2007 - where do we start? - and where will 2008 end?

So how can we sum up this past year?

It's our first full year of traveling and we've come a long way. We've passed some milestones, seen some wonderful sights and met some wonderful people - and animals!


We've traveled from one side of the world to the other and back again and we've not left the surface of the planet - unless you count Tracy's canyon swing(s)!


We also had some sad news, with the passing away of Tracy's favourite koala - Belleview Bill.


Of course, the highlight of our year came only recently:


That's right - I bought new trousers! Just kidding - of course it's Kirsten! Since we found out about her on the 22nd of March, we've been eagerly anticipating her arrival. Now that she's here, we're so happy to be here with her.

So the big question is what is the PLAN for 2008? Well, our outline plan is that we'll go down to Houston for a month to help out Tracy's dad. Then, the plan is to head south into central America. From there we only have very rough ideas, but nothing is set in stone - maybe head further south; maybe go somewhere completely different - who knows?

Finally, many thanks must go out to the various people who have been good enough to put us up (and put up with us) over this past year. Although there are too many to mention everyone, special thanks go to: Mary Stewart, Brian and Joyce Westoby, Louise Raggett, Kristina Barker, Lizz Coaton, Alice Breton (and her parents), the McTrustry family, Jenny Rushmore, the Butlers, Kristi Couvillon, the Thompsons (Seattle, San Antonio and Houston), the Adams and the Bosworths. Also, thanks to everyone who helped us out last year too!

We weren't dreaming of it, but...

...we got a white Christmas anyway!

We finally dragged ourselves out of bed (we'd stayed up to watch the Christmas Story on TV) at about 10am. This seems to be about par for the course these days. We arrived at the Adams's house at around midday as arranged.

While everyone busied themselves getting lunch arranged, I made myself scarce and dug out a PC to Skype the folks back home (anything to get out of work!).

Once fully fed, we settled down to open prezzies. This year, we on the Thompson side of the family had arranged a "secret Santa" scheme without the secrecy - basically we only buy one present for another member of the family - and as long as we all stick to the plan, then we all get presents from only one person, but it's a good 'un. Luckily, everything went to plan and everyone got at least something.

We wound up with a whole heap of REI gift certificates and Tracy got some books she wanted. I'm kinda tempted to buy dog boots for Dexter... but they are quite expensive.

Anyway, it was soon time for the main event: dinner. In the UK, it's quite traditional to have turkey for dinner, but it's less traditional over here where turkey is always served on Thanksgiving, but not necessarily at Christmas. This year, it was lamb on the menu - although falafels were available for us veggies. The table was straining under the weight of the potatoes, sprouts, peas, sauces and bread that we'd piled on top of it - although, luckily it didn't have to bear the full weight for long.

Once we'd made a dent in the main course, the table was cleared for dessert. With great ceremony (and greater quantities of brandy) the Christmas pudding was set alight! Being my first Christmas pud burning, I wasn't sure if it was going to burn properly, so I ladled on the brandy in huge quantities just to be sure that something would catch on fire. Fortunately, I'd not gone too over the top and although it did burn for a good couple of minutes, at least I still have my eyebrows.

So there was just one more thing to do - and unfortunately I was one of the ones stuck doing the washing-up. I dunno who did most of the cooking, but I'm convinced that we had about twice as many pots and pans as we had items on the menu. It seemed that way to me at least... and half of us were eating off paper plates too!

Anyway, I'm now writing this back at the hotel - and it's now Boxing Day, so Christmas is over for another year. It's getting close to New Year's Day and 2008 - so I'm starting reminisce about this past year. Expect a post soon about the year we've just had and our (perhaps optimistic) hopes for the near future.

Merry Christmas everyone and a Happy New Year to come!

Sleeping in Seattle

We got back to Seattle on the 19th of December - so what have we been up to since then?

Glad you asked!

The Thompson family (those that weren't here already that is) arrived on the 20th and they finally got to meet their new niece/granddaughter. Unfortunately, Sharon arrived with a sinus infection, meaning she had to restrict her access to Kirsten (only being able to hold her while wearing a mask). Luckily, that hasn't been too much of a problem and we've spent a hours over at Lauren and Bart's (now Kirsten's) house.


Now that everyone was in town, we all went down to church to get Kirsten baptised. The venue was the local Catholic student union - and with the students away, we practically had the place to ourselves. Kirsten had been whiny all day and night (according to her exhausted parents) but behaved impeccably throughout the service - and indeed only stirred irritably when the water was poured over her head. Everything passed off without a hitch and now she's officially a Catholic (officially being the operative word) and Trace and I are responsible for her spiritual well-being. I believe there's no way to repeal this either - so she's stuck with us!

We celebrated back at the house with 70 bucks worth of pizza (that's a lot!) and a keg of beer. That's the way to celebrate!

So we're now looking forward to Christmas. I bought a pair of trousers the other day to remind me what size I should be - hopefully they'll return them for a refund in the New Year. We'll see.

Photos

More photos in 'Seattle' & 'Kirsten' albums.

Enjoy.

Back to Victoria

We're back in Victoria, enjoying the free wireless Internet available at the hostel! Brilliant. And we found an ace vegan restaurant here for dinner. It involves loading whatever foods we want onto a plate, cafeteria-style, and then paying for the food by weight. Rather worryingly, my plate cost a lot more than Iff's! Hmph.

Anyway, we had a great journey from Tofino. We got a bus to Parksville, a three-hour journey through snow-covered forests and mountains. We saw bald eagles and frozen waterfalls along the way...absolutely gorgeous. The snow was coming down so thick in places, the bus barely seemed to move! But the journey was so lovely, we both agree it's a highlight so far of our time on the island.

When we arrived in Parksville, we had to get a taxi to the train station. We got the same taxi driver who'd taken us from the Pacific Shore Resort (debacle!) to the bus station last time we were in Parksville. On that occasion, he talked a lot about doom and gloom: global warming, the end of humanity being nigh, that sort of thing. Cheery! So when we realised it was him again, we didn't really encourage conversation!

We had a pleasant surprise at the Parksville train station. It's only small, but it doubles as a pottery studio for various artists and a shop for their creations (with a couple chairs in the corner serving as the train waiting area). One of the artists was there, and she let us nose around the studio, which was lovely. There was so much gorgeous pottery for sale, but unfortunately pottery does not transport well in backpacks. Plus we don't really need pottery while on the road. So I behaved myself and kept my excited credit cards safely stowed in my wallet in my pocket. Tempting, though!

We then had a lovely three-hour train ride to Victoria. We went through more gorgeous forests, alongside lakes and rivers and with lots more bald eagles to see. I found the bald eagles absolutely thrilling. Some of them we'd see perched atop tall trees, just staring down at the train as if they'd eat us all up if they could get to us. Cool birds!!!

The scenery and wildlife are obvious highlights of mine, but I'm also loving the people here. The locals we've talked to have been so nice and friendly, so welcoming and happy to recommend places to see and things to do. So many of them were careful to point out that they love living on Vancouver Island and that it's the best part of Canada. We'll have to test that for ourselves at some point!!!

For now, we're back in Victoria for two nights. We'll see what we get up to!

Westward Ho!

Our travels have now taken us as far as Tofino on the western side of Vancouver Island (see map in right margin). It's here that our forward progress stops and we start retracing our steps back to Seattle for Christmas. We reached Tofino via a scenic 3+ hour bus journey through majestic forests and past serene lakes. Along the route we were told to be on the lookout for bears who may still be awake. Unfortunately we didn't see any bears, although we did spot a few bald eagles on the look out for a spot of lunch (in the rivers rather than on buses thankfully).


We were told that Tofino was a good place to watch great Pacific storms roll in - and it is: our hostel is situated right on the shore with big windows looking out to sea - but unfortunately, this means that these same storms usually pass overhead, dumping rain on Tofino by the bucket load. It is these storms that have washed away any hopes we had of doing any hiking, taking a water taxi to nearby islands or pretty much anything else that involves going outdoors apart from nipping across the road to the supermarket.

Nevertheless, we are enjoying our time here. We've wound up spending today relaxing, reading, posting to he blog, email and the like - mainly due to more free wireless internet (yay!). The hostel itself has the feel of a getaway resort and is pretty quiet which all adds to the feeling of relaxation - and we need a spot of relaxation after our stay at the Pacific Shore resort.

While we were staying in the hostel in Victoria, Trace happened upon an advert for a timeshare company offering cheap stays in a Parksville resort. We got the special low rate as long as we attended a 90 minute "presentation". We checked in and were given a luxurious room with a whirlpool tub, flat screen TV, mini fridge and various other mod-cons. The main problem was that this room was half of a duplex (it could be combined with the suite next door to form a mega-suite) and that we could hear everything going on in the next door room: from the woman on her phone to the bloke watching TV. There seemed to be no soundproofing at all. This meant that our relaxing resort stay left us feeling more tired than when we arrived. The resort said they'd never had that problem before and chose to ignore the problem. Needless to say we declined their offer to buy into the timeshare property. We don't really have $25,000 to spare anyway.

So if you're ever here, don't stay at the Pacific Shore resort in Parksville. That'll show 'em.

Our Pacific Shore stay was very much in contrast to the accommodation we got in Nanaimo the night before. Nanaimo is usually ignored by tourists for its more famous (and slightly smaller) opposite number, Victoria. We found the HI hostel there to be warm, spacious ad stylish and despite costing the same as our specially discounted rate at Pacific Shore, blessedly quiet.

Tomorrow, we leave the west coast and wind our weary way all the way back to Victoria. Although we've been here for about a week, it seems that we've not really been able to do very much apart from travel. The weather has played its part, but it looks like we'd need to get some form of personal transportation (like a hire car or somesuch) in order to catch all of the "out of the way" places that we'd like to visit. Part of the attraction of this part of the world is its 'laid back' attitude which we have enjoyed, but we can be lazy anywhere (I have personally made this a life's work) and sometimes we do want to get out and do some things. Maybe we'll get to take a day trip from Victoria - there are a few places that we'd still like to see, so we're keeping our fingers crossed.

Island Living (updated 15/12)

Hello world travel fans!

Today for our informative update, it's time for a little info on Canada! Did you know for instance that tea-friendly, Granny-loving, English-wannabe city, Victoria is the capital of British Columbia? I didn't until we visited. Don't say you never learn anything reading this blog!

Despite its status as the North American capital of overpriced cream teas, Victoria is actually quite a cool place - having interesting cafes, boutique shops and a small, but characterful Chinatown (more of a Chinavillage, but hey). The biggest bonus to us just now, however, is the FREE internet (remember folks, cheap is good, FREE IS BEST!) we can get by hooking up our borrowed (in other words, temporarily FREE!) laptop. This is especially useful as we have quite a bit of time on our hands (because we're being incredibly lazy at times so have plenty of time to check out things like emails, football results, celebrity gossip (not really...). Anyway, because it's free, we're taking full advantage.

So the first stop on our tour of Vancouver Island after Victoria was the little town that could: Chermainus. In the 1980's the town's mill closed its doors and left the town without a major industry to support it. Faced with bankruptcy, the town turned to art for salvation and offered up the town walls to muralists. This decision proved to be the town's salvation as now thousands of tourists visit to see their famous murals. We stopped there on our way up the east coast of the island between Victoria and Nanaimo.


When we got there, the first thing that struck us was the freezing cold weather. We later found out that many Canadians come here during the winter because of the mild climate! Although when you hear that it's common for the mercury to tip -30 Celsius this time of year you can see why - it was a balmy +2 degrees here. Our time in Chermainus was spent trying to escape the cold (or perhaps warm?) weather by grabbing breakfast in a local cafe and tea in a local tea room. Everyone we spoke to in Chermainus was really nice and friendly and we had a great time talking to local people and trying to ignore the cold. Luckily it wasn't too cold to indulge in a spot of our favourite pastime - dog stalking!

We walked down to the waterfront and managed to track down a few dogs with owners willing to stop and talk. Our favourite was a 3 month old German Shepherd whose feet, tail and ears looked like they belonged to a much older dog. She'll grow into them though. We also stopped by local tea-room "Twisted Sisters" which was recommended by our Lonely Planet guidebook. It was started up a few years ago by twin sisters as "something to do". They were very impressed that they'd made it into the Lonely Planet and were very grateful we told them - apparently they didn't know already! Having tea there was a complicated matter as they have over 200 (ish) varieties (or varie-teas - ho ho). The vanilla earl grey I had was pretty good - although I think I prefer Dilmah. It was nice to try though.

In the next few days we'll be exploring more of the island and experiencing more of what is on offer here. We're already thinking that we'll need to come back at some point because we don't really have enough time to do the whole island justice - but I'm sure we'll be back in Seattle at some point.

In the meantime...

While staying here in Seattle and snatching glimpses of Kirsten when circumstances permit has its appeal, unfortunately its appeal is not so great for the new parents - who understandably want a bit of time and space. So we're planning to head up to Vancouver Island in Canada. We've been told that Vancouver island is lovely and there sounds like there's plenty to do - so we should be alright.

Recently we heard about an intriguing program called Servas which tries to match up travelers and people who want to host travelers. It's all about trying to promote cultural and political understanding between people all over the world. We looked up a Servas person in Seattle and met up with her today to find out a little more about the program. We need to look into it a little more, but sounds like a great idea.

It looks like we'll be up early tomorrow so I'll keep this short.

P.S. Happy birthday Dad! ('alles Gute zum Geburtstag' says Babelfish)

Wee Kirsten

Input from Trace:

KIRSTEN IS PRECIOUS!!!!!!!!

Back in Seattle - feels like we were just here...

We're now back in Seattle. We were only 3 hours late in the end and got to bed by 1:30ish. We woke up about 11:00 and by 1:00 we were walking into Bart and Lauren's house.

First of all we were struck by the dogs - literally - they flew out the door like a tsunami. Luckily we were ready for them and managed to avoid being knocked over. Finally, having extricated ourselves from Karma and Dexter we managed to get upstairs. It was then that Lauren appeared with Kirsten - who was asleep.


Seeing Kirsten for the first time was amazing. To be honest, I wasn't sure exactly what to expect. She looked so cute in her little purple hat and wrapped up in her checkered blanket.

Lauren was only too glad to let us hold her (happy to have a break perhaps?). Luckily she stayed asleep for an hour or so which gave us a chance to catch up, re-live the drama of her birth and eat Red Mill burgers (yum!). After a while, Kirsten started to stir and we finally got a look at her (and she got look at us too).


I'll get Trace to post something here soon so she can share her opinions and insights - but in the meantime, suffice to say that we're here safely and doing well so far.

Weather woes...

So apparently Seattle is under a deluge and it's going to be tough getting there. Is that going to stop us?

Um... not sure. Find out soon.

We're currently in Sacramento waiting for the train going north. As soon as we find out, it'll be up here (or at least as soon as we can get back in touch anyway...).

Wish us luck!

Gearing up for a 3-day train journey...

Over the last few days we've really settled down here - which is both a good and bad thing. It's good because the last time we really settled down anywhere for longer than about a week was back in Port Macquarie (April 07) but a bad thing in that we've kinda got out of the habit of traveling. We'll soon be shaken back into the travel groove by our upcoming 3-day rail jaunt across the North American continent.

It'll take us the best part of a whole day and night to get out of the great state of Texas and then it's plain sailing into Los Angeles. There's then the small matter of a trip up the west coast into Seattle. Last time we took this train was this time last year and everything was covered in a thin dusting of snow and looked lovely. Unfortunately we were about 6 hours late and arrived in the middle of the night. Therefore we decided to book a hotel this time and we'll not have to rely on anyone to pick us up - whatever time we arrive.

Anyway, while looking through this PC here in Houston, we found a stash of old pictures that we'd left last time we visited (I think that was before facebook) so I've now put them up online. They include some old pics of the Clerk Street flat...


As well as some pictures from our early travels - most notably pics from the Queen Mary and some from Florida - like the pictures of wild manatees that we were so happy about seeing.


Anyhow, if you want to see these old photos - they're listed here for your convenience:

Queen Mary II (Southampton - Ft Lauderdale, Florida)
England '06 (before & after Nick & Sarah's wedding)
Moving out '06 (leaving Clerk Street)
Last day of work (my final day of Microsys employment)
Manatees '06 (Florida's manatees - various locations)
London '06 (we stayed in Nick & Sarah's flat while they were on honeymoon. Mostly of Mr. Cat)
Florida theme parks '06 (Disney & Busch Gardens)
Highland Wildlife Park '05 (& a few flat pix)
USA '05 (Our trip to see Tracy's grandmother)

So next update should be from Seattle - our home away from home. I just worked out that Seattle's probably the place we've spent most time anywhere since we left home!

Kirsten Video

Since the 28th, Bart and Lauren have been getting used to living with 1 extra person around.

This is the first of what I'm sure will be many videos of Kirsten:


Ain't she cute?