Jun 2008

Well, Whistler life seems to suit us and we've settled in to our (not very taxing and completely void of any responsibility) jobs and the one bedroom unit that goes with it. Our days usually consist of rolling out of bed at about 9am and then Glenn will ride in the bike park for a few hours while Bec plays with her cameras. We then usually head to work after lunch and get home at about 10pm while it's still daylight.

Bikeboy

On our days off we try and go hiking or bike riding together. A couple of weeks ago we took a ride along a trail that had some black diamond (second-most hard-core kind of trail) descents full of rocks and tree roots. Bec can now say that she's ridden black diamond at Whistler (even though it wasn't on purpose and she carried the bike most of the way). The woods around here are beautiful, though we're still a little afraid of bears even though popular opinion is that bear attacks are very rare. Glenn reports regular sightings of triplet bear cubs under the bike chairlift on the mountain.

Trail riders!!

Last weekend we parted with a stupid amount of money (such is Whistler life) and hired a car for two days and drove north to a tiny town called Lillooet about three hours out of Whistler. After losing each other at a waterfall on the way, we borrowed a couple of fishing rods from some guys in a sports store in Pemberton to try and realise Bec's life long dream to go trout fishing (and wear the wading pants, especially the wading pants) in a river in Canada. The guys weren't so forthcoming with their trout pants but we took the rods anyway, bought ourselves each a British Columbia fishing license and set off to catch us some trout. With no input from Glenn, and not having fished for at least ten years (Norway excluded), Bec was chuffed with herself for remembering how to thread and cast a fishing line. To no avail though. Our total haul for the weekend equalled two sticks, one large leaf and one piece of miscellaneous lake scum.

Catcher of sticks

Trout fishing

In Lillooet we ate ourselves silly at Dina's Greek Taverna (which, incidently, stocked no Greek beer) and then headed across the road to the local pub where we were soon befriended by some very generous, intoxicated, karaoke-singing, middle-aged locals who insisted on buying us drinks 'because we talk funny'. We had to beat a hasty retreat so as to be in a fit driving state the next day. Glenn did very well in his first foray into driving on the wrong side of the road and was only mildly sick of Bec chanting 'lefty loosey, righty tighty' every time we neared a corner. We drove through some spectacular mountain and lakeside scenery and finished up our road trip at Wal-Mart in Squamish just for funnies.

Canadian barn

We've both volunteered for Crankworx, which is the hard-core mountain bike tournament held in Whistler, and we're awaiting our jobs there so we can mix it with the mountain biking elite here (not that Bec would know anyone remotely famous in the mountain biking fraternity if they were to slap her in the face) and get free stuff.