Around the World in as long as it takes.

We arrived in Victoria and walked up to the hostel.

We were in the Ocean Island Backpackers in Victoria... which unlike our original impression, turned out to be one of the large Inner City Hostels! ARRGGGHHH !

We hate these places!!!!

Big, Impersonal.... inefficient.... busy.... Trying that little bit too hard to be the Ultimate Backpacker Hostel and yet... forgetting all those things that matter....

A Genuine Hi.... as opposed to the McDonald's "Have a nice day" Commentary!

Drives me nuts up here!

Anyway, the Room was in a Mini Double (which as cheaper)

Ok..... so It's a mini room....... Mini.......... This room was feckin Tiny !!!

And I'm a European and we're used to small rooms (compared to our North American Compadres)

Would love to see an American from Texas or the likes being put in one of these rooms

Anyway.... Imagine a Box.... with a door on the near wall (roughly half the length of the wall)...
a shelf..... on the near wall also.... the bed was a fold out bed... which when folded out was the Width of the room and meant that when it was out... we couldn't open the door completely!

Now to make things worse.... on the near wall (behind the door) was a fridge !!! a Feckin Fridge !!!

What the feck was the point of a Feckin fridge in this bloody room !!!!

The walls were made of Polythene... or so it seemed... and they shook like a cheap Film studio Set when you shut the door !!!

This room was Fun !!!!

Oh, and there was a Bin.... right next to my pillow on the floor next to the bed....

great use of space !!!

So.... as I'd always thought..... get the rooms in to make the Money.... No..no..... of course not.... we care for our guests and this City hostel is not all about "Show me the Money"

I hate these type of hostels !!!!

An another thing.....So where did our bags go........ when the bed was down... there was no floor space..... a couple of hooks (no way could I hang my rucksack up on the wall!!!)

They were shoved at the ends of the bed!

So as you can guess....... We already liked this hostel.

Then came the Kitchen.........

Then the Downstairs Bar........

No Drinking your own booze in the hostel............ which is the ONLY feckin hostel in the whole of Canada that we've seen this (apparently a BC rule) However......... I would be very skeptical about this and think this might have been more to do with Profit... PROFIT....feckin PROFIT !!!

OK one final thing......

No frying in the kitchen....... WHAT ??????

Yep absolutely...... No Frying !

So No Fried egg for brekkie.....

Why I have no idea !!! Apparently (once again) this was a Victoria City regulation.....

Strange or what !!!

Anyway, every cloud has a silver lining and we went out for tea and found a Brilliant Mexican round the corner where we had tea....

including Feckin "FRIED" Beans

The Next Day we met Claudia for Brunch (only a quick visit which was a pity) and then we went down to the dock to meet Joe and Myrna.

They'd already arrived in the Dock and were docked right in front of the Empress Hotel.

Their Boat was a Lovely sailing Yacht and it was brilliant to be back on the water.

We went out for tea that evening having walked around Victoria for a while and through the Empress hotel (which is where Joe and Myrna had spent their Honeymoon some 25 (or so) years earlier)

We left early the next day and set sail for the US !!!

It was a Beautiful Day as we motored out of Victoria harbor.....

Bye Bye Canada !!

It's been "Swell" (If a bit expensive!)

We spent the rest of the day sailing and motoring along the Islands between the US and Canada and porpoise spotting along the way.

We reached Friday Harbour later in the day and Joe took our passports to the Immigration office.

This was quite cool as there wasn't anyone there, but rather a scanner where Joe scanned in our passports and that was that !

Cool !

So we were now in the US !!!

I never thought I'd say I was glad to be in the USA.... however I was !!!

It's much cheaper than Canada !!!

A pack of Ciggies was down to $4...... half that of Canada (up at $9)

We popped to the local pub for a few bevvies and then played cards for the remainder of the evening

Joe woke us up with the Ringing of the Bell at 8am (a lie on whilst on Board we were assured!)

We set sail, however, it was a foggy day and it was raining as we left port.

We decided to head through Deception Pass (against the tide... albeit a slight tide) and then we headed up canal to Anacortes harbour which is where Joe and Myrna's Home Dock.

We tried to catch some crab that night (which was unsuccessful) however, had some lovely tea on board and then played Dominoes until bed time (Mexican Train... a new game which we'd play quite a few more times with Joe and Myrna )

We left the Boat the following morning and drove through the Cascade National Park to Ellensburg (where Joe and Myrna live on a farm)

The Farm grows "Timothy" Grass which is sold to Japan and other places as some of the best hay available....

There was plenty of it about in the Farm anyway and the next Day Joe showed us his stock piled grass in the Barn.

The Next Few Days were to be spent recuperating and preparing for South America.

We've booked our tickets and got our flight and hostel in Quito Organised... so it was time for Steph to wash etc. and me to Update the Blog.... there was a lot of catching up to do....

I also managed to burn our photos onto DVD and we managed to send them home before we head Down South!

It was really nice and Joe and Myrnas as we had our own little room in the building next to the Farmhouse and we did a few walks with Joe up in the surrounding Hills around Ellensburg.

They made us feel totally at home and more than welcome which was much appreciated by the two of us.....

So we said goodbye a few days later and headed to Seattle.

They gave us a lift to the City (right to the hostel doors) as their daughter lived in the city and they'd use the day to visit her also!

We said Goodbye and Thanks and went into the hostel.

Once again... the Green Tortoise Backpackers was a large City Backpackers... However.... this time it was the only backpackers in Seattle.. so beggars can't be choosers so to speak

Today Stephs off Shopping and I'm updating this damn Blog site so we're going to head underground in Seattle to do a tour of the Underneath of the city later today and then tomorrow we're off to Ecuador.... Yee Haaaaa !!!!

I can't wait !!!

Roll on South America.... here we come !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1

Today we changed our plans quite a bit.

We'd been speaking to Claudia and she'd told us about a place near(ish) to Prince Rupert. It was on the border with Alaska and she showed us some pictures of the bears she’d seen there!

This got us excited as we’d not seen any Grizzly bears yet and would love to see some of these guys (in a safe environment also!)

So, in the morning I got on the phone with a few car hire agencies and found one (and only one) that did an unlimited Mieage rental (most of the cars up here work on Mileage)

It was a rainy day in Prince Rupert and by Lunch we’d arranged a car picked it up and were heading out of Prince Rupert and East towards prince George before shooting up North towards Stewart.

It was a journey of about 650k’s and we’d been told to look out for bears on the way.

Our first sighting was of a family of black bears crossing the road in the distance. There was a mother and two tiny cubs close behind, however, they were well in the bush by the time we pulled up to where they’d crossed.

We headed off and after another two hours or so we were on the outskirts of Stewart when Steph Spotted a little black dot on the side of the road.

I slowed down, put my hazard lights on and we pulled up slowly to the black object in the grass.

It was a small black bear eating grass on the side of the road. We pulled up slowely to the guy and he didn’t move…. Not an inch !

Steph was in charge of the camera and we got some brilliant Close up photos of the wee guy!

He was brilliant and after 10 minutes of watching him chomp away on the grass on the side of the road… we pulled away!

So we’d seen a bear close up and we’d not even reached Stewart yet!

We pulled in and went to our little hotel for the night. It was great little place and we decided that since it was only about 5 o’clock we’d head over the border to Hyder (Alaska)

This meant we’d have set foot in Alaska (which was originally one of the places we wanted to go, however price constraints stopped this!)

We crossed the border without going through customs (ensuring we had our passports with us for the return leg however) and headed up a dirt track towards the River Viewing Platform.

This was where (with a bit of luck) we’d maybe get to spot a Grizzly or two!

We arrived and found out we had to pay ($10 US) each for 24 hours at the viewing platform, however, we were told that at the other end there was a grizzle already there… eating fish!

WOW….. he was a small one…(so we were told) however he was cool and in his peak conditions (we were also told) as his fur hadn’t started to shed ready for his winter coat!

There were loads of Salmon in the river as we walked past and after about 5 minutes the grizzle left (having had his fill)

We thought we’d wait around for a while longer (since we’d paid the $10 entry fee)
and after half an hour a large Black Bear Strolled up the river.

This guy was big! However, he didn’t hang around as he strolled up the river… looked at the salmon in it… decided best not to bother fishing and then strolled away into the bushes!

After another half and hour another smaller black bear appeared under a bridge by the river. He popped his head up and then headed off as quickly as he’d appeared.

Then a larger Grizzle popped his head out by the side of the walkway overlooking the river.

The walkway was elevated to allow people to view the bears in comparative safety (for the bears and the people) however… in between getting on the walkway and getting to/from your car… you were in bear country.

This was quite funny as when the larger grizzle poked his head out of the bush it was right next to one of the wardens who was just about to walk to his car.

The Warden froze in his tracks…

The Grizzle looked him up and down….

Then walked down to the river to start feasting on the salmon

Very amusing (not so much for the warden!)

All the bears seemed really uninterested in their human watchers and acted normally.

It was a brilliant place and having seen a quick glimpse of a couple of small grizzle cubs and their mother behind some trees, we decided we’d head back to Stewart for tea.

We crossed the border and wre asked a few questions about where we'd been (which the guy seemed thoroughly used to tourists doing this day excursion) and popped back into Canada waving goodbye to Alaska after our 4 hour trip there!

We grabbed a pizza and eat it in bed whilst watching the TV which was in the room!

What a day trip and a diversion and thank you Claudia for making us detour over 1000k’s to see these guys.

They were brilliant !

The next day we headed back to Prince Rupert to get the car back for lunchtime and chilled for the remainder of the day.

We’d booked our ferry to Vancouver Island for the following day (along the Inside passage) and Claudia having returned from the Queen Charlottes offered us a lift to the ferry and to the hostel in Port Hardy.

Hi,

Just so we`ve set up another blog site and this on should be a bit bigger and little bit better (maybe not in the locations though

Anyway, we arrived in the Good Ol`USA without a scratch... well... apart from being given the wrong seats... standing in queue for a couple of hours and then finiding out that we`d missedc the "Terrorist" attacks by two hours... which was nice....

Customs in the US were fine and we made it through OK.

Arrived in Boston and headed to Jurys Hotel (which is where we`d decided to stay as it was our first stop and we always spoil ourselves on our first stop!)

The hotel was brill and we decided to stay for another three days as a result (so we could also go and see the July 4th celebrations in Boston Harbour!)

Did the usual >Touristy things... the Freedom Trail, went to Harvard University (which I can now say!) and went whale watching... as well as visiting Cheers bar and enjoying the food and booze along the way!

Met some guys in the Cheers Bar and they decided to have an argument about Who's Dog was the best... they had photo's on their Mobiles.... here's the pictures so you guys can be the judges! They were both Large Drunk Middle Aged Guys Arguing about which one's pooch was the best...........Very Very Funny !

Loved the city and highly recommended as a first stop or your only stop in the USA!

The Night Life was excellent and the City was very safe!

We booked the bus to Montreal and arrived after a 7 hour journey... which wasn`t too bad if not a bit expensive ($75 one way)

We`ve managed to get a hostel in Montreal (although it`s the Jazz festival at the moment and the town is throbbing!) Neat few days are to be spent bumming around and organising what we`re going to do whilst in Canada and more importantly.... how we`re going to get there to do whatever it is

LAters

Al and Steph.