We are back from our vacation to Vancouver and Whistler. We had a fun time in the big city doing plenty of sight-seeing and shopping for essentials. We even managed to get out of Ikea without buying any candles or tea lights! In Whistler we had a more relaxing time enjoying the beautiful scenery and we even managed to get a fix of snow when we took the Village Gondola up to the summit of Whistler Mountain to do some hiking. 
Our Photo Editor decided that the hiking wasn't really quite dangerous enough and managed to convince Rachael that it would be quite a good idea to do some downhill mountain biking.
We hired our downhill kit including big bikes, full face helmets, body protection and off we went on the chair lift again. This time the lift had been modified to enable 4 bikes to be put on to one of the chairs then you jumped on the following chair and there were two guys at the top of the lift to take off the bikes for you ready to be collected as you got off yourself. Quite clever apart from the weight of each of the bikes was about 20kg which is about twice the weight of Rachael's regular cross country mountain bike. Needless to say it was quite a challenge to get the bike on to the lift!
Our Photo Editor decided that the hiking wasn't really quite dangerous enough and managed to convince Rachael that it would be quite a good idea to do some downhill mountain biking.
We hired our downhill kit including big bikes, full face helmets, body protection and off we went on the chair lift again. This time the lift had been modified to enable 4 bikes to be put on to one of the chairs then you jumped on the following chair and there were two guys at the top of the lift to take off the bikes for you ready to be collected as you got off yourself. Quite clever apart from the weight of each of the bikes was about 20kg which is about twice the weight of Rachael's regular cross country mountain bike. Needless to say it was quite a challenge to get the bike on to the lift!
We enjoyed a couple of the green runs through the trees to warm up (although warm up is probably the wrong term as it was about 28 degrees Celcius even at 3.30pm). Then we tried some of the more intermediate blue trails which included jumps, ramps, berms and wooden bridges through the trees. The only jump Rachael couldn't do was what seemed to be a 30ft wall of mud that you were supposed to jump over - I am convinced it grew higher as I approached, so I went up the side of it. That may not seem too exciting to any of you who may have tried downhill biking before but if you add to that about 9 bears on the trails it certainly livens things up!
Travelling back through the Okanagan valley where most of the BC vineyards are the temperatures were noticably higher and at the highest we recorded 39 degrees Celcius on the thermometer in our SUV we were so pleased to have air conditioning! However, arriving back in Nelson we have discovered that we are full into the throws of summer and the regular temperatures are 35-38 degrees Celcius during the day dropping to about 18 degrees Celcius at night. We are seriously thinking of moving our bedroom down into the basement suite where the cats enjoy a cooler accommodation.
Today 1st July is Canada Day and we have a Bank Holiday to enjoy. The City of Nelson host an all day event at the Lakeside Park which started at 10am this morning with an opening ceremony and the cutting of the Canada Day Cake which is served to folks by the Mayor of Nelson! There has been live music and singing all day and the highlight for us is going to be this evening when we are going out on to the lake with a few friends in one of their boats to watch the firework display which is being hosted by the Nelson Fire Department.
Fireworks are quite an exciting thing for folks here in town as you are not allowed to have fireworks or even buy them unless you have a licence for display purposes - fireworks - wooden houses - high fire risk - bad idea!
Well, before we went on vacation we discovered that Harley and Phantom's catnip mice had been nesting under one of our sofas, here they are:
when we got back from vacation we discovered that they had magically moved!
We have now been here a year and we have decided that we will do a photo round up of our favourite pictures to share with you for next week.
Happy Canada Day!
Rachael, Shaun, Harley and Phantom.
Travelling back through the Okanagan valley where most of the BC vineyards are the temperatures were noticably higher and at the highest we recorded 39 degrees Celcius on the thermometer in our SUV we were so pleased to have air conditioning! However, arriving back in Nelson we have discovered that we are full into the throws of summer and the regular temperatures are 35-38 degrees Celcius during the day dropping to about 18 degrees Celcius at night. We are seriously thinking of moving our bedroom down into the basement suite where the cats enjoy a cooler accommodation.
Today 1st July is Canada Day and we have a Bank Holiday to enjoy. The City of Nelson host an all day event at the Lakeside Park which started at 10am this morning with an opening ceremony and the cutting of the Canada Day Cake which is served to folks by the Mayor of Nelson! There has been live music and singing all day and the highlight for us is going to be this evening when we are going out on to the lake with a few friends in one of their boats to watch the firework display which is being hosted by the Nelson Fire Department.
Fireworks are quite an exciting thing for folks here in town as you are not allowed to have fireworks or even buy them unless you have a licence for display purposes - fireworks - wooden houses - high fire risk - bad idea!
Well, before we went on vacation we discovered that Harley and Phantom's catnip mice had been nesting under one of our sofas, here they are:
when we got back from vacation we discovered that they had magically moved!We have now been here a year and we have decided that we will do a photo round up of our favourite pictures to share with you for next week.
Happy Canada Day!
Rachael, Shaun, Harley and Phantom.
