Fernie - bit late, this one . . .

Blog – 2nd August

Howdy folks, it’s been a little while since our last entry. Currently we are stretched out, in the shade, on a long swing chair on the banks of the River Shuswap. There’s absolutely nothing needed doing for the rest of the day, save enjoy the dry hot heat of the Okanagans. Seems as good as any other time to catch up on a little blogging.
To bring us up to speed we caught the Greyhound out of Fernie at 3.15am on a Sunday morning en route to our new jobs at the Caravan Farm Theatre.
This entry will be a little short on photographic content: This is why. On the tourist brochures for the lake city of Kelowna (containing, apparently, the highest quoitient of millionaires per square mile in Canada) the slogan reads ‘ripe with surprises’. Too bloody right since, during our five hour stopover, we learned that Kelowna’s other numerous brand of citizenry are crackheads, one of whom lifted Em’s handbag from the back of her chair in the restaurant in which we were eating. Say hello, wave goodbye to wallet, iPod, specs, camera and most vitally Em’s pack of Werther’s originals.
On the upside we were then treated to a genuinely alternative tourist ride in the back of an RCMP cop car around Kelowna’s cracktown. Our cop was called Kevin and seemed to rather relish the idea of all the ‘bad guys’ he was battling, as well as wondering at the British’s reticence to arming our cops to the teeth.
At one point on the tour he stopped the car next to three shiny looking teenage girls.
“Hey ladies.” Said Kevin
“Hi,” giggle the girls.
“You’re not crack smokers by any chance?” Asks our Kev.
Blush, giggle, horror, shock went the girls, clearly not potent street drug users.
“Well, be careful on these streets,” carries on Kev, clearly intent on sowing a little paranoia in their midst. “they’re full of bad guys.”
Exit three nervy girls, pursued by an ever darkening world view.

On the upside we had bus tickets and a job with accommodation and food waiting for us in Armstrong, as well as a certain amount of resilience to bad luck. We waved goodbye to Kelowna with the traditional two-fingered British salute and carried on North to what seems to be turning out to be a small sector of Canadian paradise.

Our time in Fernie was very quiet, sweltering in a 120 bed hostel with single figure occupancy in the dog days of summer. We loved it; great people, wonderful hikes, bear fear and all. I’m mildly chuffed at navigating a downhill mountain bike route that the locals understatedly described as ‘gnarly’, only falling off twice, only riding into two or three trees or bushes, and arriving at the bottom more or less unharmed. There was a fair amount of time spent in the River Elk. First, unsuccessfully, we went tubing which essentially means plonking your arse onto an inflatable item and allowing the river to take you downstream. The water is coming down from the mountains where the snow is still melting and is freezing. You dip your toes into the water and it hurts, and if anything gets worse the longer you remain in the water. Our maiden voyage saw us enter the river at precisely the wrong point; we were swept into the trees on the river bank, the inflatable overturned and we bounced off the rocks that punctuated the water. Then we did precisely the same thing again, Em most put out at one of her fiery hair bands departed on the long trip to the ocean. The next day we cracked it and Em managed to defy some basic physical laws by making her inflatable travel at a slower speed than the river was travelling. I discovered that a baseball cap, even if worn while fully immersed , can keep a cigarette and matches dry enough to enjoy a mid river puff. Having had a little practice we then went for the real thing and went white water rafting on the River Elk, further down where it gets a lot more exciting. Cliff jumping but no bears though.

(Gonna cut this one short, as it's actually now 24th September, we're in Vancouver, and we have a lot of catching up to do, ooops.)