Double moose - part 1

OK, been away for a few days so let's bring the travel story more up to date.

Managed to book another couple of trips with Moose travel. Trip 1 (henceforth known as the Irish trip) was a two day trip up to Whistler from Vancouver. Weather was crap on morning of day 1 so all stops at viewpoints were can'd 'cos all we would have seen were clouds. Had a full bus for this trip - 20 of us from the UK,Belgium, Germany, Austria, and of course Oz. There were also 2 girls from N.Ireland and 2 guys from the Republic. Chalet in Whistler was cool - ski lodge in winter charging about $1800 a week per person, and hostel in summer charging $28 a night. Thought we were going to have hostesses from continental Europe again when they were introduced as Erika and Heidi. But no, Heidi is from Devon and Erika from Essex.

Spent most of my time with a female vicar from London (had to make sure conversation stayed away from religion) - did the mandatory trip up in the gondola up Whistler Mountain first (the weather had improved by now). Had special added bonus on the trip when the cable stopped just as a bear walked across the mountainside almost directly below us. Couldn't do the final assault on the summit 'cos the final chair lift had just closed for the day and there wasn't time for the 90 minute round trek before the gondola amso stopped for the day. Managed to get my feet into the snow though. Bought a ticket that combined gondola with some other activities: luge and mini golf. Had trouble finding the luge, so asked someone. Response was "Oh, you mean the kiddies' slide. Well, its over there". Turned out to be sled type things running down a metal track. Could get up to speeds of more than 30 km/h though. Yes, we went on it anyway.


Then headed back to the chalet and met up with the crowd who had been staying there since the previous day and were going to head back to Vancouver with us the following day - a few Brits and Aussies plus another 5 or 6 from Ireland. Well, as you can problably guess from that mix of nationalities, a very good night's drinking was had by all. Don't think Erika was too impressed that the revelry went on quite as late as it did: "Keep the noise down a bit babe"; and "no more music now babe" - I did say she was from Essex didn't I?

Did manage to survive to Thursday and even managed to get out of bed at a reasonable hour only to find it was raining again. Still went back to the village with the Rev. Sarah to play mini golf (we'd already paid for the tickets the day before and weren't going to waste them). Needless to say, we were the only two idiots on the course!

Then we had another wet drive back to Vancouver for 1 night's recovery b4 Moose 2, part 2.