European Adventure

After nearly 6 1/2 years of travel, we have never got further than the America's with the kids. This has been for a number of reasons, a sense of security, proximity, finances ... but finally, with the offer of a house to use in France, we have taken the plunge. And of course, as we always believe, once on a continent, might as well explore thoroughly as the return prices are more than just staying there for the longterm.

And the long term it will be. Arriving May 12 in Barcelona, we have to return our lease car on September 1st in Paris. So unless something else happens along in the meantime to change that, our plans are 3 1/2 months in Europe.

Most of our time in the last months has been spent packing up our "on the road" life out of the RV and into a storage unit in North Vancouver. So where in Europe we are actually going, we aren't too sure yet, past a little village in France that I cant pronounce or spell - (i'll look it up for you later) and Lee's mum Hazel, wants to go to Croatia. Oh, and the kids wishes are Madi: Paris for the Eiffel tower and Denny: The Swiss Alps - I think his reasoning is to do with the swiss army pocket knives - but it is hard to tell with Denny exactly what his obsession with something stems from sometimes.

The other piece of good luck was finding a transatlantic cruise that leaves end of April. Perfect timing with the kids hockey, Madi's musical and other North Vancouver Homeschool activities wrapping up beginning of April.

Venice

We stayed between Venice and Verona at Montebello Vicentino. I have to say, this is some of the most beautiful landscapes we have seen our whole trip. Grape vines, rows of crops, rolling hills, green, green, green. We only booked 3 days here, which was a mistake. We needed a lot longer. The apartment we stayed in was great. Cool, fitted out perfectly for our stay, 2 small balconies and nice views from the (all be it bathroom) windows.

Staying in or near Venice was prohibitive in price. This fitted our budget nicely. Just driving around here was a pleasure, we spent 3 nights in Tuscany only a week or so back, and I have to say, this area tops that, hands down. Anyway, the reason for us staying here, is Venice. We are a little tired after so much full on Italy sight seeing, luckily our last stay in Abruzza, just meant swimming at the beach for 3 days, but we still have residual touristphobia from Rome and Pompeii. Still, we sucked it up and headed for Venice. We went on Sunday, which in hindsight was a mistake, but it was a beautiful 22C and a little overcast, where as the day before was 30 and very sunny. The difference in sight seeing temperatures, was worth it, but most of the glass factories on Murano island were closed on Sundays (mind you, i think they are closed on Saturdays too - so going the day earlier may not have helped).

We parked the car at Trochetto, and bought the 12 hour waterbus pass. This was 18euro each, but it meant less walking for Haze and Keith, and got us out to Murano Island and a grand canal ride. St Marks Bascillica only opened between 2 and 5pm on Sundays too, so we went out to Murano to check out the glass blowing first. We got a no. 2 waterbus and were lucky enough to get seats right up front. This meant Lee and I got great view of the canals, boats, old buildings and the kids liked it because if we hit a bow wave from another boat it splashed up and hit the kids. The screaming tourists behind weren't so excited about it, but the kids squealed with joy (which I think annoyed the other tourists too). Oh well.

Murano island is the glass blowing capital of italy (probably the world - but i am a little ignorant on these things). We wandered around the factory outlets and stores, along one canal street, across the canal bridge. Magical. The fancy glass outlet we looked in was amazing, chandeliers like flowers, the most amazing glass vases. I was impressed, we had gone out there because Hazel has a glass bowel fetish, but this stuff was actually really interesting, colourful, beautiful.  Then we went into the next shop, and it was not so cool, nor was the next one. I am so glad we went into the amazing shop first, because we really wouldn't have got a good impression, with most being a lot more old fashioned.

We were motivated enough to look for a souvenier, something we dont normally do - with so many places, we just cant carry a sovenier from every place we visit. Grandi bought us girls each a little piece, madi got a beautiful 3d blue heart on a necklace. Lee got a square layered piece of glass, also for a necklace, with gold and green and lapis colored blue. Very nice. I got a pair of light blue earings. After going to the effort of "reopening" my peirced ears for dressup nights on the cruise ship, i want to keep them open, so wanted a nice simple pair of earings I can wear everyday.

Around 2pm we went and caught the waterbus back to the main St Marks square.  It is free to go into the main part of the bascillica, with little mueseums off to the sides inside for 2 or 3 euro each. We just did the freebie. But there was a lineup, i read online that you can buy a 2euro skip the line ticket, but ... 6 of us is still 12euro ... seemed a bit steep. The line moved quickly, no more than about 15 minutes and we were inside. Ok.

We are not church fans, really, at all. But this one is opulant. From the first step inside, the ceiling is completely covered in mainly gold mosiacs. The first foyer you walk into (on boardwalks, because it is sinking and the floor is covered with water) is amazing in itself, then you go into the main part of the church - wow.

The floors are covered in the most interesting patterns of mosaics, the whole thing is made of marble, walls, columns, floor mosiacs, of all different colors. Now, I don't pretend to know anything about rocks, or marble, but I had no idea how many colors and patterns marble could come in. Truly worth the visit this church.

We saw the bridge of sighs, the dog palace, all very interesting. Venice is interesting. I just stood and sucked in the reality of living so much on water, it is a very different reality. Full of tourists, its hard to see what the locals do. But as we traveled around on the waterbus, you could see glimpses of people in small boats pulling up to docks, lifting out children and groceries. People walking through beautiful squares and parks, lots of children on bikes, 3 story houses with shutters and flower boxes.

We got a waterbus #1 to go down the grand canal, now this may actually have been a mistake. It was packed. Hazel and Keith got a disabled seat inside near a window, thank goodness. Lee and I and the kids were cramped outside, we managed to nuzzle the kids through to the edge so at least they could see, but then they were 4 people away from us, and hard to view. Eventually we got near the rolling gate that opens, and the kids were right
next to the ropes, the guy had to throw out to secure the boat at each dock - not ideal, but we got some pictures, got to see the houses on the edge of the grand canal. The kids got tired standing, it took about an hour (or felt like it, the sun had come out and the crowd was unbelievable). We saw the and went under the Rialto bridge, and got to the main parking square. From here we took a #2 (which was the nicer style waterbus - and which also did the grand canal!!! hindsight!) and went around to Tronchetto were we had parked. Somehow, everyone had held on all day as it cost 2euros for a bathroom in Venice. The WC at the carpark was the discount price of 1euro. Relieved, we headed back to Montebello Vicento with a stop at Lidl along the way for supplies for dinner.

Lidl is the same as the Australian supermarket Aldi - so we feel very at home in this store, and as much as we should be trying to be as local as possible, with the daily hunt for food, it is nice to have something familiar and regular, so we go out of our way to find and shop at Lidl from France and so far all over Italy. I looked it up, and Lidl is in Croatia too. Phew.

We are off to Croatia tomorrow.  Madi and I are doing some Croatian language cramming - so far we really have only learnt hi/bye "Bok" - similar to Ciao, and "Dobar Dan" good afternoon. Hmmm.. that will get us far.

Costa Rica - Out the ship window!

Today we saw monkeys. Lots of monkeys. My favourite part of the trip so far. They were so cute. We hired a driver just for the 8 of us (Le, Me, 2 kids, Grandi, Poppy and Kanta and Joe). We had him drive us all the way from Punterenas to Manual Antonio National Park, about 2 hours drive from where we docked.

On the way we stopped at a private property that has monkeys you can feed by hand, and we did. Kids loved it. You put a piece of fruit in your hand, close your fingers around it and offer it to the monkeys. The swing, run, climb, hang upside down and gently prise open your fingers. It is just amazing. They are the most adorable little animals.

And there were a number of tame Coati’s there as well. They also ate straight out of your hand. The kids fed the monkeys and the Coati’s. The kids are huge Diego fans (a kids tv show – where a south American kid is an animal rescuer) – so to see real life monkeys and coati’s was just amazing for them.

We then continued in the car until we crossed a bridge over a river that was full of crocodiles. Kids haven’t really seen crocodiles before so that was great too.

A long driver later (Denny napped on the way) we finally got to Manual Antonio National Park in Costa Rica. It has a beach that was good for swimming, we walked about 30 minutes down a path to get there. On the way we saw lots of yellow backed/faced little monkeys, right up close to the path, but they didn’t interact the same way as the white faced monkeys had earlier. We caught up with a private guide, who was showing his clients where hard to see birds were. So we got to take photos of a couple of tropical birds, then he found a sloth as well. Though, it was particularly well camouflaged and really not very active  so it was hard to see even if you knew exactly where it was. Le took the best photo she could, we are going to zoom right in to see if we can actually see it good enough to show the kids what they were looking at.

Finally walked down a very steep hill to a small sheltered bay. Lots of volcanic large rocks around the entrance of the bay, big trees overhanging and shading the beach. We took the kids in swimming. It had a very strong pull on the in and out of the waves, and quite a sharp drop off, so we held on tight to the kids. They really enjoyed it. After the last year being above the tropic of cancer and away from beaches, it was really a new experience for them. There were more monkeys that came right down to the beach. Little monkeys.

Denny spotted lots of lizards and a couple of iguanas. On the walk back to the park entrance (an alternate way) we went past another beach and more mangrove area that was home to hundreds of little hermit crabs. The kids have seen hermit crabs on TV but this was their first “hands on” experience. Denny bravely picked up a crab first. Madi found one that was so tiny it was as small as one of her fingernails, but bravely picked it up as well.

After a $1 each ride in a little row boat to cross another mangrove swamp, we got back to the car in time to have a mariachi band start playing right next to us. Kids were exhausted by the heat, so quickly stretched out across us in the van and napped most of the trip back to the boat.

As we had a private driver and went so far from the dock, we had a chance to drive through a number of small towns as well as a couple of more tourist towns. The Costa Rican people that we met and interacted with were very nice and laid back. They had a good sense of humor and smiled a lot. And they weren’t pushy at all, unlike our experiences in Mexico. Costa Rica is definitely on our list of potential winter destinations for Christmas 2011!

Out the Ship window

Day 1 – Depart San Deigo
Today we left from San Diego on our 14 day Panama Canal Cruise. We are all very excited about being on a cruise ship again after having so much fun last year on the 7 day Alaska Holland America cruise.

Panama Canal Cruise Day 1 - depart San Diego

This time we have a balcony stateroom on the Celebrity Infinity. It is a slightly bigger ship, and having fresh air from the balcony is very nice already.

We put the RV’s in storage last night and this morning and then headed down from LA to San Diego to board at around 1 o’clock. Luckily our neighbours at the RV park (and friends for over 2 years now) offered to come down to San Diego and drive our truck back up to LA so we made it down comfortably and it didn’t cost a fortune! Thanks heaps Bill and Barb!

We found a great safe parking lot to leave it and then realized that even though we had dropped all the other bags off for the porters to take on board, our kids were still sitting in their bulky car seats – and we needed them for the hire car at the other end of the cruise.

We walked carrying the car seats for a couple of blocks, trying various combinations of carrying them (on our backs, one each, even on Le’s head for a while  ) we also had the hand luggage (not small) and the kids backpacks. About a kilometer from the dock a rickshaw bike guy, came and picked us up and took us the last little way. The kids were excited about riding on a “funny bike” so it turned out to be a good start to the adventures they are about to have on the cruise.

We settled into our room. Love the balcony! Kids love the balcony. We got to sit and watch the boat pull out right from our own balcony! LOVE IT! Oh, did I say that already.

We explored the ship a little, checked out the buffet  then went to the Trellis restaurant for our first dinner. Nice food. Kids are eating well too. Staff are all really friendly. We found where the bands are playing, kids danced for all on the dance floor. There was a small “taste of things to come” show on at the theatre. Our kids always love a good show, and they enjoyed this too. There is a mini broadway style show tomorrow night, so looking forward to taking them to see that. All in all, a good start to the next fortnight on board!

The Geographical Centre of BC (well, one of them :)

When I was growing up in Innisfail, North Queensland – there was an ongoing dispute between us and a neighbouring town Tully – about which was the wettest town in Australia. In hindsight, I have a feeling it was actually Tully – but town pride prohibits me from admitting that – oops – I just did. Anyway, seem's BC has a similar fight going on about who is the “real” geographical centre of britsh columbia. We have driven through Vanderhoof, just west of Prince George. The have it emplazened on their welcome sign! We didn't do more than drive through Vanderhoof. All I remember is one of the hammer throwers at Barkerville on Dominion day said he was from Vanderhoof. Not much a claim to fame really.



We paused briefly at the Vanderhoof Museum. Took some photos of the historic buildings on the site, like the OK Cafe, kids were sleeping so we didn't go in. We still had to get through, Fort Fraser, Fraser Lake and to Burns Lake were we might spend the night. Got a lousy photo of the Fort Fraser welcome sign. Saw a teenager putting out an tourist info sign, so we pulled across the road and I ran over to see if I could get a pin for the kids.

We were in luck (as we have been a lot lately). They had a free pin for the district. In fact we got about 8 pins over the last day or so from info centres and a lot were free. Woohoo. Had to start a new lanyard for Canada as we have easily filled another just with this last part of our trip. We have had the lanyards hanging in the kitchen and around the dining room table, but the sticky hooks havent been holding now it has started heating up. So Le devised a way to have a large hanging area under the big window in the kids slide room. We put about 60 hoooks on a piece of wood – we currently have about 40 lanyards so this will keep us going a little longer. Especailly at the rate we are adding canadian pins and lyanyards.

The Fort Fraser information was in an old blue carriage, as I mentioned before, manned by teenage boys. Brothers it turns out – after an intial akwardness they were more than helpful in my quest for more information about our upcoming route. And turns out they went to Hyder to see the bears about 5 years ago (when they were young) and had got very close to a grizzley bear. They were more than enthusiastic about the experience – so we are looking forward to it more than ever now. We are just patiently waiting for it to get a little later so the salmon are running.

Beautiful lush green farming country around here. After being in the desert up to Kamloops, and still relatively dry up to Prince George, the rolling hills and green pastures are a welcome sight. It has been raining too.

Fraser Lake says it is the world capital for White Swans. The information center is a museum as well. Worth the stop. Very helpful couple. Pins for $1! And large stuffed white swans. They are large. I signed the visitor book and told them about Adelaides black swans – which they knew nothing about. I thought a sister swan city arrange could be made!

A little way up the road we were welcomed to the Lakes District. Which I think is quite funny, as it seems everywhere in BC is a lakes district. In fact we just passed a particularly attractive lake complete with little islands just before we entered the Lakes district. But I waited with un-baited breathe to see the Lakes district :)

At a rest area on the way to Lake Burns, after grimacing about the exhaust coming from a large converted bus RV in the “idle free” restarea – we had the good fortune to meet an photographer on his way to Calgary. He had been in Hyder the day before and happily showed us the great bear photos he had taken just the day before. So there are bears in Hyder – we don't have to stall any longer. We have been asking at the info centres but it really has only been since we got to Prince George that the info centres even knew about Hyder, AK and the bear walkway. So we are excited that we will get to see some black bears and grizzleys, probably early next week. Woohoo. Le has been planning this trip since we were in OK Falls last year. If we hadn't had the problem with needing the whole side of the Sandpiper fifth replaced, we would have spent a month there instead of doing our trip east to the Forest River factory in Indiana.

Unfortunately, it seems this RV (Heartland, Big Country) also has delamination problems (but at least it doesnt have great cracks we had in the side of the Sandpiper. But it is annoying to have great bubbles in the fibreglass none the less. We have been told there is a Heartland dealer in Palmer, AK so we may be able to get it fixed there. The thought of another journey back to RV heartland of Goshen / Elkhart Indiana doesn't exactly fill us with excitement.

It was still raining as we drove through Burns Lake. They had a special flower power VW beetle covered in summer flowers. We stopped and picked up a little free internet from somebody nearby. Checked emails, but didnt have time to post pictures or blogs. Hopefully up the road we will get some good internet. If anybody knows a good mobile internet plan for Canada – that comes with more than 5 mb of downloads!!! let me know!


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Exploration Center – Prince George – Fort George Park - 5 July

I picked up a Golden Raven brochure from the info centre in Kamploops. And ever since have been carrying the coupon for family entry to the Exploration Centre in Prince George. Unfortunately, I kept forgetting which town the Exploration Centre was actually in, so have been asking for directions to it at Info Centres all the way along – and not surprizingly – been getting confused looks from the the teenagers manning them for the summer.



None the less, we finally made it to PG (as our badge we collected from the PG info centre called it). Fort George park had a couple of playgrounds, a water park and the Exploration Centre. Somehow the lady at the entry desk, figured our coupon for $20 for a family meant we got in for free. So we spent a very enjoyable couple of hours in there with the kids. There was a “small kids” area, that had a tug boat with secret passage ways and slides through it. There is a large water table, that you can build canels and waterfalls, and have boat races. Water – denny was in heaven. Then over underneath a fullsize replica of Albertasaurus (a smaller T Rex like theropod) there was a dig – bones under sand and paint brushes for the kids to uncover them with. Just in this area alone, the kids spent hours. It is really well done. Upstairs there are plenty of museum like displays. And live sturgeon in an aquarium, and a number of exotic insects, frogs and geckos in terrariums. A big beaver lodge the kids can run through, with a very large beaver observing from on top. I thought it was one of the better kids museums that we have been too! Highly recommend it for preschool and elementary school age kids.

We spent our couple of nights in the Casino Carpark, on the outskirts of town. Then we parked 2 nights on the outside edge of the Costco carpark. Conveniently located, less than a block away from a friend that the in-laws had made on a tour they took to Costa Rica 18 months ago. Madga quickly took us all in, and the kids in particular loved her “world traveller” house. She has collected art and artifacts from around the world, and has presented her photos into great scrapbooks. The kids really enjoyed visiting her house. Madi spent an afternoon there dressing up in princess dresses, and now has pink painted toe-nails!

On our last morning in the Costo carpark we met another family who were on their way home from a vacation in Jasper. They live in Terrace. Which is about 4 hours up the road (I think). They had small, 3weeks and 2 year old, kids so we gave them a tour of our RV and our kids played with their little girl for quite sometime. We really like making friends as we travel.

We finally pulled out of Prince George, after staying about 4 days there. We were treated to shopping in Costco with Magda (and her membership card). So we have a punnet of the biggest nectarians I have ever seen. Giant chocolate muffins, madi's two bite brownies, the most delicious granola crunch stuff.
Food, sad we are so obsessed with it – especially from a bulk store! Never mind. Onwards toward Prince Rupert and Kitimat then our real destination. Stewart / Hyder to see the bears!


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The day before Dominion Day at Barkerville.

We actually are staying in a campground for the next two days while we visit Barkerville. Bad news is that our site (the only one left we could get into with our size rig) has 15amp power. Ideally we need 50amp, but can happily run most of our appliances and electronics on 30amp. 15Amp meant 1 thing on at a time, and as we have been dry camping for over a week, the one appliance running non stop was the washing machine. Poor Madi was so excited to have power so she could play her video games – but they flipped the fuse box outside almost immediately so, it was full hookup - ¼ power. No internet either. The lack of internet in campgrounds in BC is a real issue for me. Oh well, luckily there information centers scattered around that provide a free service to us tourists passing through.

We bought a two day ticket for the price of one for Barkerville, in anticipation of the Dominion Day special events tomorrow.

We arrived around lunch time at Barkerville. We were just in time for "school" (cant be tardy) with Mrs Hall. So Madi and I attended the 45minute lesson which included late 1800's etiquette, girls wearing bonnets (which madi flately refused), standing up to answer in a complete sentence ending with "mam". Madi was a little intimidated, but did raise her hand and answer a question towards then end. I think home schooling would be the go in the 1870's!



We wandered up the main street, of what once was the capital of BC! It has a number of functioning stores and restaurants. We admired the food in the bakery, and plan to eat there tomorrow. Tonight we chose to go the to chinese restaurant. Barkerville had a heavy chinese influence as they were integral in the Canadian goldrushes too.

Madi wanted to use chopsticks, she had tried a few times on the cruise ship, and she did admirably, feeding herself steamed rice and picking up any vegetable i put on her plate (picking up and returning to my plate) using only chopsticks. I have to say I am impressed. She has been watching a kids show, Ni Hau, Kai Lan - so can now speak chinese (well one word but that wont stop her adding it to her known languages). So she proudly said Ni hau to all the chinese shop owners and restaraunt owners.

Denny was more interested in Horse Poop and the stagecoach that continually did laps of the town. He didnt want a ride on it however, he was happy to watch it go past.

We have the schedule for tomorrow's canada day events so we are looking forward to that.


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