27 to 29 May Los Angeles - Brisbane

Slept in then up to sort out our luggage for the international flight home.  WE are both not looking forward to shoe-horning ourselves into economy seats, but then, dems da breaks.

We left our bags with the hotel concierge and got a lift to the Beverly Centre in the hotel's courtesy car.  We had a quick breaky of French Crepes then walked towards Beverly Hills and Rodeo Drive.  It was quite a nice walk and we saw a lot of nice palm-tree-lined roads.  There was a mix of nice residences and some fairly 'tired' residences. We got to the Rodeo Drive area and looked at all the shops.

The last time we were here it was at night and we only had about 20 minutes on the tour.  This time we had a good walk around.  We even went into the Wiltshire (where Pretty Woman was filmed).  It was very glamorous.  We also used the 'facilities' (rest rooms), just because LOL).

WE also saw a Bugatti Veyron, black  yellow parked in front of a shop on Rodeo Drive.  It is the shop owner's car.  He obviously does very well thank you, seeing as the car is about 1 million dollars’ worth.

We also saw a Austin Martin Vanquish.  We noticed that every other car (in this area) is either a Ferrari, Maserati, BMW etc.

Having had a good look around at Rodeo Drive (and satisfying Ros's window-shopping sense LOL) we started to head back to the hotel.  We stopped at a little 1950s styled diner and had a nice lunch.  The diner served up typical 1950s burgers etc and it was really quite nice.

Again more palm tree lined roads and we followed Santa Monica Blvd, walking in the Beverly Hills City park, which was quite pretty.  We also passed the Beverly Hills Police Station.

On our way back we were going passed a Bentley & Rolls Royce sales and service centre when we ran into this bloke said his name was Russell Brand.  He was talking to a lady and his (we guessed) assistant.  He insisted on us having his picture taken with us.  Nah actually we noticed who he was & we went up to him and had a quick 2 minute chat with him.  He was quite a nice and funny guy and obliged us by having a photo taken with us.... COOL :).

We carried on back to the hotel and on getting back, gladly put our feet up beside the pool and had some cool drinks.  After lazing here for a while, we headed out to find a spot for a snack for dinner.  We ended up at Mel's Drive In Diner (where they were shooting the tv show or something last night).  We had some very tasty snacks and a really good chat with the manager, who claimed to have worked in a lot of different places, all of them along Sunset Blvd.  Come 7pm, we headed back to the hotel to get our things and wait for our pick up ride to the airport.  Again we had the 'town-car' arranged, so it was another nice, comfy quick trip to the airport.

We checked in and started our wait in the departure lounge (No. 41).  Found that our flight had been delayed due to the late arrival of our incoming plane. Finally boarded at 1.15am and departed at 2.

Loong trip home. Lost a day over the date line, so into Brisbane on Friday morning. Tired, stiff and jet lagged. Back to Mick and Matilda’s for a relaxing weekend –then back to Hobart Sunday and work on Monday.

We had a great time – every bit as memorable as our 2011 Amazing American Adventure!

26 May Kent (Seattle) - Los Angeles

Up early to finish packing up our stuff, then off to the storage yard (Sharon's RV Storage) where we started this epic adventure.  We got to Sharron's and got the new cover for the RV.  Sharon asked us to move the RV to another spot as the spot we had taken the ole girl from was taken by a caravan.  Ros set about finalising the packing & Steve started unrolling the new cover. We both ended up working on the tarp as it had been wrapped up inside out & took a little while to work out.  We got the rest of the packing up done, which consists of winterising the water systems, adding fuel additives (for storage), disconnecting batteries & setting up solar panels etc.  After all this we were starting to get short on time for the shuttle pickup and we still had to finish off tying down the cover, but we got it all done.  Tying down means throwing ropes over the cover in a few places and crawling under the RV to get the ropes right around.  Steve was glad of the site change as the other site had a few small blackberry plants he'd have had to crawl through to get the ropes around.  All done and the shuttle was there.  We locked her up, said our farewells to the ole girl and set off to the airport (SEATAC).

We got there in plenty of time and boarded.  2 hours & 30 minutes later we landed in LA international airport (LAX).  We had arranged a town car to pick us up (a bit of a treat and comfort).  The town car turned out to be an extended Lincoln and very comfortable indeed.  It was also a much quicker trip than the shuttle due to not dropping of others.  The driver gave us some tips on places to go and look at.  We got dropped off at  our accommodation, the Grafton on Sunset Boulevard and it turned out to be a great choice, not only for the accommodation but also being right in the centre of West Hollywood and all of its attractions.  We checked in and dropped off our luggage.  We then went out for a walk to see where we were and stretch our legs.

We have a night here and then all day tomorrow as our flight home doesn’t leave until 12:15am (such a wonderful time to be at an airport... NOT :))

On our walk we found a great sushi restaurant and had dinner there. It overlooked Sunset Blvd and we had some great views over the LA city skyline. 

Afterwards we went for a short walk to work off dinner and found ourselves in a well to do area.  The security signs stated that security response would be armed.  On Sunset Boulevard we found that a TV cooking show of some sort was being filmed at Mel's Drive in Diner.  Trucks, generators, sound & camera equipment was everywhere.

25 June – Elma to Seattle

Up and on the road early for Seattle and the pack up. We arrived at around 11 am and headed into the Brown Bear car wash to give the old girl a bath. It’s a bit of a job – she’s not a small beast. Then fuelled up and off to an RV park for all the fun jobs. Packing, vacuuming, cleaning, laundry etc.

Tomorrow it’s off to the storage place to park up, then a flight to LA. We are staying on Sunset Boulevard for the night for a relaxing last day before the flight home on Wednesday.

24 June – Port Angeles to Elma

We were woken in the morning by a crow on the roof of the RV. Tap, Tap, Tap, Craaaaaark. We got on the road around the Olympic Peninsula and headed to Forks (yes, MORE Twilight. Fans should stop reading now as we are about to burst the bubble…). The road wound past some really pretty lakes and through this amazing forest – tall evergreens with moss making green fairy floss on the branches. 

It is very wet here, around 10 feet of rain per year (about 2 metres). They have a very active logging industry, the forest was dotted with felled areas and replanted trees. According to the signs, they harvest each area every 50 years. The sun was shining (very unusually) so no vampires out today J.

Forks was a sleepy logging town (not much around) and milking the Twilight series for every single drop! The brochure we picked up on the ferry outlined the attractions, but some of them were total duds. Bella’s house and the Cullen’s house were not anything like the movie sets, just the owners had stuck up signs saying “Swan Residence” and “Cullens” on the letter box. We did however get a photo of the RV parked in a spot at the hospital “reserved for Dr Cullen”, a pic of the police station and a pic of the Forks High School sign. That was about it from the movie.

Everything else was tacky gift shops with signs like “Alice’s favourite store”. The local cafes were advertising “Bellasagne with Swan salad and EdBread” and “Jacob Java”. We saw deer in someone’s garden.

Undeterred, we went on to La Push beach and it was like the movie (finally). Very spectacular scenery and Steve spotted a bald eagle on a cliff. The beach obviously gets some wild storms, there was masses of driftwood piled up – huge trees – above the high tide line. There were some optimistic surfers paddling about in the 6 inch waves. LOL.

The rest of the peninsular was very pretty. The road followed the coastline round, til we peeled off and headed inland. We are on the leg back to Seattle, and pulled in at Elma for the night. The lovely lady on reception gave us a bag of home baked cookies when we checked in. Sweet.

23 June Vancouver Island to Port Angeles

We headed into Victoria and bought tickets for the 3pm ferry to Port Angeles (yes, the Port Angeles from Twilight…). We were allowed to park in the loading lanes because the previous sailing had left, so we had plenty of time to explore the docks area. Victoria is very much like Hobart – docks, restaurants and Victorian style weatherboard houses round the harbour. We had to be back at the RV at 1.30 for the immigration and customs checks.

There was a market going on at the waterfront, and we stopped to watch a female street entertainer and her stand up comedy routine. Steve got roped in to be an assistant with the show – it was very funny. She pulled four guys out of the audience and got them to hold props, hold a big bag that she got changed inside, and finally form a human pyramid for her to stand on to juggle flaming torches. She picked on Steve a lot, but he took it all in very good humour and played along with it. Some of the audience were asking Ros if he was an actor, and didn’t believe that we were innocent tourists! LOL.

After that, we pottered around the markets enjoying the sunshine until it was time to go back for our passport inspection and boarding.

 The trip across was good, a bit choppy, but the boat was very stable. We read books and looked out the window for the 90 minute crossing.

Arriving at Port Angeles and more customs! Then we parked up and did a quick walk along the main street to look at the locations from the Twilight series. We checked out the Lincoln Theatre, where Bella and friends go to the movies, Bella Italia, where Bella and Edward had dinner, and the Department store where Bella and her girlfriends went shopping for prom dresses. It was a bit of fun.

We then checked out an RV park, but it was hideous so we opted to park in the carpark at Safeways (Supermarket) for the night. How bogan are we? We redeemed ourselves slightly by doing some grocery shopping in there first. Wild salmon fillets for dinner. Yum.

22 June Vancouver Island

Steve got up early and went for a quick jog along the board walk.  On the way he met a couple walking along.  The gentleman had a pet Military Macaw on his shoulder wearing a little harness and a lead to stop it flying away.

The weather was quite overcast so decided not to do the whale watching trip, so instead we scooted into town to look over the Craigdarroch Castle.  

The castle was built between 1887 – 1890 for Robert Dunsmir (a Scottish immigrant who made his fortune from Vancouver Island coal) and his family.  Mr Dunsmir died in 1889 before it was completed and his entire estate (valued at $15-$20 Million) were left to his widowed wife.  When Mrs Dunsmir passed away the fortune was split up between the siblings, none apparently wanting to inherit the family mansion, so the castle was sold off at the auction via a lottery draw.  The new owner lost it to the banks and the castle then became the property of the local government and was used for various purposes (a war hospital & college to name a couple).  Finally in 1979 the castle was passed to a conservation society (in a very run-down state) who have since been restoring it and have run it as a historic museum.  The castle covers about 25,572 square feet and has 17 fireplaces, although there is a central heating system using water radiators.  It was very interesting to walk around and it was quite obvious that it was very opulent in its day.

After coming out of the castle we found that the weather had deteriorated to showers, but we went back into the city area and found a little boutique brewery and had a few tastings that were really quite nice.  This brewery (Phillips) employs a traditional method for takeaway beer.  They use ‘growlers’.  Yep…. You heard me right… ‘growlers’ (we had a fair ole snigger J).  You buy a reusable glass jug ($5) that they will fill for $10 and the jug holds the equivalent of about 4-5 stubbies.  The name comes from an old practice of patrons taking home beer in a metal tin with a lid.  On the walk home the gas from the beer escaping from the tin would make a growly noise hence the name.

We had a really nice sushi lunch & a Starbucks, then because it was raining steadily, we headed to the Royal British Columbia museum where it was warm and dry.  We spent a couple of hours wandering around looking at a photo display of Queen Elizabeth II, a display on dinosaurs and a display about the Canadian Aboriginals.  It was all very interesting.

The weather had not improved so we called it a day and got back to the RV, quite wet.

21 June Vancouver to Vancouver Island

Had a bit of asleep in this morning.  The car ferries (run by BC Ferries) run on the hour from Vancouver (Tsawwassen) to Vancouver Island (Swartz Bay).  We got to the ferry terminal just in time to see the 11am ferry leave, so we wandered into the ferry food-court area for some early lunch (at least we were first in line for the 12pm departure J).  The trip over took 90 minutes and was quite pretty as the ferry weaved through islands (with more finesse than an Italian cruise liner J) passing other ferries along the way.  The ferries are quite well decked out.  They have cafes, snack bars, business work stations, extra comfort areas (extra fee to sit in a more comfortable exclusive area), plus staterooms for those who need to have a nap for 90 minutes (?).  We docked at the other end with only a couple of minor bumps and we were off quite quickly.

Our first stop was a visitor info station to get some brochures on what was about etc. on Vancouver Isle.  We decided to go to the well known Butchart Gardens, on advice from Norm & Wendy.  The decision was well and truly worth it as the gardens were more than spectacular and words really do not adequately described the area and photos do not really do the place justice (but we certainly tried J).  The gardens cover a 22 hectare (55 acres) site that was formally a limestone quarry that supplied the nearby cement factory.  The gardens are product of Jennie Buchart’s life-long ambition to create a beautiful area out of the quarry.  The most impressive sections of the gardens are the sunken gardens and the rose garden.  Now we have a vision for our place LOL.

After enjoying ourselves at Buchart Gardens, we travelled onto Victoria (the island’s capital) and found ourselves an RV park right on the water front only a 5 minute scoot from the city.  Although we don’t quite overlook the bay (a couple of larger ‘A’ classes in the way) it’s really quite pretty.  There are these lovely little floating houses that are privately owned just nearby.  They are 3 stories high and some have sun/BBQ decks on top.  The seaplanes come overhead to land and take off from in front in the bay.

We went to a nearby café and shared a seafood platter.  Afterwards we went for a walk along a boardwalk for a short distance.  Along the way we saw a sea otter that looked to be eating some sort of mussel from a shell.  On the way back (nearly in front of our van) we saw a fellow feeding some Canada Geese with a bunch of goslings.

20 June Whistler to Vancouver

Our first night since Banff without the lonely honking of trains in the middle of the night (I’m sure these buggers know that there are people sleeping nearby LOL).  We packed up and went closer to the register to access the internet.  While Ros sent our latest blog Steve set up the new SPOT. A little while ago we put out SPOT (this is a GPS locater device that sends our Google Map ref.) and seems like we forgot to bring it in (or someone swiped it…. not sure).  So we now have spot set up …yay!

We went into Whistler (the location of the 2010 Winter Olympic Games).  It is quite a nice place.  Sort of like an up-market version of Banff.  Loads of ski lifts/tows and ski runs.  As the day was quite nice we got tickets for the gondola ride to the top of Whistler and then the peak to peak gondola (from Whistler to Blackcomb).  The scenery on the way up was stunning and there was still quite a bit of snow at the top. 

The ride up the mountain was 25 minutes, so plenty of time to take in the view if the valley and the village of Whistler below. The peak to peak gondola stretches over a valley and has an unsupported span of 3.02Km.  The total ride length is about 4.4Km and the gondolas travel at about 7.5m/sec (they get along).  The views across the valley are amazing. 

More snow on the other side. Sadly, all the hiking trails were closed because of the snow, but we enjoyed a hot chocolate and the views instead.

We went back down into Whistler and walked for a little bit through town (stopping for a little bit of sushi for lunch).  Whistler is quite a picturesque town with lots of boutique shops ski hire/sales outlets, trees etc.  You could easily see how this place could be full of people in the Winter time.  

We noticed (on the gondola rides) that mountain biking is a huge thing here in the Summer time.  Bikes are loaded onto the lifts with riders and they race down the ski runs (and other tracks).

We posed for pics in the Olympic Rings, then made our way on to Vancouver.

Close to Vancouver the road followed the river edge, high up on bridge supports on the side of cliff faces with great views over the bay.  We battled late afternoon traffic and road works and with the help of our dear friend Lucy (the nav sat) we arrived at BC RV resort in Burnaby, Vancouver.

19 June Kamloops to Whistler

The RV campsite was right next door to the British Columbia Wildlife Park. It’s a volunteer rescue zoo that either rehabilitates animals and returns them to the wild, or keeps them if they are unable to go back. So we headed in there for a look around. They had two orphan grizzly bear cubs – really fun to watch. They were tearing around chasing each other and play fighting like a pair of puppies. One of them got in the bath and did his yoga – he was grabbing his back paws with his front paws and stretching his legs up in the air so he was balanced on his bum (yes, there is such a yoga pose). Then he would lose his balance and fall over backwards or sideways into the water. We confirmed that, yes, we have seen a grizzly in the wild. Still bummed we didn’t get a decent picture.

There were also wolves, badgers, a lynx, and racoons. We saw elks again, and this time they were talking – they make a really weird “yo” “yo” kind of call in a high pitched voice. There were twin baby moose and a solitary mountain goat. They had a birds of prey exhibit, with bald eagles, different kinds of owls and a vulture. He was pretty gross. Apparently when you threaten a vulture it throws up in the hope of disgusting the predator so much that it goes away – that would work. They also pee on their own feet to get rid of blood and guts and bugs from the road kill they eat. So, not on our list of “must see in the wild” animals.

There were lots of kiddies running around on school trips. Funny that most of them were so busy playing on the swings that they weren’t that interested in the animals.

We left Kamloops at lunchtime headed for Whistler. On the way we passed through the historic Hat Creek station – it was the main staging area on the road west. To start with the scenery was very arid – rolling hills covered in silver sage brush and only green on the river flats. We passed a lake that had a house on an island in the middle – pretty cool, and not long after another black bear grazing on dandelions near the road. Black bears are everywhere at this time of year.

As we travelled into the mountains we were following a river. As we climbed the river gorge got deeper, with sheer cliffs, a bit of flat land, then cliffs again. Every bit of flat land was farmed, but with no fencing – we had visions of cows and horses falling off the edge. Most of the area was under crops of some kind, with water obviously pumped from the river hundreds of feet below – seriously big pumps!

We passed under a railway bridge, but it was a single lane tunnel and went sharp 90 degree angle left, under the bridge, then sharp 90 degrees again to the right. There were steep walls on either side and it was a squeeze for the old bus. Not long after, we passed a truck with a trailer going the other way and wondered how on earth he was going to manage it??

Going down over the range we passed several Indian reservations. On one hill we went past 5 people, each standing on the side of the road holding a stick with feathers tied to the end. The people were evenly spaced, about 1km apart. We wonder if they were performing a ceremony?

After we passed through the town of Lillooet, we were back in the amazing Canadian mountains again. Rivers, trees, snow-capped mountains and wild roses and lupins growing by the roadside. There were huge dandelion puff balls, about the size of an orange. We passed a lake that had a massive log jam in it.

Coming into Whistler was interesting. Once we passed the turnoff to the local airport immediately the roads got better, the houses much tidier (and bigger). It was like crossing a border into a new country.

The Whistler RV park is lovely – all landscaped and white gravel paths. We backed over a small tree parking up (shhhh). It straightened up ok. We took a partially serviced site to keep the costs down so we are way over the back away from all the action. Its very peaceful.