TravelStream™ news feed for member fyrelizard on TravelPod's free travel blogs service http://www.travelpod.com/syndication/rss/fyrelizard en-us Copyright ©2009 TravelPod.com Sat, 07 Nov 2009 01:55:32 -0500 http://www.travelpod.com http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/fyrelizard/4/1257533623/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/fyrelizard/4/1257533623/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/fyrelizard/4/1257533623/tpod.html Sat, 07 Nov 2009 01:55:32 -0500 Where the Wild Things Are

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Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada

I was keen to visit the Museum of Anthropology, housed at the University of British Columbia. This was a light and airy museum, devoted to the local First Nations.  It was filled with carvings; serving dishes, totems, panels and bentwood boxes; some pieces were over a century old, others were modern works.  The workmanship was very detailed, and although styles varied the pieces all displayed the same power and intensity as the totems in Stanley Park.  One of my favourite pieces was an enormous wolf sugar bowl.  It was made up of three bowls, each about a metre long, and would have been used to contain sugar to give as gifts to guests at potlatch ceremonies.  In its mouth, the wolf held a huge wooden serving spoon.  It was a colourful and ostentatious carving, full of life and a bit of humour.  As well as the wolf, there were bowls in the shape of seals, bears and beavers.  Just like the wolf sugar bowl, these were used during ceremonies and celebrations.  We were surrounded by grinning mouths and sharp teeth, razor beaks, paws and claws.  Each creature had its own personality and attributes.  Eagle is wise and powerful.  Orca is the traveller.  Bear is strong and stalwart.  The raven is the troublesome one, the cause of all the mischief.  For some reason, Jim seemed to feel the biggest affinity with Raven.  I am nothing like that, of course.The centrepiece of the museum was 'The Raven and the Clam', a sculpture by Bill Reid.  Carved from yellow cedar, it told a story of Creation.  A huge flood had covered the face of the earth.  When the waters subsided, Raven went walking along the beach.  The trickster found a clam shell, full of squirming pink creatures.  They were terrified of the light and whatever lay outside their shell.  Raven told them tales of the world's wonders, and his golden words enticed the creatures out from the clam shell's shelter.  The first humans took their faltering steps into the bright light of the world.  The sculpture was housed in a rotunda which had once been a gun tower.  An enormous skylight let light flood in to the dark space, a place constructed for death was turned into somewhere to celebrate life.  I liked the symbolism, and I liked the sculpture. In the afternoon we went to Granville Island.  This was one of the arty parts of town, and was home to a plethora of art galleries and craft shops.  Yachts crowded the marinas, and waterfront cafes and bars looked over towards the downtown towers.  Jim and I took an Aquabus around the harbour, shopped for paper and drank British Columbian wine in the sunshine.  The evening took us to the bar of the swanky Hotel Vancouver for martinis, then on to Gas Town to explore the city nightlife. 
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/fyrelizard/4/1254435830/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/fyrelizard/4/1254435830/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/fyrelizard/4/1254435830/tpod.html Sat, 07 Nov 2009 00:43:10 -0500 Where the Wild Things Are

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Tofino, British Columbia, Canada

We said goodbye to Jim's mum, then we drove to Nanoose Bay, where Jim and his boat Island Prism had started their round-the-world journey.  In the years since he left, the old beaver pond had gone, but wilderness was still close- a four prong buck gazed out at us from amongst autumn leaves in a back garden. We visited Schooner Cove marina, and then commenced the drive to the west of the island.The journey proved to be an interesting one, with many distractions.  We drove through the mountains that form the spine of the island, studded with lakes and enrobed in thick forest.  Cameron Lake was said to be the home of a prehistoric monster- Nessie's cousin perhaps?  It was noticeably absent. On the shores of the lake was Cathedral Grove.  Nothing beastly here either- other than Jim, who was desperately in need of a hair cut.  We wandered amongst the twisting cedars, glimpsing views of the lake.  Life was everywhere, each fallen log was home to a score of plants growing out of it, feeding on its nutrients.  All was rich and green. Here, once again, we found the thick-barked Douglas firs, thrusting up into the canopy.  These ancient giants restricted the amount of light that reached the forest floor. Occasionally one of these giants gave in to the weight of centuries or the push of the wind and came smashing down.  Then the race was on as smaller plants gained light at last and began to fight upwards to fill the space.The swirling mists and low clouds gave a mysterious edge to our journey through the mountains.  Who knew what was out there, under cover? Our musings were answered when we had to stop the car as a black bear nonchalantly strolled across the road, and vanished without trace into the vegetation.We drove through Pacific Rim National Park, along Clayoquot Sound, and arrived at the town of Tofino.  Hippies, surfers and artists call the little town home, and it has a vibrant community peppered with art galleries and bakeries.  The sun came out and we were treated to an Indian summer.Long Beach was a surfer's mecca.  The bleached driftwood piled up like bones along the shore attested  to the power of the waves.  The prevailing wind gave the trees and shrubs a distinctive wind-swept shape.  Bull kelp lay washed up along the shore, carried in by the pounding waves.  The sweep of sand carried on as far as the eye could see.  It was not just the weather that was wild.  Signs at the car park warned of the presence of wolves in the area, rubbish bins were a no-no because of black bears, and the local hairdresser was forced to listen to his pet being torn apart by a cougar one night.  The wild things are not far away. The driftwood piled along the high tide line had been put to some ingenious uses.  Some logs were simply laid out as seats.  Other enterprising souls had constructed shelters, huts and tipis.  Some even had little fences around the outside.  Surfers' shelters and hippy huts.  So very Tofino. As night fell, we retreated to our hot tub to watch the full moon rise.  Set into the forest, we could lie in the warm water and gaze at the changing colours of the sky and forest, from the golden glow of morning to cool purples at night. 
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/fyrelizard/4/1253742868/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/fyrelizard/4/1253742868/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/fyrelizard/4/1253742868/tpod.html Fri, 06 Nov 2009 16:46:51 -0500 Where the Wild Things Are

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Auckland, North Island, New Zealand

It was hardly the most auspicious start to a trip.  Up at 3am, taxi at 4, airport check in at 5.  Plane to Sydney leaves at 7am... and not long after 10am we are back on the tarmac at Auckland airport.  There were dust storms in Sydney, we couldn't land, and Brisbane was full so we had to turn round.  Being trapped in an airport isn't much fun.  Repeatedly queueing to find out what is going on, onlyh to meet polite requests to come back later.  Haunting the duty free.  Subsisting on coke and Burger King.  Feeling that little stab of jealousy when flights start to leave again, the suitcases start rolling and I am still here.  Stuck.  Eventually the polite people sorted me out.  I was moved to a flight through LA.  So suddenly there was the mad rush of trying to sort out electronic entry to the USA, the struggle to find a free internet terminal that actually worked.  I managed in the end, filled in my details, clicked send.  And was back to the endless waiting.  Wasn't there a Tom Hanks movie where he was trapped in an airport?  I began to know how he felt.  10pm.  Time to board the plane.  I'd been up since 3 and had even taken a day off work.  The frustrations melted away as the plane's wheels left the runway.  Second time lucky.  I was on my way to Canada.
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Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada

Vancouver is a wonderful city to discover by bike. Its streets are lined with trees, its hills are gentle, and it boasts the beautiful Stanley Park, fully accessible on two wheels.  Cycle paths follow the ocean, passing wave-lashed coast and lovely beaches.  Alternatively, inland there is shady, peaceful woodland, and the lovely Beaver Lake.  Fortified by a breakfast of pancakes and maple syrup, Jim and I set off to explore.   From Coal Harbour, we found stunning views across to the city.  Dozens of boats were moored at the boat club; Vancouver has a strong maritime culture.  I took in the blue sea and the sunshine, stopping every few minutes as cycling a few metres on revealed a new photo opportunity.The sculpture park gave me my introduction to First Nations carvings, with powerful traditional totem poles and modern interpretations.  They kept a watchful eye on the skyscrapers of the city beyond the water.  The totems tell a story of a family; who their ancestors are, what they own, which spirits protect and guide them, what their stories are.  In the past, the totems stood outside the great houses, until the wood decayed and fell, and the spirits and earth claimed them back.  Now many are preserved, not monuments to a dead culture but way markers towards the future, a reminder of people and identity, and what this beautiful land once was.The glorious weather and a lingering sense of unease about cetaceans in captivity kept me out of the aquarium, with its belugas and orcas.  But I lingered near Bill Reid's mighty sculpture, 'Killer Whale'.  We feasted on hot dogs, and left the bikes to stroll to stroll through the park, past ancient cedars and the decaying remains of a zoo with its cages and bear pit slowly being subsumed by the woodland.The tallest trees in the park were the cedars.  They towered above the others, with straight trunks and knobbly branches which appeared to have been glued on as afterthoughts.  These were the trees favoured for carving as totems, their bizarre shapes perhaps providing inspiration. The occasional fallen tree also provided the prefect playground for kids of all ages.Squirrels were abundant in Stanley Park, vying with the crows for possession of the bounty of fallen chestnuts.  They bounced around, feasting and burying some nuts in little caches in the hope of retrieving them in lean times.  The rodents seemed to delight in dancing through the dappled sunshine and pausing in just the wrong place for me to take a photo. We cycled on to Beaver Lake, a tranquil spot in the centre of the park.  True to its name, there are beavers there, though the only signs we saw were well-gnawed trees.  Dragonflies and wood ducks also made the lake their home.  We rode past the vast span of Lion's Gate Bridge, watching a sea lion playing in its shadow.  The park took on a wild character here, as we followed a narrow path which would its way along the bottom of rocky cliff faces.  The waves were large, occasionally drenching rollerbladers who rounded a point at the wrong time. After Prospect Point were three beaches, with invitingly golden sands.  A small cluster of people watched a model in a scanty bikini pose for glamour shots in the blue but frigid water.  Jim was rather worried that she would get too cold, but the promise of wine succeeded in luring him on to English Bay, where we enjoyed a glass of red before returning the bikes.In the evening, we crossed Lion's Gate Bridge to North Vancouver, where we took the cable car up Grouse Mountain.  A ski resort in the winter, in summer it offers fine dining and awesome views.  Multiple rides in the chair lift let us watch the sun set, and the lights of the city come flickering on.  The night was fairly clear, and we could see across to Nanaimo and Victoria, which showed as blurs of light on Vancouver Island.  Farther still were the mountains of the Olympic Peninsula in Washington State, and snow-encrusted Mount Baker.  The light faded and the air began to cool.  We retreated inside and rounded off the evening with a delicious meal at the Observatory, at a window table which let us watch the buzzing city and the glittering sky.
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Sooke, British Columbia, Canada

With reluctance we tore ourselves away from Tofino and the beautiful house with its forest and hot tub. We drove south, then east, back across the island.  The day was very different to our outward journey.  A burning sun created a world of intense blues and greens, and whites so bright that they hurt.  Not a breath of wind disturbed the surface of Sproat Lake, where we stopped to stretch our legs.  The mirror of the lake gave a study in symmetrical shades of blue.  We could see across to Mount Arrowsmith.  On a day like that, so bright and clear, with a high enough vantage point it felt like we could have seen forever.We returned to Cathedral Grove, taking a different trail.  This led us through more verdant forest, past 800 year old cedars.  What astounding changes these timeless trees have seen, the tearing down of an old world, the construction of a new.  Neat bark paths weave past them now, accessible to buggies and wheelchairs.  Ropes and fences make people keep their distance, and everything is explained by helpful boards.  This accessibility will widen the audience this forest receives, and hopefully make more people value it.  But I preferred the other side, where the trails tended to vanish and the air of wilderness remained. The end of the line was East Sooke.  In the middle of nowhere, it was the kind of spot that makes people ask, "Why are you going THERE?"  The answer?  Peace, wilderness and a beautiful place called Quail Peak.  Although I cannot really claim it to be a wilderness experience when we could watch the stunning sunsets over the Sooke basin from the tranquility of our own swimming pool or hot tub. We arrived not long before the sun set.  We watched with glasses of wine on the patio.  The colours in the sky lingered on, changing from oranges to purples with a fiery red finale.  Then the stars began to punctuate the navy blue sky.  This was a beautiful land.  There were walks galore to be done, with beaches and forests to explore.  But Quail Peak invited relaxation, and goodbyes would soon have to be said.  We did venture to Point No Point, which was home to a wonderful restaurant.  We watched bald eagles soaring, and saw gulls try to mob them away.  Through the binoculars on the table, we could watch the ships on the Juan de Fuca straight, and see the Olympic Peninsula of Washington State.    And the next morning we lingered in our little spot in paradise, before the ferry to Vancouver called, along with the plane that would take me home.
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Tofino, British Columbia, Canada

The glorious sun continued and we had another wild excursion. Our goal this time was to get to the hot springs north of Tofino.  We selected the most intrepid company, which promised the possibility of seeing a whale or two on the way.  I'm never one to pass up the chance to see a whale.  Our first viewing was a pair of grey whales, which appeared to be hunting. Seeing the grey whales was neat, but they were far less visually exciting than humpbacks or sperm whales.  The sea otters were a different story.  We came across a small raft of animals.  They floated on their backs in that characteristic pose, or peered up as us from the water.  With their whiskers, they looked like little old men of the sea. The otters were curious creatures.  They didn't seem worried by us, and went about their business.  They dived for fish, their tails flicking up into the air as they disappeared under the surface. When they decided it was time to take a break from their exertions, they would flip onto their backs again, gently floating with their paws sticking out of the water.The rocks at the hot springs formed natural hot tubs.  The water from the springs trickled in a steaming stream through successive pools until they met the ocean.  Just find a rock pool you like, and soak.  My favourite was at the ocean's edge.  I sat in the pool and let the hot water trickle down my back.  Every so often one of the icily cold waves would crash over the rocks, flooding our pool.  Half hot, half cold, it felt wonderfully unreal.  Then the wave would subside, and the pool would warm up again, until the next wave broke. I left the safety of that last pool, and sat where the hot stream met the North Pacific.  The water from the springs took the chilly edge off the ocean, which sent in gentle wavelets.   However, occasionally the waves would build themselves up into a big surge, full of the frigid power of the Pacific Ocean, threatening to sweep me off my perch and giving me a chilly shock.  Then the waves would calm down, and the delicious spring water would take effect once again.  And if I got too cold, I could always retreat to the hot pools!On our return journey to Tofino, we sighted more whales.  A pair of humpbacks this time.  One began lob tailing, slapping the sea with its tail in a loud and powerful explosion of water. This behaviour is apparently intended to frighten fish into forming a tight shoal, making it easier for the whale to then sweep through and devour them.  I can imagine it being successful.  I don't fancy getting too close to an adult humpback that is thrashing its tail about. 
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Tofino, British Columbia, Canada

Jim and I hired kayaks to paddle across Clayoquot Sound to Meares Island and Lemmers Inlet. It was a glorious day, with a blue dome of sky arching over us, and not a puff of wind to disturb the droopy-tipped hemlocks.  We timed out trip so the tides would help carry us.  The only sounds were the ripples of our paddles, and the manic quacking of the ducks, who took flight en mass if we got too close.  We tracked a black bear as it followed the shore, unaware of our presence as we observed from the water.  It was following the shoreline, vanishing into the forest occasionally, to reappear a few minutes later.  Eventually I rounded a headland, arriving at a bay before the creature.  It stood up on its hind legs as it gazed at me in surprise, then turned tail and ran.  A furry bottom retreated into the trees, and all was still. After a day of exploration, we stopped at Meares Island and followed the Big Tree Walk, through magnificent old growth forest.  A nosy blue jay decided that we were great entertainment.  It investigated my fleece as suitable nesting material, then hung around to watch us take pictures, hoping to find more mischief to cause.Eventually we left our little prankster for the paddle home.  The tide was powerful, and we were swept back across tidal rapids, over mudflats where we saw huge crabs scavenging and starfish hunting, past harbours and sea planes into Tofino.  We stopped at the fish store to pick up a haul of scallops and retreated home for dinner and showers, before an evening of didgeridoo and ciders at the Legion.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/fyrelizard/4/1254176571/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/fyrelizard/4/1254176571/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/fyrelizard/4/1254176571/tpod.html Fri, 06 Nov 2009 16:09:03 -0500 Where the Wild Things Are

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Alert Bay, British Columbia, Canada

The weather grew ominous as we returned to Campbell River by ferry, then took the road north. It was densely forested, and deserted apart from the occasional logging truck.   From the little town of Port McNeil, we boarded a ferry to our next destination: Alert Bay, on Cormorant Island. Alert Bay is an isolated community, largely dependent on fishing.  A large percentage of the locals are First Nations, of the Kwakwaka'wakw.  It was supposed to be a good place to find out more about native culture, which caught my interest. We arrived as the watery sun was subsumed by the clouds, and in the last light we explored the township on the water, and the totems at the graveyard.  Once, these totems would have stood proud and tall in front of a great house.  Their presence in the graveyard was poignant.  When a totem falls, it is not restored.  It is allowed to return to the earth where it came from.  The gravestones stood on, seeming indestructible.  The great houses are long gone.  For many years, native cultures were suppressed.  There is a movement now to revive old customs and practices.  The struggle is to keep old ways and languages from falling, and to find out how to fit tradition into the modern world. We wandered over to the U'mista cultural centre.  It was all locked up, closed for the day, but an old man was there, watching his grandchildren playing.  He was a carver, one of the Kwakwaka'wakw people, and he invited us down to his workshop.  He had just finished a commission for two bentwood boxes.  The colours were bright and fresh, the carving incredibly precise.  The boxes were destined to go to Sweden, to adorn somebody's living room.  The carver had been trained as a young man.  Now he wanted to take an apprentice, and pass his knowledge and skills on.  But the young people did not seem interested, he could not find anyone to teach.  Perhaps one day the grandchildren will want to learn.  Two new totems lay, half complete, outside, to be finished and erected in the town a month later.  The future remains in the mists.  I thought back to the graveyard, and to Bill Reid's rotunda.  Dust to dust?  Life from the ashes?  If the spirit is strong enough, it can survive.
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Courtenay, British Columbia, Canada

We awoke to a cool, crisp morning. The bright autumn sun made the white boats at the dock almost blinding as the light reflected on their decks and hulls.  It was a travel day, but we decided to take the lunchtime ferry back to Port McNeill, and spend the morning at the 'Umista Cultural Centre. The U'mista cultural centre was fascinating.  Its raison d'etre was to house a collection of articles which were taken away from Alert Bay as part of the suppression of potlatch celebrations in the 1920's.  The items were given to museums and private collectors for safe keeping.  The law was eventually deleted, but not repealed, and for many tribes, the potlatch articles remain lost.  The Museum of Man agreed to return their share of the objects from Alert Bay, on the condition that a museum would be constructed to house them. The resulting collection was astonishing, comprising costumes, coppers and instruments.  Further donations had been made, of jewellery, blankets, totems and boxes, which sat alongside gifts of more modern artworks.  The collection largely avoided glass cases.  The 'Namgis First Nation felt that the things had been hidden away and locked up for too long and needed to be part of life again.  So we investigated ingenious transforming masks and dramatic costumes, and tried to picture what the potlatch must have been like, held in a great house filled with noise, smoke and mystery.  The curator made us sit down to watch the video about the creation of the museum.  It started off well but then our interest in the documentary wained, and the arrival time of our ferry was approaching.  We felt like naughty kids as we skipped class, and instead watched a river otter hunting in the glistening sea.  We retyurned to Vancouver Island, and drove to Courtenay.  We spent the evening with Jim's mum, and had a great dinner of salmon at Comox, with more delicious local wines.  Jim's mum shared some of her own very tasty brew with us, and we spent an enjoyable evening swapping travel stories and sharing photos.
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Alert Bay, British Columbia, Canada

The following morning, we ventured into the Gator Gardens, an eerie goblin forest at the centre of the island.  The bleached grey corpses of cedars stood stark above a rampant orgy of growth; mosses and lichens encrusted bushes and trees, hanging from any surface they could colonise.  Fat fungi devoured fallen trees.  The sky began grey, misty, lifeless.  The air was motionless and the only sound was the cackle of the raven, surveying his domain.  The swamp water was black, stained by the tannins of decaying vegetation.  Reeds and grasses grew from this nutritious soup, until they too died, to rot away and return to the swamp.Beyond the Gator Gardens was a lush verdant forest of rich red cedars, stately Douglas firs with thick rivers running through their bark, and hemlocks with their droopy tops.  We picked huckleberries, which were deliciously tart, and tried the thick-skinned salal berries.  It was an atmospheric and intriguing place, and we decided that it was worthy of further exploration.  But first, we had to see a man about a whale.Next to the forest was a caravan park, for holiday makers and permanent residents.  The most appealing dwelling was an old school bus, festooned with vibrant flowers, and situated at the edge of the forest.  From there we drove through the reservation, as we looked for a route back to the docks.  Wide avenues shrunk to gravel tracks after a few metres, then turned a corner and expanded again.  Beautifully maintained houses existed next to caravans and tumble-down shacks.  We felt hopelessly lost and eventually asked for direction.  An eyebrow was raised.  "Just down there!"  We were already heading in the right direction.  And, after driving 5 metres, we rounded a bend and the sea came into view.  We waited at the Government dock for 'Nereid', one of the whale watching boats from Mackays.  The big aim of the day was to sight orcas- the area has a number of resident pods, and very high success rates for sightings.  We set off, scanning the ocean for fins or spray.  On a small island, a bald eagle watched us go by from the top of her tree.  Around the point we came to a colony of Stellar's sea lions, engaged in their favourite hobbies of squabbling or snoozing.  Occasionally one would slide off the rock a head off into the ocean to hunt. The common seals were just as laconic as the sea lions.  They gazed back at us with sad eyes and mournful expressions, like wise old men with the woes of the world on their shoulders.We glimpsed spouts of spray in the distance- an orca!  It was a male travelling alone.  Then, from the opposite direction, three more approached.  To add to the excitement, a pod of dolphins swept through, harrying the larger creatures before vanishing. The solo male joined up with the trio- a 60 year old female and her two male cousins.  They stayed near us for much of the afternoon, spyhopping, tail fobbing and chilling out.  The whales tended to remain around the surface, sometimes vanishing for a minute or two.  They travelled slowly and it was easy for us to keep pace with them.  The water was clear enough that we could see them beneath the water- the white false eye, and occasionally a flash of white belly when they rolled over.Eventually we had to say a reluctant goodbye to the orcas.  We returned towards Alert Bay, to an area favoured by humpback whales.  Again, the spouts were the first indication that the whales were there.  It was a pod of about 8, engaged in hunting. The whales would come to the surface, take a few breaths, then dive.  Their tail flukes stood on end as they descended.  Then we would be back to scanning the ocean, trying to work out where they would surface again.  The one which came up 10 metres from the boat really took us by surprise.Then the skipper, Bill, spotted a whale lunge feeding.  We travelled closer.  A mob of seabirds marked the spot, as they attacked a bait ball of fish which had been forced up to the surface.  The main source of the fishes' terror became clear when the humpback erupted from the depths, mouth agape, swallowing all in its path. Sea water poured from its jaws as its enormous maw closed on a large portion of the shoal.  The birds began to gather again, and three sealions turned up to pick off their share of the feast. The noise was phenomenal- the crash of the water as the whale lunged upwards then splashed back into the ocean, combined with the raucous squawking of the frenzied sea birds. A few breaths and the whale vanished under the sea again, to return for a second mouthful.The fish were decimated after a few passes, and the predators drifted away.  So did we, firstly to Hidden Cove where we needed to drop people off.  I was asked to write the report of the day, but our wildlife viewing was not done- on the shore near the resort was a black bear.  She was feeding, turning over rocks to search for shellfish. We watched quietly, and she seemed undisturbed by our presence.  She was a glossy animal, fat and well-fed. Lumbering along, she carried on feeding, then clambered on to a fallen log and gazed at us.  Ready for her close up, it was the perfect shot- then she returned to the beach and continued poking around the rocks, once again totally ignoring us.
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