Honey, I'm HOOOOOME!

Hi all - just a quick post to say thanks for reading and staying with me through my travel adventures. I arrived back in Wellington last night so its officially all over now and time to settle back in to the 'real world'. Please email me, or join me as a facebook addict and keep in touch.
I hope you are all well!
Clare

Clare's Last Stand

Well hi there everyone for the last time from foreign soil... thanks to the lovely free internet at the hostel in San Fran I thought I would drop you all a little blog post before I hit the hay.

Since I last wrote I had a pretty crazy day in Vancouver, clearing up lots of last minute jobs and saying some farewells.  My room-mate suprised me by taking me out for a slap-up meal on Sunday night which was really lovely and much needed after a day of maniacally running about and trying to fit the more recent shopping efforts in to my suitcase.

I got up at the lovely hour of 4am on Monday to catch my bus to Seattle where I met my train down to San Fran.  Thanks to yet another train derailment we ended up having an unexpected stop over in a little town in Oregon called Eugene (who calls a town Eugene by the way!?) for a couple of hours. It was really pretty, and a beautiful summer evening so noone was complaining too much about the hold up.  Sadly by the time 
we woke up this morning the three hour break in Eugene had turned in to an eight hour delay, which did have 
people a little more scratchy!  Funny how the difference between 22 hours on a train and 30 hours on a train can do that!

I had breakfast on the train this morning with a charming old dude discussing politics (he is a republican but is a little disappointed in Bush) and his military career before he declared that he thought it was a shame that I didn't have a young man to travel with me, and if he was younger he would be keen for the job himself.  Hmmm... I guess its always nice to have options but perhaps someone under 80 next time?!

We finally got in to San Fran about 3 this afternoon and after a quick shower I headed out and about.  San Fran is the only place I have been to on this trip that I have actualy visited before so it feels a little nostalgic in some ways... I am glad I have a little bit of time to wander around the city rather than heading straight home because I really like it and it is nice to not feel the pressure to do all the touristy stuff in limited time since I have done it before.  I also got to have dinner with my friend Matt who is another Ellesmere College survivor and who I haven't seen for a long time since he lives here now... one definite perk of this trip has been seeing friends all over the place for the first time in ages, as well as making new friends of course!

Well that's all from me folks - tomorrow I am going to visit the world's wonkiest street (I am unsure of its actual title) and do a little shopping - fingers crossed for some californian sunshine before I get on my plane back to NZ.

Hope you are all good!
Clare

The Mountie search comes to an end...

Well hi all for the last time from Canada. I leave in about 13 hours now so my chances of snapping up a mountie to bring home are looking a little slim at this point... still... you never know!

I have been absolutely flat out for the last couple of weeks getting ready to go but thought I couldn't leave without a final Canuck update for you all! Last Saturday I headed off to the Rockies on a hop-on, hop-off bus type thing for seven days. I saw waterfalls, lakes, mountains and more waterfalls, lakes and mountains and even someone who was as fortunate as I was to grow up in a pretty beautiful part of a pretty beautiful country was impressed.

Our first stop was Shuswap Lake, via a town called Hope (as in "I hope it stops raining sometime soon), where we came across a male strip show. This appeared to be the most exciting thing that has happened in Shuswap Lake for quite some time and the local ladies couldn't believe that we really did not want to be part of it! Day two saw us heading in to Rogers Pass and officially entering the Rockies. We saw mountain sheep and goats, as well as bear cubs and gophers all just on the side of the road which is really bizarre. We walked over the Crazy Creek suspension bridge and rolled in to Banff at 9pm for another short nights sleep before we hit the road again!

Day three was to Jasper via the Columbia Icefields (and the afore mentioned lakes, mountains and waterfalls). We stayed at a hostel with no running water etc that night and I surprised myself by actually having a good time, especially after we lit the fire and sat around talking rubbish for a few hours. The idea of a bear potentially lurking in the dark undergrowth goes a long way towards ensuring there are no middle of the night toilet visits though!! After Jasper we went back to Banff and while the rest of my bus went off to the hot springs I got on the phone and internet and finally got myself a job sorted for when I get back to New Zealand. I was lucky enough to get offered a couple of positions and I am not going to pretend it was easy to decide, but am now really pleased about returning to the wonderful world of policy development!

Day five was heading out of Banff and through the Yoho national park (hehe), where we checked out the Giant Cedar boardwalk, yet more waterfalls and lakes and mountains, and almost ran into (literally) the biggest black bear I have ever seen, who was sitting in a rest stop admiring all the crazy humans who were passing by. After we got to Revelstoke that afternoon, I went kayaking with a few of the people from my bus. As you probably all know by now I am pretty much scared of everything so water sports are not often my thing but am really glad I convinced myself to go as it was a lot of fun and I got to spend more time with Jasna, a girl on my bus, who is an even bigger scaredy cat than me - we almost had a problem when I promised that if she went skydiving I would go too, but fortunately cooler heads prevailed and we convinced ourselves that our respective parents would not be impressed if we told them we couldn't come home due to broken legs!

Day six we finally saw some sunshine and hot temperatures when we got to Kelowna. We visited some more lakes (are you getting the picture about this trip yet?) and even managed to squeeze in a trip to a winery which was very tasty. As that was our last night of the trip we all decided to go out for some drinks... our driver challenged us to buy someone else on the bus a $5 outfit to wear and this is how we came to go to the pub dressed as cleaning ladies, life guards, pirates, middle-aged american tourists and more... it was hilarious although the novelty of getting quicked out of bars wore off after the first couple of times!

Yesterday I got back to Vancouver and went for dinner with my room-mate and some of her friends which was a lot of fun. We continued the eating yesterday morning too when Marija whipped up some crepes for our "breakfast of champions". I met up with the rest of the gang after that and headed out for lunch and drinks as a bit of a farewell for me and somehow managed to stay out until 1am... not bad for an old duck!

Well I had better run as there is still some packing and palming off of junk to be done but I hope you are all well and look forward to the next post for NZ.

Have a good week,
Clare

Quick Update

Well hi everyone - I hope all is well. I am about five minutes off finishing work and returning to the ranks of the unemployed so thought I would write a quick note on someone elses time to let you all know what I have been up to.

I have had a busy week finishing up at work and training my replacement as well as doing battle with my ever-increasing pile of belongings to try and fit them all back in my suitcase. I leave early tomorrow morning to go in to the Rockies for a week and then have two days to get my life under control before I leave - home is starting to feel very close and it is all a bit confusing!

I ended up spending Tuesday night frantically writing a paper on youth offending for one of the jobs I have applied for - not the most exciting way to spend an evening but if it gets me a job I am happy to do that! On Wednesday I went around to Tracey's for some pink drinks and a catch up and we had a great old time - I can't believe there will only be one more night of pink drinks!!! (well ok... one more night of pink drinks with Tracey for a year or so at least). Thursday I hung out with my room-mate and the crazy cat (including trying on his leash - yep... he has a leash... and he is now to fat for it!). Today I am off to meet the lovely Karen and finish sorting my belongings out and then off for some sight-seeing. I am not sure how long it will be until I write again so until then... behave yourselves you lot and those of you in NZ - get ready... am on my way!

Talk soon,
Clare

Winter Olympics

Hi everyone! Hope you are all well. I am now officially in countdown mode with less than two weeks now until I leave Canada and less than three weeks until I am home! Feels a little weird but looking forward to it as well.

Last week was not a particularly fun one - I had three job interviews and learned that working all day and having interviews finishing at 10pm my time is not necessarily the way to bring out the best job interview skills I have!!! Still, fingers crossed that I will get some positive news this week - I will definitely let you all know.

On Saturday I met up with Karen and James to go on an overnight tour to Whistler. Whistler is one of the top five ski resorts in the world and has a very cute village to wander around. Unfortunately my bad weather jinx continued and we were not really able to see the mountain but I did buy a postcard and it looks great! We had a lot of fun anyway - managed to find a bar to watch the All Blacks thrash France (and my first game of rugby for almost a year... crikey!) and then we basically went on a bit of a bar crawl around Whistler as there really wasn't anything else to do in the weather!

It was very bizarre to be somewhere where bear warnings (and bear poop) are absolutely everywhere and apparently bears wander in to people's backyards regularly etc. Our friend Scott reckons he saw one playing golf but I am not confident about the truth in that statement! I did see on on the roadside during our travels but fortunately managed to avoid them on our walks around the village - meeting a bear in the dark did not really appeal to me a great deal!

Sunday morning we headed in to the village again and wandered around the cute little shops, had a hot dog and ice-cream and just generally acted silly for a few hours before we headed back to Vancouver via Brandywine Falls, Britannia Beach and a very scenic "Sea to Sky Highway" (which we got to enjoy for a few extra hours due to an accident!). We also found time to participate in some olympic sport in honour of Vancouver and Whistler hosting the 2010 winter olympics...

The starting gates:

Getting some speed up (look how streamlined we are):

When we realised we didn't know how to work the brakes:

Now all we need to do is get the bobsled to actually move and Karen and I may become quite good I should think.

Have a great week all!
Clare

Caution - boring travel tale ahead!

Hi all - I have a few photos here for you from my weekend in Tofino - I apologise in advance for any of you who don't care at all about wildlife because that was definitely the theme for the weekend!

I headed off on the seven hour bus, ferry, bus mission to Tofino early on Friday morning and got there to brilliant sunshine in the mid-afternoon. Tofino is really beautiful - lots of lovely beaches and tree-lined hills with the snow-caps off in the distance. There are bald eagles everywhere and the highlight of my weekend was definitely the bear watching tour I went on - this was one of the most amazing things I have ever done and I have a few of the billion photos I took below for you all to check out. I also went whale watching (look at brave Clare ignoring the fact that she hates boats and the open sea!) but sadly there were no whales. I was still a little bit proud of myself for braving the sea though, and for not confessing to anyone that I was utterly terrified the whole time we were out there!

I also managed to meet some more lovely people and had a nice meal out with a couple of girls from Montreal on Saturday night. Hope you like the pictures and everyone is doing well!

Finally - a BIG congrats to Helen and Mark on the arrival of Libby and Lewis last week - looking forward to meeting them (and all the other new arrivals!) in a few weeks.

Cheers,

Clare

Tofino:

Another shot of me looking like an astronaut... is anyone else noticing a theme?!?!

Bald eagle:Baby bear having a little snack on barnacles attached to the tree

The patented Clare Allison specialist shot of animals butts:

Ted:Ted on some rocks:

Ted fishing for his breakfast:

Racoons, bears and some very attractive people...

Hi all - thought it was time for a few photos!

Here is the gang at Lynn Canyon - Sarah, Tracey, Gareth, James, Cat, Neil and Tara

Lovely Lynn Canyon with its crazy green water:

The bear, oops I mean cat, that lives with me:

My room - (with Trevor the Moose and Peter the Moose in attendance)

The lighthouse at Lighthouse Park

The racoon who appeared outside my window the other day:

Hope you are all well!
C