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| Looking forward to this weekend's kayaking adventure. We're planning to do 20km of paddling and a 10km hike around the island. Fingers crossed for good weather! |
Friday, July 20, 2012
What's in my backpack (well, kayak). All set for Portland Island!
Wednesday, July 18, 2012
My Favourite Places on Vancouver Island: Roche Cove and Matheson Lake
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| Matheson Lake |
In my books, Vancouver Island takes the cake when it comes to Canadian hiking experiences for 3 reasons, gorgeous landscapes, an abundance of hiking destinations and, last but not least, a welcome lack of mosquitoes. Until we moved out here I'd never dream of spending extended amounts of time in the outdoors without a healthy supply of Deet, but I soon learned to save some weight and leave the stuff at home. It was one habit I was very happy to break.
Hiking options on the Island include the world-class West Coast Trail, the scenic Juan da Fuca and the technically challenging North Coast Trail (my favourite long distance trail on the Island). Many day hikes are easily accessible within a short drive of the Island's main centres. One of our favourite go-to short hikes is a just a five-minute drive down the street from our place.
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| Matheson Creek |
As an added bonus - the kicker that makes this one of my favourite spots on the Island - when you're ready to take a break you can scope out a nice, quiet swimming spot as you make your way around the Matheson Lake loop. Great for cooling off on a hot summer day!
If you still have some energy after the hike, you might want to drive the short distance to close-by Aylard Farm at the trailhead to the East Sooke Coastal Trail and do a little beachcombing before heading home. It's gotta be said that Roche Cove and Matheson Lake's close proximity to East Sooke is the main reason we haven't visited this trail sooner. I won't say anything further about it here, but you can read more about the East Sooke Coastal Trail in this post.
Trip Info
Roche Cove Trailhead on Google Maps
Route: Cedar Grove to Galloping Goose to Matheson Lake Loop Trail, return via Galloping Goose
Hike length: Approximately 8km
Hike duration: 2-3 hours, 4 hours with a swim at Matheson Lake
Roche Cove website
Matheson Lake website
Read more about my favourite places on Vancouver Island.
Monday, July 16, 2012
Sunday, July 15, 2012
Never met a bowl of soup I didn't like
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| We stopped at a restaurant in Chinatown on a rainy afternoon to dry off and have a some soup. Delicious! |
The Other London, Part 7: The best things in life are free
Getting picked up by a roadie who could drive us in through the Roskilde festival 'stage door' was a boon a half at the end of our hitchhiking journey. Not only did it mean we would save the 70 pound entrance fee, it also afforded us the luxury of being able to kick back and relax for the last few hundred km of the journey.
Oddly, I discovered these are not, in fact the types of incidents one looks forward to sharing with friends. They just end up seeming too far into the incredible category to sound real. At least they do in my estimation, which is why I often leave out this particular recollection when reminiscing with friends around the campfire on summer nights….but you and I are not sitting around the campfire, are we?
Now, I'd played in bands throughout most of my adolescence, and had debatably spent an above average amount of time hanging out with music industry folk, but this was my first experience, albeit an indirect one, with a group that was actually doing well enough not to have to drive their own shit around. Yes, the situation was a bit of an anomaly on many levels. I surveyed the interior of the vehicle with marked curiosity. There was a second empty bench seat, spotlessly empty, I might add, and beyond that a cargo area piled with neatly stacked almost new looking cases. There didn't seem to be one stray piece of garbage, cigarette butt or miscellaneous unmentionable in sight. It was unlike any touring van I'd ever seen. I wondered what the band thought of it…
I stretched out on the empty bench and fell asleep…
…but not for long. Within the next half hour, Brit had picked up 3 additional hitchhikers - a pair of girls and a boy who was hitchhiking solo, all from Denmark.It seemed the plan was to arrive at the festival with a full house. So much for travelling in rock 'n' roll luxury. As the Scandinavians now outnumbered the, well, non-Scandinavians in attendance, the conversation switched from clipped English to lovely sing-song Danish, which John spoke, it seemed, fairly fluently and I had obviously never encountered before. This left Brit and I to develop that odd add-liquid-and-mix familiarity one experiences when one is on the road and in the company of someone you really share nothing in common with other than the fact that you both happen to be from the same, very large, continent.
I came to like Brit very much in a big brother kind of way over our short journey together. He has a fun-loving roadie with a big laugh who obviously was always looking for a party - a real dark horse. In the afternoon we stopped for lunch in the downtown area of some pedestrian area of a Danish city whose name I've forgotten. There were buskers playing by the side of the cobblestone street and I stopped to listen to one as we passed. Realizing I had not yet had the opportunity to visit a money exchange and therefore had no money to give, I asked Brit for some change. He quickly handed me the contents of his pocket which I threw into the busker's empty case. A few blocks down the street, Brit asked me what I'd done with the rest of the money.
"What money?" I asked, "I gave it all to that guy"
"All of it?" Brit asked pausing ever so slightly in his gait.
"Yes, all of it," I confirmed.
"That was the equivalent of $40!" We came to a halt staring at each other. This revelation came as a total shock to me as the highest denomination coin we had in Canada at the time was the one dollar loony. It seemed unfathomable to me that a small handful of coins could be so valuable. Brit shrugged. "How generous of you," he remarked with a smile and then continued on his way.
Yes, I for the 5-6 hours of my life in which I knew Brit, I liked him very much.
A few friends have asked me to write about how I came to use the name, theotherlondon, so here it is: a collection of stories from June 1993 to October 1994 that include my experiences working in Switzerland and the UK; my engagement to a German blacksmith in Paris; our road trip across North America in a ’67 Volvo with an Australian footballer, and oh yes, my introduction to something ‘new’ called the Internet. You can find the first post here.
Oddly, I discovered these are not, in fact the types of incidents one looks forward to sharing with friends. They just end up seeming too far into the incredible category to sound real. At least they do in my estimation, which is why I often leave out this particular recollection when reminiscing with friends around the campfire on summer nights….but you and I are not sitting around the campfire, are we?
Now, I'd played in bands throughout most of my adolescence, and had debatably spent an above average amount of time hanging out with music industry folk, but this was my first experience, albeit an indirect one, with a group that was actually doing well enough not to have to drive their own shit around. Yes, the situation was a bit of an anomaly on many levels. I surveyed the interior of the vehicle with marked curiosity. There was a second empty bench seat, spotlessly empty, I might add, and beyond that a cargo area piled with neatly stacked almost new looking cases. There didn't seem to be one stray piece of garbage, cigarette butt or miscellaneous unmentionable in sight. It was unlike any touring van I'd ever seen. I wondered what the band thought of it…
I stretched out on the empty bench and fell asleep…
…but not for long. Within the next half hour, Brit had picked up 3 additional hitchhikers - a pair of girls and a boy who was hitchhiking solo, all from Denmark.It seemed the plan was to arrive at the festival with a full house. So much for travelling in rock 'n' roll luxury. As the Scandinavians now outnumbered the, well, non-Scandinavians in attendance, the conversation switched from clipped English to lovely sing-song Danish, which John spoke, it seemed, fairly fluently and I had obviously never encountered before. This left Brit and I to develop that odd add-liquid-and-mix familiarity one experiences when one is on the road and in the company of someone you really share nothing in common with other than the fact that you both happen to be from the same, very large, continent.
I came to like Brit very much in a big brother kind of way over our short journey together. He has a fun-loving roadie with a big laugh who obviously was always looking for a party - a real dark horse. In the afternoon we stopped for lunch in the downtown area of some pedestrian area of a Danish city whose name I've forgotten. There were buskers playing by the side of the cobblestone street and I stopped to listen to one as we passed. Realizing I had not yet had the opportunity to visit a money exchange and therefore had no money to give, I asked Brit for some change. He quickly handed me the contents of his pocket which I threw into the busker's empty case. A few blocks down the street, Brit asked me what I'd done with the rest of the money.
"What money?" I asked, "I gave it all to that guy"
"All of it?" Brit asked pausing ever so slightly in his gait.
"Yes, all of it," I confirmed.
"That was the equivalent of $40!" We came to a halt staring at each other. This revelation came as a total shock to me as the highest denomination coin we had in Canada at the time was the one dollar loony. It seemed unfathomable to me that a small handful of coins could be so valuable. Brit shrugged. "How generous of you," he remarked with a smile and then continued on his way.
Yes, I for the 5-6 hours of my life in which I knew Brit, I liked him very much.
A few friends have asked me to write about how I came to use the name, theotherlondon, so here it is: a collection of stories from June 1993 to October 1994 that include my experiences working in Switzerland and the UK; my engagement to a German blacksmith in Paris; our road trip across North America in a ’67 Volvo with an Australian footballer, and oh yes, my introduction to something ‘new’ called the Internet. You can find the first post here.
Friday, July 13, 2012
At the summit of Mount Tolmie watching the storms roll in along withhalf the population of Victoria
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| At the summit of Mount Tolmie watching the storms roll in along with half the population of Victoria |
Wednesday, July 11, 2012
The Other London, Part 6: Turn off your mind, relax and float downstream
"Now, I'd already accepted that in agreeing to hitchhike in a foreign locale with a relative stranger, I'd acquiesced to practicing a higher than average level of tolerance for getting myself into potentially risky situations, but in this case, my instincts got the better of me."
Do you have any idea how far down the road you'd have to travel to safely pull over on a straight stretch of a busy European highway? Let me tell you, it's pretty damn far. So far, in fact John and I almost didn't notice we snagged a ride on that particular leg of our hitchhiking odyssey across Holland and Denmark.
"I think we got a ride", John yelled over his shoulder as he took off down the highway his knapsack bouncing in a rather uncomfortable looking way from his shoulder.
Despite John's apparent sense of urgency I hesitated, not registering that we had actually managed to flag down one of the vehicles that had been zooming past us at autobahn speed and greater for the past 20 minutes. I squinted into the distance.
"Wait! Where?!" I managed to scream back before he was out of earshot.
John screeched to a halt, "Down there!" he waved ambiguously and with some measure of impatience into the distance before taking off again as fast as his haphazardly hoisted baggage would allow.
I kept my spot and squinted into the sunlight. A good kilometre, maybe closer to two kilometres, down the highway I noticed what appeared to be a speck of a conspicuous looking windowless black van. Now, I'd already accepted that in agreeing to hitchhike in a foreign locale with a relative stranger, I'd acquiesced to practicing a higher than average level of tolerance for getting myself into potentially risky situations, but in this case, my instincts got the better of me. Something told me there was something terrifically out-of-the ordinary with this arrangement. Meh.
A short second later I was running after John with my own backpack bouncing irritatingly from side to side at my back - those things just aren't designed for running. And yes, it turned out we had managed to secure a ride. By the time I arrived at the parked van, panting and out of breath having sprinted three kilometres with 30 lbs of weight on my back, John was already perched in the passenger seat with a huge, 'I told you so' grin on his face. More than that, it was somewhat of an 'you're-not-going-to-believe-our-dumb-luck' grin.
Our benefactor, Brit, was on-route to the festival with the Lemonheads' gear in tow and offered to not only drive us to the festival, but also to get us in for free. Seriously. I kid you not.
A few friends have asked me to write about how I came to use the name, theotherlondon, so here it is: a collection of stories from June 1993 to October 1994 that include my experiences working in Switzerland and the UK; my engagement to a German blacksmith in Paris; our road trip across North America in a ’67 Volvo with an Australian footballer, and oh yes, my introduction to something ‘new’ called the Internet. You can find the first post here.
Do you have any idea how far down the road you'd have to travel to safely pull over on a straight stretch of a busy European highway? Let me tell you, it's pretty damn far. So far, in fact John and I almost didn't notice we snagged a ride on that particular leg of our hitchhiking odyssey across Holland and Denmark.
"I think we got a ride", John yelled over his shoulder as he took off down the highway his knapsack bouncing in a rather uncomfortable looking way from his shoulder.
Despite John's apparent sense of urgency I hesitated, not registering that we had actually managed to flag down one of the vehicles that had been zooming past us at autobahn speed and greater for the past 20 minutes. I squinted into the distance.
"Wait! Where?!" I managed to scream back before he was out of earshot.
John screeched to a halt, "Down there!" he waved ambiguously and with some measure of impatience into the distance before taking off again as fast as his haphazardly hoisted baggage would allow.
I kept my spot and squinted into the sunlight. A good kilometre, maybe closer to two kilometres, down the highway I noticed what appeared to be a speck of a conspicuous looking windowless black van. Now, I'd already accepted that in agreeing to hitchhike in a foreign locale with a relative stranger, I'd acquiesced to practicing a higher than average level of tolerance for getting myself into potentially risky situations, but in this case, my instincts got the better of me. Something told me there was something terrifically out-of-the ordinary with this arrangement. Meh.
A short second later I was running after John with my own backpack bouncing irritatingly from side to side at my back - those things just aren't designed for running. And yes, it turned out we had managed to secure a ride. By the time I arrived at the parked van, panting and out of breath having sprinted three kilometres with 30 lbs of weight on my back, John was already perched in the passenger seat with a huge, 'I told you so' grin on his face. More than that, it was somewhat of an 'you're-not-going-to-believe-our-dumb-luck' grin.
Our benefactor, Brit, was on-route to the festival with the Lemonheads' gear in tow and offered to not only drive us to the festival, but also to get us in for free. Seriously. I kid you not.
 |
| Our ride to Roskilde |
A few friends have asked me to write about how I came to use the name, theotherlondon, so here it is: a collection of stories from June 1993 to October 1994 that include my experiences working in Switzerland and the UK; my engagement to a German blacksmith in Paris; our road trip across North America in a ’67 Volvo with an Australian footballer, and oh yes, my introduction to something ‘new’ called the Internet. You can find the first post here.
Sunday, July 08, 2012
The Other London Part 5: Tomorrow never knows
The last 100km leading up to the festival grounds were the toughest going. Competition was fierce at the off ramps. Yes, hitchhiking may have been falling out of fashion in those days, but I suppose when you have 93,000 people camping at a music festival, a small percentage choosing to travel via the romance of the open road - just for sentimental kicks - could easily cause the amount of congestion we encountered. In the early afternoon, the day before the festival, John and I found ourselves standing in a lineup of about 10 people waiting for a ride. And most of our companions appeared to have been waiting for quite a while.
After about an hour of fruitless waiting, John turned to me and asked what I thought about trying our luck on the highway. Earlier on in our journey, the idea of flagging down a ride with with vehicles whizzing past at speeds in excess of 150km/hour+ might have seemed intimidating. At this point, anything seemed all right as long as we didn't have to actually cross the highway (I never got used to that craziness). In full knowledge that we were about to commit a hitchhiking faux pas and jump the line in securing the next available ride on that particular stretch of highway, we hightailed it out of there as inconspicuously as we could manage.
And a ride did pick us up within a few short moments on the highway. One that drove us all the way up to the gates of the festival - through the backstage entrance nonetheless. Of course, I jump ahead of myself, but had I known that upon our arrival at the festival grounds - my first introduction to the European music festival experience, or really any music festival of similar scope - that John and I would be accidentally separated and I would find myself in a cattle run of 93,000 strangers with no tent and therefore, no place to stay for 3 days, I might have tried a different approach. One that at least entailed a stop at the nearest camping store or better yet, sussed out hostel accommodations in the vicinity. Lucky for me, however, I had no idea how things were about to unfold.
I'm not sure exactly, but I believe this was the song I played to land an invitation to hitchhike to Roskilde.
A few friends have asked me to write about how I came to use the name, theotherlondon, so here it is: a collection of stories from June 1993 to October 1994 that include my experiences working in Switzerland and the UK; my engagement to a German blacksmith in Paris; our road trip across North America in a ’67 Volvo with an Australian footballer, and oh yes, my introduction to something ‘new’ called the Internet. You can find the first post here.
Saturday, July 07, 2012
Wednesday, July 04, 2012
Wednesday evening workout, heading up to the summit
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| View from the trail leading to the summit of Mount Douglas |
The Other London, Part 4: You say goodbye and I say hello
We said goodbye to the German punks who had driven us across the border just outside the customs area and walked down to the on ramp which was only a few hundred metres away. As luck would have it, we were picked up after a relatively short wait - and a relatively short wait on that particular journey meant about an hour. We were offered a ride by a German hippie sort named Karl with long straight hair, wearing sandals and Birkenstocks. He had an immaculately clean Volvo and had always dreamed of going to Canada. His interest in hearing about Canadian landscapes was insatiable.
Having completed a trip across the country on the Trans-Canada the year before, I had plenty of material to contribute to our discussion. After our first stop John and I switched spots so I could break our usual routine and take the front seat. We easily chatted away the 100 km Karl originally offered to drive us, which lengthened into the next major city and by the end of the afternoon became an offer to drive us all the way to Flensburg, on the German/Danish border.
Part way through the journey, Karl shared his sandwiches with us and at dinner time, he paid for our dinners. When we approached Flensburg he pulled over to call his girlfriend and consulted with her before inviting us to spend the night at her place. In the morning, he mentioned, his girlfriend's brother would be driving into Denmark and could give us a ride as far as Kolding.
I grew to very much like Karl and his girlfriend Marlene during that part of the trip. They were a bit older, but not by much, and I imagined that given the opportunity, we could easily become friends. They were both very keen to visit Canada and mentioned they would look me up if they ever happened to travel across the ocean to visit.
But those days were different. I don't think I knew what an email address was at that point. Facebook and Twitter were over a decade away and, as I was traveling, I had no phone number and no fixed address to pass on. The short of it was, I had no contact info to give them, other than to let them know that I was from London (the other one, in Ontario, Canada) and that they should try to find me in the phone book if they ever happened to pass that way. Hopefully I'd be there...
As I had come to understand on previous trips - realistically there was next to no chance that any semblance of an ongoing relationship would come out of our meeting. I think that's a big difference between then and now. When you traveled people would come in and out of your life for a short span of time and when you said goodbye, it was almost a given that you were saying goodbye forever. Sometimes that was a great, and sometimes not so much.
A few friends have asked me to write about how I came to use the name, theotherlondon, so here it is: a collection of stories from June 1993 to October 1994 that include my experiences working in Switzerland and the UK; my engagement to a German blacksmith in Paris; our road trip across North America in a ’67 Volvo with an Australian footballer, and oh yes, my introduction to something ‘new’ called the Internet. You can find the first post here.
Having completed a trip across the country on the Trans-Canada the year before, I had plenty of material to contribute to our discussion. After our first stop John and I switched spots so I could break our usual routine and take the front seat. We easily chatted away the 100 km Karl originally offered to drive us, which lengthened into the next major city and by the end of the afternoon became an offer to drive us all the way to Flensburg, on the German/Danish border.
Part way through the journey, Karl shared his sandwiches with us and at dinner time, he paid for our dinners. When we approached Flensburg he pulled over to call his girlfriend and consulted with her before inviting us to spend the night at her place. In the morning, he mentioned, his girlfriend's brother would be driving into Denmark and could give us a ride as far as Kolding.
I grew to very much like Karl and his girlfriend Marlene during that part of the trip. They were a bit older, but not by much, and I imagined that given the opportunity, we could easily become friends. They were both very keen to visit Canada and mentioned they would look me up if they ever happened to travel across the ocean to visit.
But those days were different. I don't think I knew what an email address was at that point. Facebook and Twitter were over a decade away and, as I was traveling, I had no phone number and no fixed address to pass on. The short of it was, I had no contact info to give them, other than to let them know that I was from London (the other one, in Ontario, Canada) and that they should try to find me in the phone book if they ever happened to pass that way. Hopefully I'd be there...
As I had come to understand on previous trips - realistically there was next to no chance that any semblance of an ongoing relationship would come out of our meeting. I think that's a big difference between then and now. When you traveled people would come in and out of your life for a short span of time and when you said goodbye, it was almost a given that you were saying goodbye forever. Sometimes that was a great, and sometimes not so much.
A few friends have asked me to write about how I came to use the name, theotherlondon, so here it is: a collection of stories from June 1993 to October 1994 that include my experiences working in Switzerland and the UK; my engagement to a German blacksmith in Paris; our road trip across North America in a ’67 Volvo with an Australian footballer, and oh yes, my introduction to something ‘new’ called the Internet. You can find the first post here.
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