Tag Archives: travel

Storm Brian Means Time to Windsurf

My trip to the Island was in the middle of Storm Brian. It was lashing some parts of the country and the western end of the Island was apparently getting some serious wind but the east side was enjoying a bit of shelter. That didn’t mean there wasn’t still some strong wind and a decent amount of wave action. What better time for someone to go windsurfing? Actually, several people were windsurfing. One of them was close to where I was standing on the shore and, as he went out, he was running against the waves but with the wind behind him. I was hoping for some big jumps off the waves but, while there were jumps, they were not too big. He was certainly braver than I would have been though!

Lost Lake PassivHaus

Leave a Reply

On one of our hikes while in Whistler, we came across the Lost Lake PassivHaus. This building was the home of the Austrian Olympic Team during the Winter Games. After the games were over, it was converted for new uses. The interesting thing about the house is that it is designed to have minimal requirements for energy with no heating and cooling. It is aimed at using 90% less energy than a normal building courtesy of building techniques and materials. It sits at the entry to some trails so a lot of people get to see it. I am curious as to how many people stop to read its details.

Red Funnel’s Finest

Leave a Reply

If you want to get to the mainland from the Cowes area, Red Funnel are your main option. They have two services to Southampton. The car ferry operates from East Cowes while a fast catamaran provides a passenger only service from West Cowes. Both types of ferry came by while I was on the seafront. The car ferry headed out while the cat waited outside the harbor. I guess the strong winds meant they were looking for a bit more space. Once the ferry was gone, the cat came in to the harbor.

Pemberton Community Barn

Leave a Reply

A short drive north of Whistler brings you to a town called Pemberton. It is a little town and right in the center is a public barn structure. It is a modern structure and it has been built to provide a venue for the community to use. It has open sides so anyone can walk in from any direction. An event was being set up while we were there. It looked like it might have been a wedding. The wooden structure is very attractive and it appears that it gets a lot of use. What a great focus for the community.

Nairn Falls

Leave a Reply

Waterfalls seemed to be a popular part of our trip to Canada. We did a short hike to the Nairn Falls, a short drive north of Whistler. We chose a rainy day to make our walk but a combination of the right clothing and the tree cover the trails enjoyed for the majority of the walk meant this wasn’t a problem. The rain certainly didn’t hurt the amount of water flowing over the falls.

The falls themselves are in stages. The first section drops down into a gully which then reverses the flow out in the opposite direction. This flow seems to involve going under some rocks so floating objects like logs get stuck whirling around on the surface but never getting downstream. You can head down to a lower level to see more of the falls. The rocks down to this level were a bit slippery given how much it was raining but there are some handrails for old geezers like me to stabilize myself with. It was worth the trip. The bottom of the falls had some strong flows crashing down and they really got your attention.

The downside to exploring the falls was that you were out in the open and the heavens really seemed to deliver while we were there. Even with the rain gear on, there was only so long I wanted to be out there getting hammered on. I made the climb back up to the top. The interesting thing was how many people we saw on the trail out and back but how few seemed to explore the falls themselves. Maybe they didn’t want to get too wet in the rain or perhaps they didn’t realize how far down you could get. I’m glad I checked it all out.

Whistler Sliding Centre

Leave a Reply

For some strange reason, the first few days we were in Whistler, I didn’t think about some of the locations that should be there for a Winter Olympics. Then I saw a sign for the Sliding Centre and decided to check it out. This was the home of the bobsled, luge and skeleton events. I don’t know what I had been thinking but the place really surprised me. I knew that the course was down a hill and how fast the competitors go but I hadn’t realized just how steep the descent would be. I figured sliding downhill on ice, it wasn’t hard to go really fast.

In fact, the run drops down some incredibly steep slopes. We were walking alongside the track and it was really steep just going up the road. Sadly, photographs never do justice to steep slopes but believe me when I say this place was steep. The idea of coming down it on a sledge seems insane. No wonder the crashes are so spectacular. Not only that but the end of the course always seems to be on the level when you watch it on TV. In fact, it goes back up the hill very steeply. This was also totally unexpected.

We met a bunch of guys that were using knife like tools to shape the ice. Apparently, they had been running that morning and we had missed it. They were due to run the following afternoon but we were leaving before that. It was a shame to miss the action. As they weren’t running, covers were over the entire course to protect it from the weather but you could still peak between the blinds to see the track itself. A very impressive place and I will have to try and get back there at some point to see the competitors in action.

Hovercraft Transitions

Leave a Reply

The hovercraft that ply the route between Ryde on the Isle of Wight and Southsea on the mainland have made a few previous appearances in this blog. I knew that the old hovercraft were due for replacement and that the new craft were coming in to service and figured that I wouldn’t be back before the changeover took place. However, the transition has not been smooth and there have been a number of technical issues with the new craft. Consequently, they have brought the old craft back in to regular use until things are finally fixed.

When I visited the Island recently, none of them were running! A large storm system was sweeping across the country and the high winds had brought a halt to hovercraft operations. This was pretty disappointing to me. However, it did have one unusual effect and that was that all four of the fleet were parked up on the slipway at Ryde during the day. Over the years the slipway has been expanded and improved from its original configuration, but it is still a tight fit for four craft. It would have been pretty interesting to see them all being fitted into place. Maybe this will be my last time seeing the old AP1-88s?

The Olympics Were Here

Leave a Reply

We spent a few days in Whistler having a break. The town hosted many of the Winter Olympic events when Vancouver was the host city. There is an Olympic Park in the middle of the town and the Olympic rings are on display. No surprise that everyone is taking a picture of them. I was surprised that they were the only really obvious sign of the Olympics having been here. The weather changed a lot while we were there and the rings looked very different in the different lighting conditions.

Rainbow Over Culver Cliff

Leave a Reply

Mum and I drove along the shore of Sandown Bay while I was visiting. The rain was blowing through and the result was a rainbow that was hanging over the cliffs up on Culver. I had a long lens on at the time so my only option was to try and shoot a bunch of images and create a panorama. I didn’t do a good job of it because I missed some areas and the software struggled to align the images because there was so much sky so I ended up sorting it out by hand. This shot was the result.

Langley Town Center

1 Reply

Nancy and I decided to have a day trip to Whidbey Island to do some exploring. We focused our trip on the small town of Langley. Located on the southeast side of the island and not far from the ferry terminal at Clinton, it is an easy place to get to. The town has a very relaxed feel to it. We were there outside peak season which, no doubt, helped but there were still plenty of visitors. Even so, the town had a laid-back feel and did not seem too busy.

We wandered around the shops, had a spot of lunch overlooking the water and checked out some of the older buildings and their history. We also saw some local entertainment but I shall save details of that for another time. On a sunny fall day, you couldn’t have asked for a nicer place to hang out and watch the world go by. When we had looked around the streets, there was still the shore to explore so a little stroll along the water’s edge wrapped up a great little visit.