Hello again!
So I don't know why I haven't updated this for so long. No good reason really, life in Vancouver has been ticking along, we are still in the depths of winter, but the worst of it is over. Around Christmas we were lucky to get above zero, but most days now it is a tropical 5-6 degrees. Glorious.
So since its been so long, there's stuff to catch you all up on. The story of winter has been the snow. And lots of it. The most anyone round here can remember. We wanted a White Christmas, and we got it.
It was all getting a bit ridiculous really, but I thought it was fantastic. Vancouverites are a fickle bunch, it's always either too hot or too cold, they like there weather to be between 15-20 degrees year round, and if it's anything else they'll be complaining. Anyway, the snow has a funny way of making silly things you've seen everyday suddenly so much prettier.
Fortunately we rely on public transport, (is that the first time I've ever said that?) so we weren't worrying about whether our car would be stuck in the snow, the buses can make it through most stuff, and as we live in a managed apartment we don't have to worry about shoveling our driveway just to get to work in the morning.
(There's grass in that park somewhere...)
So the snow did however play havoc with my commuting to work via my bike. The cold I can handle ok (to a degree), but the snow is slippery, and very quickly turns to ice in a day or so which is VERY slippery.... in case you didn't know.
As you can see from this photo, there was quite a lot of snow on the bike path... this was the last day I rode to work in the snow. Its usually about a 30-40 min ride to work at Kona, and I am proud to say I made it all the way there.... with only 1 crash... To add insult to injury it was only about 100m away from work... and right by this big block of fashion houses (Ralp Lauren etc etc) I hit some ice - the bike slid out from under me - and my bike and I proceeded to slide another 10m down the street on my butt, all in front of a group of very fashionable ladies. I'm sure they thought I was the epitomy of high fashion in my fluro vest and lycra pants sliding down the road.
So we have also started snow boarding, as the ski fields are soo ridiculously close. There are 3 ski hills within about 30 min of our house, and the closest is Grouse Mountain, which for us is a 20min bus ride away. Not bad! I grew up skiing, but pretty much haven't skiied much for the last few years (basically since I outgrew the 'Dad paying my lift ticket' age and had to start paying for things myself....)
It's quite good really, we walk about 200m to a bus stop (banana in hand for a snack) and hop on a public bus that comes every 15 min, and before you know it you're at the mountain, that overlooks the city... (ps, if you click on any of the photos you'll see a much bigger version)
The ski field is lit up on the major runs till 10pm, so we head up after work, or on Saturday nights usually, as we have a season pass that is for night skiing only. On a good night you have an amazing view of the city and all the lights.
If we go up on a Saturday we get up there about 4pm and still get a bit of daylight skiing which is nice. On the day this photo was taken there was some weird weather stuff going on, what the locals call an 'inversion'. All that cloud you can see is actually low lying fog, when we left our apartment it was 2 degrees and foggy.... when we got up on the hill it was 17 degrees!! T-shirt weather! It all seemed very odd, but cool! You can see some of the taller skyscrapers peeping through the fog.
... this also made for a very nice sunset.
Suz was very excited about the sunset....(or is there an axe murderer behind me? )So there hasn't been much snow in the last week which has kinda had me down, as once you've had a taste of powder, it's hard to go back to ice (wow I sound like an addict). Hopefully this weekend we'll get a bit more of the 'good stuff'
Also, if any of you in NZ haven't seen the latest issue of New Zealand Mountain Biker Magazine, run (don't walk) down to your local bookshop and pick up a copy, it's only a measly $6.95 or something and it has my latest article in it - worth a read I reckon! All the trails are buried under a few feet of snow, so there's not much mountainbiking going on though.
Anyway, that's all for know folks!
(Would love you to flick us an email and give us a quick update about what you've been up to!)
