Of Chipmunks and Scenery

The awesome scenery just continues and we haven't even hit the real mountains yet!!! We have camped in a couple of fab campsites - very spacious, and all with green tree surrounded private pitches, camp fires - which are currently banned due to the forest fires etc and picnic tables. Last night we were joined by several chipmunks doing entertaining jumps around the place, the night before I thought we had been visited by a bear but I reckon it was just a pesky chipmunk who had eaten the kitchen roll in the trunk of the car! (note native speak there)anyway it reminded us to be more careful next time it might just be a bear. It seems a lot of people are not careful and in fact quite the opposite leading to difficult decision and dead bears.

these bears will be shot :-(

This marvellous mountainous landscape lends itself to amazing waterfalls, I visited Shannon Falls near Squamish which was impressive and then we went to Brandywine falls a bit further up the highway - again impressive such force and enormity of water and it fell into such a huge gorge/valley leading to Daisy lake which was very Canadian with loads of logs floating in it.

Brandywine Falls

The valley Brandywine falls into

It feels quite amazing to be sat out at night in warm temperatures - about 25 degrees the other night- as it grows dark watching all the shadows change, expecting, secretly hoping a bear will pop its head up, preferably over the road so not too close ha ha. As the heat dies down you can really smell the smoky haze which is hanging over the mountains. Yesterday our camp site was high up in the mountains, on a lakeside and feeling the lack of shower facilities I decided to go for a swim in it - it was jolly cold, ok once you got in but by golly it was freezing....

Dr Fred has been quite under the weather for a couple of days, which is a shame and has meant we have been fairly quiet and in active - I did a walk down the side of the Green river - stunning rapids, huge trees right down to the river side, glorious blue skies without a cloud in sight - lots of birds, including huge bald eagles soaring around the sky.

Green river secret tributary

Today ( Thursday) big thunderstorms are forecast so that fact, coupled with the fact that Dr Fred isn't so well, means we have decided to treat ourselves to a hotel for the night, - its a typical motel in a small town just east of Kamloops - the rain will be good for the fires and hopefully a proper bed will put Dr Fred to rights again and I can wash all my sun tan dust off in a glorious hot shower.

We've seen a lot of Canadian freight trains and when I can I turn into a small child and count the trucks todays was 154 trucks we reckoned it was a mile long!!! Actually sadly (killing time in a motel while a thunderstorm rages outside) I have googled it and worked it out. the train we saw was probably 1.6 mile long.... some trains can be 14000 feet long - 2.6 miles I would get bored counting...

Alesund

Our final destination stop was Alesund. This is a very pretty town in southern Norway built on a peninsula. All the houses are painted pretty colours and a lot of the architecture is all very Art Nouveau based. This is because the town itself was completely burnt to the ground In 1904 by a fire for which they never found the original cause. The whole town had to be rebuilt and this became a huge National Effort and a lot of prominent and up and coming architects flocked to the town to stick there 20 pence in. Consequently the town is very heavily Art Nouveau which was very fashionable at the time. There is this wonderful Museum just off the harbour which is a very beautiful Art Nouveau house. It has amazing panelling, doors, wallpaper, and it's all furnished with beautiful art Nouveau Furniture. It also house a collection of of enameled Art Nouveau Trinkets,boxes, spoons, jewellery, very very beautiful. There is an interesting collection of old books and paintings a...

Isle of Bute

Another Landmark Trust tick - this time Ascog House on the Isle of Bute - stunning as always... a very comfortable warm accommodation for the usual 8 suspects. This time we had a wee tower house for Dr Fred and myself - a lovely bedroom up the stairs with a big window and a bathroom al to ourselves - having said that all the other bedrooms in the big house were large and serviced by two bathrooms so there was no hardship for any visitors! The grounds of the house were very extensive with ponds and secret passages - hidden paths and we even spotted a deer late afternoon - there were lots of old features - ornate staircases and a lovely hidden door which I did a quick sketch of. Bute provided quite a lot of entertainment as well - the weather was kind and we did a a muddy wander down the south of the Island taking in St Blanes Monastery and Kilcannon Bay. The views were spectacular and it was fabulous to be out in the fresh (and it was fresh on the tops) air and we...

The Blue Dot

Excellent evening spent at the first Blue Dot festival held at Jodrell Bank. Clever use of the radio telescope as back drop for the main stage... there were some major teething issues which hopefully will addressed if this event happens again - mainly access and parking.. it was a nightmare approach to the festival and fortunately as we were only doing one night we decided to ditch the car and chose to walk the last mile and half into the site... what a relief as if we had queued we would most certainly missed Public Service Broadcasting which was one of the reasons we were going.. anyway we caught them and then enjoyed fantastic set by Underworld - danced much of the night away in the rain - my trusty solfest poncho almost kept me dry.. it was a splendid evening and the telescope looked brilliant when lit up when it got dark. There was a rather fab "installation" called a luminarium, lack of site information - another hiccup meant we were really lucky to catch it just ...

Planet Ruby Starrs

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