab a coffee in town, watch some movies or go to the drive in (which was a once in a lifetime experience: Premonition and Gost rider, not recomendable), have a copple of beers and by the end of the week I've had enough sleep for the rest of the year, I'll finally start my travels, John gets a job and everybody's happy!

Before I forget I finally managed to get a phone for a good price, so you can reach me now wherever I am. Apparantly my phone didn't work here, also not with a new sim card. The canadian phone system is really fucked up. I bought a phone from the area of Toronto, so when I go to a different area (which is only 50km away) I have to pay every phonecall I make as a long distance call. Even when people try to phone me I have to pay as well for a long distance call. So the message is, no phonecalls, only text messages! The worst part is that my phone will only work in North America, so when I'm coming home by by phone (pitty because it's a really nice phone).
my number: 001 4168019887

Watch out for flying balls

2007-04-22T08:40:00.000-07:00

here I am again, you must be thinking does she got nothing else to do then writing on her Blog? well yes, but untill I move out of John's place I've got internet acces every day, so I can keep my blog up to date a bit more now because after that it's probably gonna get worse.
I just wanted to give you guys a picture about how the people here in Geulph spend their weekends.
After getting out of bed really late, having breakfast and coffee, we went to do some golf. It's a favourit hobby from a lot of people here and because they have a lot of space it's not that expensive as it is in Belgium for example. For me it was a nice experience because I've never held a golfstick before and have definitely not hit a ball. The only thing I've ever done, and that was like 10 years ago, is minigolf. Well John and his dad convinced me that I wasn't that bad for a beginner and at least I managed to hit the balls. Another guy on the court wasn't that lucky though. I saw him getting hit by a bal. It came out of nowhere and just hit him right in the middle of his head. He went down immediatelly and his face was just coverd with blood. Luckely it wasn't that bad as it looked like at least he still got his eyes or teeth, he was still able to talk normally amd he still knew where he was. So you've got to watch out for flying balls.
After the game we had a nice barbecue in the big garden, with huge T-bones and a nice cold beer, this is life hey!

Toronto

2007-04-21T09:21:00.000-07:00

The last days the weather has made a dramaticly change and it's now 22 degrees in the sun. That's off course here in the south, because apparantly it still has been snowing in the Quebec region.
With this nice temperatures I went to visit Toronto, because besides the airport I still hadn't seen a thing in the city. It's the biggest city of Canada and with 3 million people the most populated one as well. For me, as a European, the skyline of the city is an attraction on it's own. Modern, high and shiny buildings and all competing to each other to be the talest. The city is located on the shores of Ontario Lake, with small islands and beaches for the summer. They have the talest observation tower of the world, 553m, and you get an amazing view all over Toronto and further. On a clear day, like we had, you can even see the boarder of the US across the lake.

From what I've heard you can ice skate all over the place during the winter and for the people that find it to cold, they can walk underneath the city and shop there for a while.
John and me just cruised around a bit, explored chinatown, walked on Yong street, one of the longest streets in North America, and bumped into a beerpub where they served Belgian beer :-)
They had a Belgium beer and mussels festival going on, so I couldn't just walk by. They served my home town (Antwerp) brewed beer, De Koninck, and all other kinds of Belgian and German beer. The prices and the taste weren't totally the same but we had good fun.

Niagara Falls

2007-04-19T11:41:00.000-07:00

My firt tourist visit. The Niagara Falls is about 120km from Toronto and right at the border with the US. Luckely for me, the Canadian site of the Falls are much more nicer then from when you see them form the american site, he he :-)
It's an impressive water fall and every second there runs 154 million litres of water down the fall. The boottrips that take you closer to the falls were closed, because there was still an enormous amound of ice, but we did the walk behind the falls. Frankly, for me that's already close enough. The sound of the water is amazing and just goes through your whole body.

We did a walk through the city as well, but besides Hotels, casinos and some very Americanised shops and attractions, there was't much to see.

To end my first touristic day, I had a taste of the canadian beer. Wasn't that bad, at least bether then the australian beer, but nothing close to our good Belgian beer :-)
it will be missed!! but nature, the people and other sightseeing things are compensating my loss

Brussel - Toronto

2007-04-16T11:57:00.000-07:00

16th of april is the day that my journey starts to Canada. I'm gonna try to write this blog in English so that everyone can understand it and you can all enjoy with my.
My adventure started allready when i just had left home. I was taking the train to the airport, but off course nothing goes as it suppose to go on the moments you really need it. I was allready a bit late, because i still had to pack some stuff that morning, everybody who knows me well knows that I hate packing and I always do it at the last second. Unfortunatelly for me, the staff of the traincompany were on a strike, so certain trains were cancelled and one of them was mine. Nothing else to do then taking a taxi, but it cost me 39euro's. I just got to the airport in time and 12 hours later i arrived in Toronto. There's a 7 hours time difference, so i arrived at 6pm while everybody was probably alreday lying in their nice beds back home.
I'm staying at John's place for the first week, a canadian I met on my holiday in Australia, he lives in a town called guelph, about 70 kilometres south west from Toronto. It's on the country side, where his parents have a nice chateau in the middle of nowhere. The sizes of the houses are really enormous and apparantly that's normal for the people here. Space is also something they have enough off, so a car will be necessary to get around here.
Anyway I have my own big room, no obligations and time to sort everything out about my next steps. Meanwhile I'm adapting to life here, like the different eating habbits and much colder temperatures then when i left Belgium (from 25degrees to 5), although it will get better.

Some pictures of John's place, his big house and his nice garden, with a pond, where all his turtles live :-)

The bridge on their driveway, the family build the house themsleves