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...

Scotland part 2

The second half of the week continued in much the same vein. We had one rainy afternoon which was actually quite nice to be holed up in the house with the rain lashing the windows. It probably wasn't quite so nice for the two visitors that came on their bikes but they're tough cookies - and its only water- but I did feel sorry for them having to cycle six miles back down the track in the wind and rain, but given Scotland, it wasn't as bad as it could be. The big quest for the 2nd half of the week was to find some deer antiers! The chap that owned the house dropped in to visit - he was a very friendly fella and was chatting about how this was the time of year when all the Stags lost their antlers (he collected them and sold them) so after that we were on the serious lookout. It's always been Fred's mission to find some dropped antlers.... The Monro baggers continued with the mission to bag the remaining three Monros... there is discussion as whet...

Vigo

We left the ship to explore Vigo. Its a much larger place then we expected... although tbh I hadn't given ut a lot of thought. Its a real mish mash of old and new and having got a map from tourist info we decided to follow the walking trail to the Monte Castro... the highest point of the town. Most of the town was pretty much as everywhere else... lots of traffic... lots of people... one or two interesting buildings and a lot of shopping. We headed to the art gallery - this has been a year of gallery visits so we we seen o reason to change now. The Museo de Marco is housed in the towns ex prison building and its very grand. In fact, I think that on this occaision the building might have been more interesting than the art.... Although the visiting exhibition by Susanne S D Themlitz was strangely compelling. It was a huge varied collection of eclectic items... found, salavaged, manipulated and arranged in lots of ways - weirdly inspiring - and mostly enjoyable to look at...

verdant lushness

Its a never ending island hop... today we hopped of the boat at Kingstown, on the island St. Vincents and Grenadine. Once through the usual port duty free - cheap booze and diamonds to go milarkey we were straight into the town... crazy noisy smelly chaos... refreshingly no tat shops for tourists, just local markets and street traders all vying for local sales. Music blasting from everywhere, cars (very battered and often very pimped) all over the roads - parked in the middle of the street, loading, unloading, chatting seemingly oblivious to the total traffic jam caused behind them... We walked through this mayhem - the temperatures were rising probably about 30 degrees - tourists evident by trying to walk on the shady side of the street - even when we turned off the main drag and there were less people it was still like carnival time with music blasting everywhere. Its very atmospheric and mostly promotes a good vibe although I have heard '3 little birds' everywhich way a...

Planet Ruby Starrs

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