Just for Laughs and Whistler

G'day all,

It's been a big few weeks for us with a couple of trips away and working alot. In the last four weeks we have visited Montreal for the Montreal Comedy Festival, Just for Laughs and Zoofest, rode to White Rock on the border of USA and Canada, went to Whistler Mountain and went over to Nanaimo on Vancouver Island.

Erin would not be living in Canada without a visit to the Montreal Comedy Festival so we took a few days off work and made the trek over to Montreal for 4 days. Most of the first day (Sunday) was spent flying as the flight was 5 hours and then losing 3 hours to the time zone, but the night well and truly made up for it. On the first night we went and saw Dave Gorman (UK Comedian), who was brilliant, and then went and explored Place des Arts and Place des Festivals where they had closed many of the streets and had erected stages for more comedic acts and bands. The only downside to these stages was that they were most often in French, although it was cool to watch a magic act in another language.

Victor, the Just For Laughs Mascot

On the Monday we did a walking tour of Old Montreal, including seeing the Basilique Notre-Dame, and it was amazing how different the culture was between Vancouver and Montreal, in the same country but completly different in culture, architecture and language. Monday night, after being caught in a thunderstorm, took us to see a Scottish youngster by the name of Daniel Sloss. Due to the thunderstorm all of the outside stages were shut so it turned into an early night for us.

Streets of Old Montreal

Tuesday saw us climbing Mont Royal (Montreal's Mountain, although it is nothing compared to Vancouver's North Shore.) Once we got to the top we had awesome views of Montreal and went to see a giant cross that is a monument to the founder of Montreal that he carried to the top as a offering to God. In the afternoon we caught the Metro train out to Biodome (Pauly Shore reference anyone), which had four different eco-systems complete with wildlife, including large March Penguins. That night we went to a show called Big Top Comedy, which had multiple comedians from different countries that all had 15 minute spots. Following this we went and saw Paul Foot (another British comedian) who became very friendly with Marty (He jumped all over me and carried on for ages - twice!). After this we hung out at the stages again for a while and went and got lost in a maze that they had created with weird characters wandering around, guarding the way etc.

Top of Mont Royal, Montreal is in the background

 

Alien Pop Show in Montreal

Wednesday saw us flying home in time for Marty to go to work. Because we went at the start of the last week we missed most of the bigger events (which are at the end of the last week) but we saw some good comedians and enjoyed our Just for Laugh's experience. Now we just need to get to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival!

The following Monday we forsake our normal hike to go on another bike ride. This time we rode to White Rock which is on the border of USA and Canada. This was a very long ride (for Erin at least). It was 50km on the way there, and because we stopped a bit early and got the train the rest of the way it was 35km back again, so overall an 85km ride. White Rock is a beach town and it was very beautiful as we had chosen a nice day to go (it reminded me a bit of Rosebud). Although being a beach town and the fact that we had to ride back again we only stayed for a couple of hours, having a look around the pier and having fish and chips at a pub on the beach.

Our transport to White Rock

On the long weekend in August, due to a statutary holiday for BC Day (Erin had the tuesday off), we decided to finally make our way to Whistler to check out what the fuss was about. It was amazing! You can tell it is a ski village but in the summer it looks incredible. It has alot of lodge style accomdation and resturant after resturant along the main part of the village. Then everywhere you look is snow capped mountains. While we were looking around the village we watched the downhill mountain bikers in the bike park (they go up in a chair lift or gondola and then ride down, it was insane) as well as watching the olympics on the big screens from the olympic square set up for the 2010 winter games.

Whistler Village

On monday afternoon we decided to go for a trail run to Lost Lake, which has many single and double track trails surrounding it, but as we got out there we got caught in a thunderstorm and had to go back, so now we are keen to go back to go running again. Tuesday saw us going up Whistler and Blackcomb mountains for hiking. We got the Gondola up Whistler mountain and then a chair lift up to the summit (scariest moment of Erin's life). From the summit, after soaking up the awesome views, we made our way on the Half Note trail which took us down and around the side of the moutain and back to the Gondola station. There was still alot of snow around on that trail and at one point we had to slide down a incline on the snow. After we arrived back to the Gondola station we took the Peak 2 Peak Gondola across to Blackcomb mountain (another scary moment for Erin) which was 4.4km long and was 450ft from the valley floor. Over on Blackcomb we were running out of time so we couldn't do the hike we wanted to do so we went to a lookout for a few more photos and made our way back to the village by going back across the Peak to Peak Gondola and then down the Whistler Gondola.

View from Whistler Moutain Summit (2200m)

Peak to Peak Gondola

After some problems with getting our license's we had to cancel our planned trip to Kelowna so instead we both took a day off work and headed to Nanaimo on Vancouver Island. Nanimo is a very quiet seaside town (there was barely anyone around) but we did some good hiking and kayaking while we were there. Monday we decided to hike up Mount Bensen which was 1000m high and the overall hike was 17km long finishing with a swim in a lake at the bottom. On tuesday we went and hired some kayaks and went around Newcastle island which is just off Nanaimo, stopping at a pub called the Dinghy Dock Pub that is on a pontoon and you have to have a boat to get to.

The view from Mt Benson

Kayaking

Everything else is going really well, both of us are going well at work, Marty is going to be made permanent which means he has a job through the winter and Erin is going along as normal. Sport wise, Erin is has finished the Softball season with a tournament day yesterday, which was alot of fun, and Marty is running alot, he was in a team for a 50mile trail run in Squamish where his team came fourth, and he has signed up for a solo 50km trail race in San Francisco in December and is competing in the Vancouver triathlon next weekend. He has also just purchased a Mountain bike intended for cross-country mountain biking so he is planning on heading back up to Whistler soon to test it out properly.

We hope all is well back home,
Erin and Marty