A very Canadian Time

Well, our adventure is nearly at an end...
Having made absolute gluttons of ourselves at Halloween and during Giaan's birthday, we decided that the next day should be devoted to cultural pursuits. So, Barb,Brian and our great friend, Gerhard, took us up to the local ski resort, Sun Peaks, for the day. Then went to an ice hockey match that night. Sun Peaks is about 45 mins north of Kamloops and is a bit of an old-school ski resort. While Whistler had enclosed gondolas etc., Sun Peaks has the basic ski lifts (with a cover for your heads, admittedly). The houses and chalets are very nice, however, and the town, though practically deserted on the day we visited, will be crowded very soon as the snow season begins properly. To our delight, there was snow all over the ground. They'd had a dump of snow a couple of days before and the kids were very excited. Thankfully, for us, the snow was very dry and powdery so not much good for fair dinkum snowball fights so Angus and Giaan had to be content with shovelling mounds of the stuff at eachother. I'd love to see the place at Christmas with all the lights and decorations.

That night, we went to see the Kamloops Blazers play. Lesley and Robbo used to go to the ice hockey when they lived in Kamloops many years ago. While the Blazers didn't play that well, we all enjoyed the game. Lesley loves the body checks into the boards while Giaan commented that the players "all want to fight eachother all the time". Reminded me of the old joke about going to watch a fight and a game of hockey broke out. Still, it was all good to watch.

Robbo also got to catch up with the Kamloops Rugby Club where he used to coach. He attended training three nights and loved giving a bit of a hand with the Under 19s and getting together with a few of the fellas he'd known many moons ago. It was fantastic to catch up with the old boys.

Friday came all too soon and we left for Seattle on a 6:45am bus. Barb and Brian endured teary farewells as we departed Kamloops. Once again, we have to thank them for their wonderful hospitality. We consider them our Canadian family and cannot wait to return the favour when they hopefully visit Oz in a couple of years time.

Arrived 13 hours later in Seattle - tired and a little down in the dumps about nearing the end of our trip. But our spirits were lifted by a legendary bus driver called Yolanda and a good night's sleep. The weather was again kind and we hit Seattle today and scaled the Space Needle, had fun in the Science Centre (which was very good) and bought up big in Pike's Markets. Flying home tomorrow night. While we're sorry that our trip is at an end, we look forward to catching up with all our friends and family ASAP.
Love to all and see you very soon.