la poule au pot

By the time we'd finished waving to the pedalo and walking though Battersea Park, it was heading towards seven pm and we decided to move on towards a bite to eat. 'Lets go to somewhere in Pimlico' came the inspired suggestion - 'near to the Orange'.

So we zig-zagged our way from Battersea Bridge to the little square in Pimlico by Mozart's House and targeted the lovely French restaurant that sits on the corner with all the pretty pavement tables.

The signs, even at seven, were not good as there seemed to be large and small groups arriving with reservations from all directions. "Give me a minute", winked the maitre d', "Do you mind an outside table?". We smiled and a few minutes later were sitting in a prime spot outside watching the world go by. Then four hours of chatter blissed past us and as darkness descended the candle on our table started to have a purpose in the balmy evening. A lovely supper, great food, wine and company and then we all headed back towards a midnight Chelsea.

Rupert's Pedalo creates great mood in Pimlico

Time by the Thames today, supporting Rupert's pedalo marathon from Lechlade to London.

Rupert Young has been raising money for the Mood Foundation which he created as a charity reated to support for people with depressive conditions. Whilst the conditions do not discriminate, the recovery process can with treatments inaccessible and often only affordable to a few. Rupert admits there is no magic wand but wants Mood Foundation to help support people gaining access the appropriate services.

So why the pedalo? To raise profile via the 133 mile journey along the Thames, supported by Radio Stations, particularly Magic fm and various celebrity supporters such as Bear Grylls, Sebastian Faulks, Rachel Stevens, Amanda Lamb, Dermot O'Leary, Neil Fox and finally with Rupert's brother Will along with Karen Poole as they cross the finishing line at Chelsea/Grosvenor Bridge in Central London.

A bunch of us turned up to wave and cheer them across the finishing line on what was a sunny and hot afternoon, with the wind and tide generally operating in Rupert's favour. Let's hope the foundation can turn the tide for the people it intends to support.

Donation links are: rupert, sebastian faulks, will, devoted.

Technorati Tags: rashbre, pedalo, rupert, young, mood, foundation, london, thames,

avalanche

Just as an illustration of the interesting road conditions in some parts of Canada, I noticed this headline just before returning to the UK.

The avalanche is on a major route between Vancouver and Whistler and was one we'd travelled a few days earlier. Compared with the smaller roads where we'd seen minor rocks tumbling from the slopes onto the roads, this was a somewhat more spectacular incident taking out the main road and also the railway track.

Luckily we'd chosen the other rail direction from Vancouver and therefore missed this. The report estimates five days to restore the road and rail link. We've cut out the article and included it in our rather large amount of hand luggage along with the maple syrup.

goodbye to canada

Sitting in the hotel, pre departure to Calgary airport. Sipping a Margarita. Time to take one picture on the toysrus mini laptop 1.3 megapixel camera before dropping it into the backpack for the last time on this trip.

Amazingly, my attempt to blog whilst vacationing seems to have worked with only marginal techology glitches - mainly low speed links from places out in the wilds.

And the size and profile of the computer means it hasn't in any sense dominated the trip, with my notes being typed in a few chill-time minutes, or like now whilst sitting in a bar. The amusing point is that various people usually ask about the computer if they spot it, because of its small size. I'll admit I added an Apple sticker to the lid as well, but I don't think that really fools anyone.

Here in downtown Calgary there are about 10 wifi services in reach and the 'free' one that I'm using courtesy of the hotel.

Back to UK by Friday morning, highly refreshed.

timber moment

After the driving from East to West, the two day ride back to Calgary (maybe 1000 kilometers?) gave a different view of the landscape with many views of the mountains, lakes and forests. Naturally, with the emphasis on logging business in British Columbia, there was much evidence of logs being stored in the rivers, logs being transported and of course logs being made into timber planks.

traintime

One of the good pieces of advice we received about Vancouver was to ditch the car and use public transport. The roads are pretty busy, not in an undriveable way, but in a losw way, whereas the public transport and taxis have special lanes. So I'd dropped off the car downtown at the local Alamo depot and we spent the time in the centre on foot.

Time now to head back towards Calgary, and we've decided to use the train, which takes a different route from that we used to get to Vancouver, but still goes through the Rockies as well as other mountain ranges and across part of the desert around Kamloops.

Stanley Park

The dolphins in the Aquarium in Stanley Park were less bashful than the Gray Whales in the Pacific, and jumped for joy at the approach of us to their large tanks.

In a separate enclosure there was a (white) Beluga whale with its June born offspring and despite long queues of people to see it in some kind of special enclosure, we just walked to the main area where the two were swimming around with the young one trying to hitch the occasional ride from the fast swimming mother.

Vancouver

Easy enough to navigate Vancouver, which is a proper city but with a compact centre. Water in every direction in the downtown area and some striking landmarks. This feels more like a city that is getting on with whatever it does, but that visitors are welcome to take a look around.

We tried a jazzy bar the first evening, and then today, Sunday, have been wandering the waterfront which is easily accessible from downtown.

Despite significant reconstruction in progress, there's an attractive walk from more or less one end of the northern shoreline to the other and then cut through the West End with its smaller shops and cafes, which seemed attuned to the local lifestyle more than overt tourism. We'll be checking out Stanley Park and a few of the other attractions later, but it already feels right as a city.

goodbye vancouver island

...and hello to Vancouver.

quintessential identity crisis

Before leaving Vancouver Island, we spent some time in Victoria, which is cited in guide books as being quintessentially English with Victorian undertones.

We stayed at the rather posh Empress hotel which overlooks the waterfront and it became apparent that the once pristine Ford was now looking rather weatherbeaten compared to the other shiny sedans and coupes being valet parked.

I'd had a similar experience about seven days earlier when we'd pulled up next to a truck like ours in a car park and I'd wondered what the couple driving it had been doing to make it look so messy outside. Now this was us with the small peephole at the back where the wiper cleared away the mud.

The valets had seen it all before of course and were unphased by this or the collection of backpacks and carrier bags in the back.

I then set out on a brief solitary expedition to find some coffee and/or ice cream, which seemed to be needed at this point. My immediate impression of this part of Victoria was more of London's Oxford Street area, with a pedestrian street rather loaded with souvenir shops and full on tourists. So, whilst one could talk of an evocation of England, it wasn't quite what I had in mind.

There was also San Fransisco trolley buses plying sightseeing routes and Vienna-like horse and buggies to take people on more extravagant viewings. My guess is that Victoria is trying to re-invent itself and we've seen it in the midst of its angst.

Later, we hit the Veranda bar for some cocktails and sunset, and I guess this view of the harbour was one of the strong points of Victoria, but if I'm honest I didn't really warm to this city the way I have to the rest of the Canada we've been travelling.

trouble at 'mill

Crossing the island towards Victoria (a circa 300km trip for us) we decided to take a break somewhere and headed for the small town of Chemainus.

An interesting story where the local lumber mill closed and many townsfolk were then unemployed. They decided turn the town into a cultural centre and invited artists to create wall murals depicting the town's long term history and to generally pump up the volume on ways to attract people to this small location.

Somehow it all worked and there's now a thriving tourism as well as even the repoening of the sawmill under new ownership. The town describes itself as 'the little town that did (tm)' and indeed the small shops and cafes did have an endearing quality, whilst providing a welcome coffee stop.

rainforests and whales

Looking around it became clear that the area of coastline included a rain forest and some consequently stunning scenery. Some of the appearance was reminiscent of progressive rock music covers from the vinyl years.

A great excuse to hop aboard a speedy boat and meander amongst the islands, looking out for wildlife.

As well as nesting bald headed eagles, sea otters and rather large sea lions, the prize spotting was a selection of grey whales, on their summer visit to the cold Northern waters to replenish their food supplies, before they head back across the Pacific towards Hawaii.

I was close enough to get the first hand impression of whale breath as well as their breathtaking sight. The whale in my snapshot probably weighs between 30 and 40 tons and will replenish 20 tons of that weight during the north pacific stopover.