First Taste of the Rockies

Had our first night away from the car the other night. Booked ourselves into one of the "backcountry" campsites in Glacier national park (the Canadian one, not the American one). Hauled our packs up the steep climb from Rogers pass in a steady drizzle (the girl that booked us in cheerfully assured us we'd have the place to ourselves, in view of the weather forecast……) and wondered what exactly we were thinking.

Cooking supper in a tent in the rain on top of a mountain

Went to bed early (we were tired and sore and it was cold). Then we work up next morning, and this is what we saw.

What we saw when we woke up

 Kinda puts it all in perspective.

And here's how Mands celebrated…..

High Altitude Yoga

The White Powdery Stuff

Take a 12 year old boy, born and raised in tropical Africa, take him to a mountain in the Canadian Rockies in summer, and what will be the inevitable outcome? A ball of soggy, dirty, 9 month-old, just about to melt forever, snow. Down the back of your shirt if you're lucky. Down the front of your trousers if you're less lucky. Or, in my case, both.

An unsuspecting father gets his first snowball on the back

Turns out, as said 12 year old found out to his cost, Dads also know how to throw snowballs.

Dad gets the last laugh

Oh well, just have to make a snow angel instead…..

Viva La "Crown"!

Never thought I'd say this, but long live the Crown in Canada. By complete accident we stumbled across something so extraordinarily wonderful that it will transform our time in British Columbia, and all, apparently, because of the "Crown". Arriving late evening in the little town of Revelstoke, on the edge of the Columbia mountains, we were horrified to discover that every single campsite in town was full, and mostly full of horrendous RVs parked side by side in the manner of our neighbours from across the Limpopo. And so, in the best Zimbo fashion, we drove out of town in search of a spot to pitch our tents in the bush. Herself was rather sceptical of my enthusiastic efforts to drive down every little side road, and when, on the first track we followed, we saw a large NOTICE pinned to a tree, she was ready to give me the full force of her not inconsiderable I-told-you-so glares. Imagine our surprise and delight to find, on closer inspection, that the notice read:

"Crown Land. Camping is free, but please do not abuse by staying more than 14 days in any one site".

Now that's what I call civilised!

Our first free campsite on Crown Land - there will be many more!

Pacific Rim National Park, Vancouver Island

Mands, Gus, Andrew, Valerie

Last weekend, we met up with old friends from HIS: Valerie and Andrew, and their three terrific kids Zoe, Victor and Simon. Being the ultra organized person that she is (and thankfully so), Val had booked our forest campsite back in February, securing the very last two available sites – that’s a good indication of how popular this place is! And deservedly so: set in thick forest park, yet right on the beach, Pacific Rim Park was the perfect camping place to rekindle Zim memories, as we walked long beach walks, fought surfboards in the thrashing waves, roasted chipolatas over a beach fire and shared some good beer and Canadian bourbon around simple wood-smoked suppers.

Max, Simon, Victor,  Zoe

Surfin' those waves

Grilling sausages on the beach

Sleepless in Seattle

Monday 7th July we took sad leave of Al and Cindy in Minneapolis and boarded the flight to Seattle. Here the adventure really begins. Arriving with only the packs on our backs we'd given ourselves 48 hours in which to find and buy a car, equip ourselves with all the camping gear we'd need, buy food, do some sightseeing, catch up with friends Terry Cumpston and Brooke Mobley, and then head out. Somehow we managed all of that!

Our first priority was the car. We'd considered hiring instead of buying, as long term rentals can actually be quite cheap in the US. But the look of horror on the face of the car hire rep when we told him we wanted to drive the car to Alaska suggested that we may have perhaps misjudged our audience on this one. He assured us earnestly and repeatedly that no Seattle car hire company would ever dream of allowing any of their vehicles to be driven on the infamous Alaska Highway. So, on to Plan B. After visits to several second hand car dealers, we found ourselves the proud new owners of a Jeep Cherokee by mid-afternoon on our first day in Seattle, and thus we moved on to our next priority. Camping gear.

Max in full wading gear at David's house

Here we lucked out with the extraordinary generosity of our friend David Bruck, who lives on the east side of Seattle overlooking Lake Washington. In addition to running his own innovative baobab company (Baobab Foods), David is a former rugby player and keen fisherman. And owns lots of camping equipment which he no longer uses. Very, very useful! One trip to David's stunning hilltop house later and we came away with just about everything we needed, including crab net (for those Dungeness Crabs), salmon and trout rods and even full river wading gear.  Bring it on, Alaska!

Picnic lunch with Brooke and the Cumpstons

Next priority was catching up with Terry and Brooke. I still had car admin stuff to do, but Mands and Max joined up with them and spent a happy afternoon at the EMP museum (an entire museum dedicated to classic rock music - heaven!), and then I met up with them later. Fantastic to catch up with them again, our third shared continent with the Cumpstons. Concluded the evening with a fabulous dinner with David and his wife Jane, overlooking a busy lake (with kayakers, yachts, surf-paddlers and floatplanes all sharing the same busy space) and enjoying our first taste of the legendary NW Pacific sockeye salmon.

And so, two days and three nights after arriving in Seattle with almost nothing, we left with a car, a load of camping gear and a coolbox full of fine micro-brewed beer. On the road at last!

On the ferry heading towards Canada

The Chariot

In the ferry queue en route to Vancouver

So here we are in Vancouver in our new motor. She's a 2000 model Jeep Cherokee with 250,000 kms on the clock (making her the youngest and least travelled vehicle in the Le B stable!) and she's gonna take us all the way to Alaska and, we hope, back again! She has a very modest-sized 4.7 litre V8 engine, which sips fuel in the gentlest and most ladylike of manners and was (I kid you not) the smallest engine we could find at any of the half dozen used car lots we visited in Seattle last week. She doesn't have a name yet, but that will come. Today we have a day's sightseeing in town, and then tomorrow we head north…….

Max and our latest acquisition, complete with newly-affixed Zim flag

Taste of Things To Come!

Our first post from the USA. One week in and, oh my goodness, what a week! We've had hot sun, torrential rain, thunder, lightning, hail and wind. We've sipped bloody mary on a sunny boat cruise, ridden bikes along the banks of the Mississippi, sheltered under dripping fir trees as the rain funnelled down inside our clothes, canoed through a hail storm and had our first encounter with the dreaded "mosquitoes of the north". And we've loved every minute of it!

Cindy's famous Bloody Mary On A Boat

Our warm-up for the road ahead has been a trip with our friends Al and Cindy up into the Boundary Waters of Minnesota - a fabulous (and, to the rest of the world, largely unknown) wilderness area of lakes and forests stretching  all the way up to the Hudson Bay. You get into your canoe and paddle from lake to idyllic lake, pausing briefly to "portage" your canoe and kit between lakes, find yourself a campsite, settle in. And then you fish. Bass, trout, perch and, if you're lucky (we weren't!), the local specialty walleye. No crocodiles, no hippos and no hyenas (although it turns out the bears of North America can be at least as troublesome as hyenas - we had to suspend our food at night from a tree to keep it safe). Paradise! We did get fairly severely rained on but, hey, that all adds to the experience.  In order to truly appreciate the sun, you have to first experience the rain!

Canoeing in the rain - welcome to the northern hemisphere!

Lifting our food away from the bears

It's been a fantastic introduction to the North American continent, although the learning curve is steep. A chastening reminder that you can't afford to have shabby, un-weatherproof kit in this part of the world, and a note to self to revise my long forgotten lighting-fires-from-wet-firewood skills. Tonight we fly to Seattle, where we'll pick up our vehicle, go shopping for some properly rainproof clothing (from the second-hand clothing store, naturally!) and then point ourselves north towards the wilds of British Columbia.

Max meets a smore

Our first catch in North American waters

Portaging our canoes from lake to lake

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