Local produce growers, small-scale food producers, and creative artisans have just completed the finishing touches on their booths, and not a minute too soon. The shoppers have arrived, browsing among the aromatic baked goods and vibrant salad greens, the colorful handmade soaps and harvest-fresh apples. A local band breaks out in song.

If you’re in town on a Saturday morning it’s well worth a visit. To find out more click here.

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Abbotsford Airport
Situated at the heart of the Fraser Valley and connected to the entire Lower Mainland region of British Columbia, Abbotsford International Airport has been proudly serving the surrounding communities of the Vancouver and Lower Mainland for over 30 years.

In 2008 more than 500,000 passengers came through Abbotsford Airport. Come discover why more and more people are choosing to fly YXX.

Abbotsford Tourism
What to do in Abbotsford – all the links to all the activities and sites you’ll want to see during your stay in Abbotsford. Check out the opportunities for Agri-Tourism, Sky-Diving, Hiking, Restaurants and Nightlife al in one location. Abbotsford Tourism’s website provides you with a one-stop-shopping opportunity to experience Abbotsford.

Everything tourism-related about Abbotsford is at your fingertips.

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Accommodations, activities, attractions, camping, real estate, tours & packages, and transportation in Abbotsford. Book your reservations, choose your hotel/motel plan your tour, explore the possibilities in Abbotsford and around BC all with one click.

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Rwanda’s silverbacks have been drawing a trickle of intrepid tourists for years but there’s more to the country than these magnificent beasts.

Celebrating our first day in Rwanda, my daughter, Lisa, and I looked ahead to our motorbike rides, we’re both terrified and excited. With our helmets on we were off. With all the vehicles including their two-wheeled taxis that ply the capital’s streets, we actually began looking forward to the wilderness.

Once we became more relaxed, we could look around and enjoy the scenery. Kigali, with its 1 million-strong population, creeps up four of the emerald ridges that give the country its nickname, “the land of a thousand hills”, before sinking into the mist-filled valleys between. Officially the most densely populated country in Africa, Rwanda’s small size (about half that of Scotland) means even its capital has a peaceful, village air. One woman from the Ivory Coast who we met on the plane confided ruefully: “People stay at home with their families at night. We say it is a place for retired people.” Sure enough, it doesn’t take long for the shiny banks and tangled market streets to give way to lush farms, and neatly dressed office workers to women toting hands of bananas on their heads.

We arrived in mid December – the tail end of the rainy season when bougainvillea and frangipani flowers stud the endless green of the hills.We were bumping over the potholes on a motorbike next to me, we had an exhilarating drive along a steep mud road up the hill after which the city is named, Mount Kigali. Whizzing past waving children, robed dancers and a church choir singing in the open air, we could only smile in delight at the postcard-perfect scenes of rural life.

Our motorcycle ride provided a much-needed shot of holiday euphoria after an emotional morning. There are few unmissable sites in Kigali, but the genocide memorial centre is definitely one of them. Here, we wandered through carefully tended gardens and flowering trellises to the concrete-covered mass graves of a quarter of million genocide victims; with new bodies brought in every year. It’s a heart-stopping reminder of the scale of the violence in 1994 when more than 800,000 people, mainly Tutsis, were massacred in just 100 days in a campaign of organized violence, carried out largely by the majority Hutu population.

Alongside an explanation of the history that led to the genocide (where the blame is squarely placed on colonial “divide and rule” tactics), one room documents the chilling fate of child victims: their names, ages and favourite foods all carefully noted next to the brutal ways they were killed. One Rwandan woman was so overcome with grief watching a video of the aftermath of the killings, she lay quietly sobbing on the floor.

With such a horrific recent past, it’s unsurprising that Rwanda is far from being a tourist hot spot. But in the last 16 years the country has been completely transformed, and this is finally being mirrored in the rising number of tourists willing to give it a try. Today it is taboo to talk about Hutus or Tutsis, and the push to enforce a sense of unity on the population is visible everywhere. Each place we visited had its own memorials to those lost in the violence. Road signs that elsewhere would caution against speeding, in Rwanda remind people to stand together for fear of another genocide. With the semi-traditional courts that tried most of those accused of the genocide due to be wound up this year, the country seems ready and determined to look to the future.

Most importantly, perhaps, Rwanda is stable. Keen to cement this, the government has recently improved its relationship with the Democratic Republic of Congo, which it borders. And it’s not just local ties that have been strengthened. In November, Rwanda became the newest member of the Commonwealth – only the second country not formerly a British colony to be admitted to the association (after Mozambique). The move came after English became the official language for schools to teach in, ousting French in 2008.

The sense of optimism created by the fast-growing economy, low corruption and decreasing crime rate has seen Rwandans from neighbouring Uganda (where Lisa and I will travel next) and Burundi flooding home. The government seems anxious to make sure that the rapid growth doesn’t damage the environment, and the country has a head start thanks to the Rwandans’ fierce sense of civic pride. On the last Saturday of each month, every citizen over the age of 18 has to take part in umuganda (communal work). Businesses are closed, and everyone spends the day improving their neighbourhoods. As a result, Rwanda is remarkably litter free, and when I suspect that Lisa is about to drop her Coke can I grab it from mid-air. In a bid to sidestep one of the scourges of the modern world Rwanda has even banned plastic bags. At Kigali airport I watched a very polite security guard immediately spots our duty-free carrier and removes it to protect the country’s natural beauty.

And there is a breathtaking amount of beauty to protect. It was worth our stumbling flight – from Montreal to London to Nairobi to Bujumbura and Kigali – for the early morning ride to Volcanoes National Park. At dawn, as the dark lifted, the mist remained, turning the hill tops into islands in a seascape of cloud. The red road coiled around the hills, passing terraced fields of beans, and roadside markets with men and women carrying baskets of pineapples, bushels of banana leaves, and even carpets on their heads. Our destination was the volcanic range the Virungas, home to Rwanda’s famous mountain gorillas. With around 750 left in the wild, they are carefully protected. Only about 50 people a day are allowed to trek to see them, with each group of visitors allowed an audience with the gorillas for one hour. I had made prior arrangements with the local authorities, so Lisa and I can stay for two.

Our walk started among the scented eucalyptus groves of the valley, where excited local children chased us along the road, taking time out from their chores to show us their tree-climbing skills. Our group of five was accompanied by a guide, trackers and a ranger with a gun to scare away any stray buffalo. Many rangers are literally poachers turned gamekeepers; in a bid to stop people from the nearby farms poaching the park’s animals, they were given jobs there.

Slipping and sliding up the muddy hillside, we trudged through eerie bamboo forests and yelped in fields of vicious stinging nettles. The ground beneath us was a tangle of roots and stalks, and as difficult to balance on as a cat’s cradle. But the views were incredible. In the distance were the jagged edges of three of the volcanoes that give the park its name; below us the farmland with its black volcanic soil; and all around the changing green of the hills.

Then suddenly, protruding from the greenery, appeared a massive head – the silverback, leader of the gorilla family we were tracking. We were still recovering from the shock of seeing such a huge, wild animal just feet away when there was a rustle from a bamboo clump and out plopped a baby gorilla, all fluffy fur and liquid eyes. Catapulting from another branch, his brother landed on top of him, and they beat their tiny chests in mock anger.

Screams in the distance told our guide that two females were fighting. The wall of muscle that was the silverback immediately set off to sort it out. As we scrambled to get out of the way, the family haughtily stalked right through our group, close enough to touch but confident in the knowledge that we would not dare accost them. In a nearby clearing a youngster stretched out, arms behind his head, watching us as his mother groomed him. It’s possible to stay for days in the park, and many tourists spend their whole holiday visiting the gorillas and trying to spot the rare golden monkeys the area is also famous for.
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Anxious to see what else the country has to offer, we headed south to Gisenyi, on the edge of lake Kivu. As we approached, the evening sky was lit up by the beautiful but unnerving glow of Nyiragongo, an active volcano (it erupted again two weeks after we left).Lake Kivu is one of the African Great Lakes, running for 100km along the Congolese-Rwandan border. More like an inland sea, its shore is clustered with hotels offering windsurfing and kayaking. In the early morning we bartered with a sleepy boatman for a trip in his water-taxi, heading out towards Congo, whose chaotic presence (in 2009 it was fifth on the Fund for Peace’s index of failed states) dominates Gisenyi as much as the lake. With the terraced hills, coffee plantations and banana plants spreading out behind us, relaxing on the lake was just what we needed after our mountain trek. As we floated lazily to the shore, we saw a group of young dancers practising a routine: girls in red polka-dot skirts expertly balanced pots on their heads as they swayed while boys in colourful headdresses waited to join in.

Away from the lake, Gisenyi is a busy, messy border town. Strolling through the market we bought beautiful printed cloth from traders who found our laboured attempts to speak Kinyarwanda so comic that they lowered their prices. The border itself was fascinating: laidback guards checking through the woven baskets of shoppers and waving through neatly dressed schoolchildren in spotless white shirts. Across from no-man’s land is the ramshackle city of Goma, where we glimpsed dusty, corrugated roofs next to huge white mansions.

Lisa’s first trip to Africa wouldn’t have been complete without a safari, and luckily Rwanda’s eastern border provided the perfect opportunity. Through valleys where tiny children herded goats as big as themselves, past houses with mud walls and groves of banana plants, we arrived at the savannahs of the Akagera National Park. Famous for its birds, crocodiles and hippos, the park has been protected since 1934 – although it has shrunk since the genocide, with land commandeered for returning refugees.

Despite the array of wildlife, there are few visitors. At the Akagera Lodge in the heart of the park – with staggering views – we met a contented couple who told us they were the sole guests. Riding through the high grass we saw only one other vehicle, and the sense of isolation just added to our mounting excitement. We saw a herd of bouncing impala deer – affectionately known as the McDonald’s of Africa because they are so common every predator eats them – and when we finally spotted a giraffe Lisa could hardly stop herself from stopping her bike, jumping off to get a closer look. Five minutes later we were staring awestruck at a grazing group of zebras who stared calmly back. The bad-tempered buffalo were less impressed by our BMW GSs, pawing the ground until we moved off, their ungainly shapes thrown into relief by the slim, white egrets at their feet. On our way to the park’s lake Ihema we passed baboons and bushbucks, and even spotted a warthog.

This lake, set among papyrus swamps, is home to huge Nile crocodiles, which can reach 20ft, which made our boat ride across it slightly nerve-wracking. We didn’t spot any quite that big, but it was pretty hair-raising to see them swish into the water after the tiny landing craft. Floating past a pod of hippopotami skulking in the shallows, it was hard to imagine they could do any damage until one yawned, displaying its massive teeth. The lake’s delicate beauty is mirrored in the dazzling array of birds. On an island in the centre we spotted fish eagles and herons, while the shores are home to the ugly “undertaker bird”, an alarming mix of stork and vulture. Stay for longer and you may be rewarded with a glimpse of the park’s tiny lion, leopard or hyena population.

But for us it was back to Kigali, and one final night to find out if my Ivory Coast informant was right about Rwandan nightlife. Sadly, with the main nightclub closed for the night, it turned out that she was, but with the beautiful scenery we’d found, it wasn’t worth complaining.

Air travel is getting more costly, more of a hassle and less of a treat all the time. Driving holidays often offer a more relaxed and less expensive way to get away from the routine and don’t require you to travel thousands of miles.

Hellobc.comoffers some well planned, scenic and enjoyable trips in the Province of BC which provide you with the freedom to follow their itinerary or deviate from it to your liking.

Their wine country tour is a perfect example.

This is the ultimate escape to mountain grandeur, the succulent fruits of the Okanagan and endless outdoor adventure. Wander in wildlife-rich wetlands, soak in hot springs, play a round of golf and visit some of the country’s finest wineries.

Hellobc.com

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To make your travel plans to or from Abbotsford start with Abbotsford Connections and make your bookings for Abbotsford, BC, Canada or anywhere in the rest of the world. If you’d prefer, our professional and friendly Abbotsford travel agents will give you a hand to ensure everything goes smoothly.

Abbotsford Connections:

Abbotsford Travel Agents
To make your travel plans to or from Abbotsford start with Abbotsford Connections and make your bookings for Abbotsford, BC, Canada or anywhere in the rest of the world. If you’d prefer, our professional and friendly Abbotsford travel agents will give you a hand to ensure everything goes smoothly.

For a complete list of Abbotsford Travel agencies simply click here.

Abbotsford Airport
Situated at the heart of the Fraser Valley and connected to the entire Lower Mainland region of British Columbia, Abbotsford International Airport has been proudly serving the surrounding communities of the Vancouver and Lower Mainland for over 30 years.

In 2008 more than 500,000 passengers came through Abbotsford Airport. Come discover why more and more people are choosing to fly YXX.

Abbotsford Tourism
What to do in Abbotsford – all the links to all the activities and sites you’ll want to see during your stay in Abbotsford. Check out the opportunities for Agri-Tourism, Sky-Diving, Hiking, Restaurants and Nightlife all in one location. Abbotsford Tourism’s website provides you with a one-stop-shopping opportunity to experience Abbotsford.

Everything tourism-related about Abbotsford is at your fingertips.

Travel Abbotsford/Travel BC
Accommodations, activities, attractions, camping, real estate, tours & packages, and transportation in Abbotsford. Book your reservations, choose your hotel/motel plan your tour, explore the possibilities in Abbotsford and around BC all with one click.

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Matsqui Trail Regional Park is located on the south shore of the Fraser River, and boasts a level dike trail that runs for over 6 miles (10 km) beside the Fraser River. The trail offers good views of the Fraser and the quiet farms that border it, as well as the snowcapped Cascade Mountains.

There are several access points to the trail along the length of the park, but first-time visitors are advised to go to the main park entrance which lies under the south end of the Mission Bridge. From Highway 11, take the Matsqui Village Exit, travel north on Riverside Street and watch for the green and yellow park entrance signs.

If you’re exploring Matsqui Trail on foot, the round-trip walking time will be about two hours. The trail is flat for its entire length, which makes it an ideal destination for those who like to chat with friends while walking along. The most interesting time to visit is in late spring when water levels in the Fraser are at their highest.

There are always a few fisherman here casting from a nearby sandy fishing bar. Industries crowd the riverbanks west of Mission, but thin out as the trail leads east of the bridge. Several old riverboats are tied up at the Canadian Pacific Railway dock. Nearby fields are dotted with black-and-white Holsteins. The trail runs beside these fields and has long stretches where the full capabilities of a bike can be tested. Paths lead down off the trail to picnic spots beside the river.

Rounding the last major bend before the trail reaches Sumas Mountain and the Page Road trailhead, you finally look out at wilderness on all sides. Mission’s famous Westminster Abbey presides on a ridge to the northwest. The town of Hatzic is directly across the river. Strawberry Island is the large sandy expanse to the east on the far side of the Fraser. All signs of industry are beyond view downstream. This is the mighty Fraser as it should be: big river, big landscape, big fun.

The Matsqui trail ends at an old quarry on the side of Sumas Mountain. Riding time both ways from the Mission bridge is about one hour. With so many places to pull off and watch the river flow, it just might take you longer. In fact, you can expand your ride by tacking on the 4-mile (6.6-km) round trip between the west side of the bridge and the park’s Glenmore Road trailhead. This stretch leads past Gladwin Pond, and it’s rougher in places than the dike trail’s skinny tires will definitely be a disadvantage here in wet weather.

The backroads that lead west from the Glenmore Road trailhead pass through Bradner, Glen Valley Regional Park, Fort Langley, and Derby Reach Regional Park. The Pemberton Hills present a smoldering challenge to cyclists along the way.

Matsqui Trail Regional Park has picnic tables arranged beside the Fraser River. Most of the year these are on high ground, but during spring runoff the tables may be covered by several feet of muddy water. Fortunately, the tables are well secured and should still await you once river levels recede. Here on the Matsqui prairie you’ll find many grassy areas between the river and the dike where you can spread a blanket and let the Fraser lull you with its slow but steady rhythm.

The main cycling trailhead can be a little tricky to locate. It sits under the south end of the Mission Bridge, which links Hwy 11 in Abbotsford and Matsqui with Hwy 7 and Mission to the north. Turn west off Hwy 11 onto Harris, then north on Riverside, which will take you right to the park’s Mission Bridge picnic area.

Editor’s Note. Most of this article appears on the britishcolumbia.com website.
For the original article on which this review was based and more on hiking in British Columbia click here and search for ‘Matsqui Trail Regional Par’
Sources:
www.britishcolumbia.com/parks/?id=499
www.greatervancouverparks.com/MatsquiTrail01.html

It is one of his bikes that Carl has been using for years. And I mean YEARS. He takes it to rallies, events, shows to flaunt it’s old world sophistication.

If there is such a thing as an ‘affordable’ Vincent, then the Rapide is it. However, a no-frills big Vin twin still sells for under £30,000 although other models from the Stevenage stable regularly fetch six-figure sums. £30k (or around $47K Cdn) is hardly small change, even in this era of inflated values, so you could be forgiven for thinking that such motorcycles spend their entire lives in air-conditioned carpeted garages, barely turning a wheel from one decade to the next. And in some cases you’d be correct.

The 1951 Rapide is an unusual Vincent to begin with. This is the ’round the world’ bike which Barrie Howell left Coventry aboard in 1971. Some 590,000 miles later the Rapide returned to Britain.

Although Carl’s Vin doesn’t have that kind of past, when he picked his up it was ridden hard. Inevitably Carl’s Vincent needed some mechanical attention after its travels, so he had a full engine and gearbox restoration done. Reconditioning the 45bhp, 50-degree vee, 998cc OHV air-cooled engine is a specialist job, and the bill for the work ran to around £6500 or around $10,000 Cdn. Happily for Carl, the Vincent Owners’ Club maintains a full supply of components so all the engine spares came straight off the shelf.

“Vincents are different and very special,” says Carl, “so not ideal for the home mechanic.” His advice to a would-be owner is that unless you are very capable and know what you are doing then do NOT tinker! Seek specialist advice through the club and well-known specialists. Carl used The Vincent Workshop for his major rebuild.

Since then the Vin has been fettled with a few ‘refinements’ as Carl describes them, including a twin disc brake conversion – very handy if you want to stop in a hurry from its top speed of around 115mph. To ease starting (kicking over these twins is an acquired art), Carl has upgraded the electrical system with a BTH electronic magneto replacement, a Kubota alternator, electronic ignition and an electric starter.

Carl’s Rapide is a Series C machine, which came with the Girdraulic front end that Vincent introduced to replace the original Bramton fork. Nothing about a Vincent is conventional: the engine forms an integral part of the chassis so there’s no frame downtube at the front. The Rapide’s complex specification included a self-servo action clutch, cantilever rear suspension, triple roller big end bearings, QR wheels, adjustable controls, twin prop stands and an unusual Feridax dual seat which all helped to make even the most basic Vincent twin a superbike way ahead of its time. Above all else a Vincent could churn out more power than a cammy Norton racer, and it cruised at a relaxed 3500rpm; ideal for long distance touring.

Although the Rapide was swiftly followed by the Black Shadow, which benefitted from a 10bhp boost, the standard bike was no slouch. Tested in 1947, a Rapide reached 112mph before running out of steam and covered a standing quarter mile in 15.1 seconds at 89mph. The 455lb beast could cruise at 85mph until the cows came home and would return 60mpg, too. The Vincent even scored TT success: ten Rapides were entered in the 1948 Senior race and nine of them finished, taking first, second and a stack of other top ten places. Before the Shadow came along, the Rapide could genuinely boast about being ‘the world’s fastest standard motorcycle.’ Vincent’s advertising confirmed: ‘this is a fact – not a slogan.’

As you can see from the photo, this Vincent hasn’t been over-restored and is pleasingly free of inappropriate bling – Doug has trimmed the Rapide for long-distance touring, and so far it’s proved to be very reliable; ‘even when riding solo from Santander to Pamplona, over the remote mountains in driving rain, hill fog and strong winds. The engine and electrics never missed a beat, taking me safely to my destination and then on to the south of Spain.

“So the bike is pretty well sorted,” he says; “especially now that a small screen and spotlights have also been fitted. A decent twin-tone horn would just add the finishing touch!”

Carl’s Rapide is respected, because he continues to use it for what Phil Vincent and Phil Irving intended. If you’re considering purchasing something similar then you will need a deep pocket. Bonhams auctioneers sold an ‘assembled from parts’ Rapide last year, which fetched £23,500 but had no paperwork.

“It’s solid British engineering, a really smooth 1000cc V-twin with a wonderful exhaust note. It’s a real head-turner.”

Having giving it a good ride, I can say with all confidence, that it is a great bike. If I had something of extreme value to sell to purchase one for myself with that money again for repairs, I’ll at least give it very serious thought.

For the past sixteen years, MEI has sent out teams consisting of two staff and six to twelve students to serve alongside different missionaries and mission organizations in locations that have included Costa Rica, Haiti, the Philippines, Thailand, the Ukraine, and Zambia … and the list goes on. For many, the mission experience is life-changing.

Students are left with a better understanding of the privileges and opportunities they have as Canadians and are inspired to use their newly discovered freedom in contributing to the grave needs of local and global communities. The mission team becomes a surrogate family for two weeks during which students are taught to work together, step outside of their comfort zones and meaningfully engage with the needs of others.

This spring break I had the privilege of leading — alongside Henry Zukowski (long-term mission leader and high school teacher at MEI) — a team of eight high-school students, five of whom live in the Fraser Valley, to Kabwe, a city in Zambia with a population similar in size to Abbotsford. While in Kabwe, we would be working with Hands at Work, a community-based organization (CBO) recognized by the UNAIDs society for best practices in the area of community care.

Hands at Work recognizes that an institutionalized approach to caring for over 14 million orphans across Africa is not only overwhelming, but also unsustainable. As a CBO, the staff and volunteers of Hands at Work endeavor to care for the most vulnerable children by providing the basic needs of food, education and medical care within their communities.

As local churches and businesses are mobilized to support the needs of vulnerable children, Hands at Work will graduate the newly self-sustaining community and use the funding to support a new community in need, in turn creating sustainable change, empowerment and independence.

Before setting foot in Zambia, our team of ten, along with parents and supporters, had the opportunity to meet with George Snyman, founder of Hands at Work. As Snyman began to speak, the small audience was still.

Call from God

Snyman’s stories unfolded beautifully, educating us in an almost incidental manner on how to engage and genuinely respond to the harsh realities of pain, poverty and disease that we were about to encounter.

Snyman told stories of his experience trekking through the outskirts of South Africa and the seemingly unreal poverty for the first time.

He told of how it led to a moment of authenticity in which he responded to the call that he felt God was placing on his heart and said ‘yes’ to whatever it meant for him to help meet the needs of those surrounding him.

Never once bragging about himself or the work of his organization, he viewed statistics, numbers and convincing graphs as minor details. Snyman understood that this was not about him or ‘us’ and what we were bringing to ‘them’ but more importantly what we could all learn from each other.

On that note our team left for Zambia with our hearts and eyes open for what Snyman called “diamonds in the rough.” To say that I was merely impressed with the grade eleven and twelve students’ attitudes, involvement and sacrifice during our two-week stay would be an understatement.

Stepping Out Of Comfort Zones

It was inspiring to witness students boldly stepping outside of their comfort zones thousands of miles away from the familiarity of family, friends, hobbies and schedules.

A typical day working with Hands at Work in Kabwe involves many activities: gathering together in the morning with local care workers for devotions.

These always involve song and dance.

The day is spent accompanying care workers (sometimes walking up to 5 km in the hot sun) on home visits where we would offer help with chores, encouragement and prayer, assistance with lunch preparations; and leading an afternoon of games, song and dance to over a hundred excited children not accustomed to routine (a nearly impossible task!).

As the days advanced, our laps became beds for tired children and our hands a tool for chopping vegetables, washing laundry and weeding gardens. Our skin was soaked with color and our hearts were changed.

Personal Growth

For me, it wasn’t what the students did on the trip that left the biggest impression – it was the evident growth that I saw in their expression of authentic care for each other and the people of Zambia.

As our time in the rural communities of Kabwe progressed, so did our understanding of what it meant to love.

We were humbled by the strength, conviction and belief in Christ expressed by local care workers – a belief that shaped their entire lives, carrying them through death and spurring them towards love and sacrifice in some of the most unlikely circumstances.

Taking part in the daily celebration and joy (naturally resulting from close relationships between members of the community) revealed to us the rich value that results from caring for one another. Thousands of miles away from the security of our individualist Canadian culture and prominent materialism, we experienced personal healing, gaining greater perspective on what is really of value.

In returning home, we now face the challenge of applying these newly discovered truths and values in our lives and the choices that we make each and every day.

Photos by Team Photographer Henry Zukowski and others. Click on images to see images full size.

My oldest sister, Beth, is visiting from Montreal with her children, and on a ride to Bangor this past Saturday, I noticed the lovely new trains lack level access to the platform. How disappointing when you consider there is no obvious reason why this was not delivered as promised.

NI Railways is the only provider of rail transport and presumably had control over the design of the trains and/or modification of platforms. I had to ask the guard and he said even the train ramp supplied was heavy to manage. For those who haven’t tried to get a pram or wheelchair off a two-step drop, don’t try it. My sister did with her baby daughter Susie in a pram, and it required much fiddling and effort.

Such a shame and it didn’t need to be so. Considering that the London overground was an existing railway brought up to level access and it’s a dream for all passengers including those who benefit most from ease of access.

Riding the train brought back recent memories, and when I compare this to other transport, like our trains in North America, I’m a little less disappointed.

A year ago, I was traveling by sleeper car onboard Amtrak.

It was just before noon, 10 miles outside Birmingham, Alabama, and a bomb threat was called in. I was in the bar car, sipping a Coke, when the train screeched to a halt and a stewardess rushed in. “A small emergency, miss. Please exit the train.”

“What’s up?”

“Nothing,” she said. “Just a call that there may be a bomb on board.”

I looked outside. The southern sun beat down on a dusty railroad town called Irondale. I was struck with a horrific thought: this is it, I’m going to go up in a giant fireball out here in Nowheresville, Alabama. Then a second thought came to me and calmed me down: I like Alabama. This was as good a time as any to see it. I gathered my bags and joined 200 fellow passengers in the Irondale dust, awaiting a bomb squad.

It was a scorching Saturday in mid-August, the second day of my week-long rail journey from New York (after visiting my oldest sister in Montreal) to San Diego via Los Angeles (to visit my sister Lisa). When most think of travelling across the United States we think of taking a car, or a motorcycle road trip as my dad enjoyed. Amtrak, America’s federally run rail service has more than two dozen routes around the country, and I discovered that you can travel from New York to LA in four days, having to change trains only once.

There were two possible ways to go: north, across the midwest plains; or south, taking Amtrak’s Crescent service from New York’s Penn Station to New Orleans (27 hours), and connecting to the Sunset Limited, the oldest continually operating train in the US, a 44-hour journey from New Orleans to LA through the deserts of Texas, New Mexico and Arizona. I chose the south. Not only because I could stop over in New Orleans, but one look at the route evoked old blues songs, country music, and classic westerns: Tuscaloosa, El Paso, Tucson, Yuma. I booked a first-class sleeper cabin on each train and, settling on El Paso as my second stopover – is there a more quintessential wild west town? – set off to see America by train.

Amtrak has its detractors. The national rail service was cobbled together in 1971 from the fading passenger operations of the major freight railroads. In more than 40 years it has never run at a profit and is derided by many Americans as slow and over-priced, with poor customer service. Like my grandfather, I love trains, though, and I was happy to reserve judgment like my grandmother would have.

We pulled out of Penn at 2.15pm. My sleeper was small but comfortable. It had a bunk, two facing seats that can become a second bed, and a sink that flipped down over a poky toilet. A steward came through to ask what time I wanted dinner. I dozed off as New York’s skyscrapers gave way to New Jersey smokestacks and Pennsylvanian forest. It must have been very comfortable, for I awoke at dusk, somewhere in Virginia, having slept through Philly, Baltimore, and DC. It was time for dinner and a cocktail.

And here, I admit, the romance faded a little. In my enthusiasm I had imagined the Crescent to be a faded American version of the Orient Express, or at least as stylish as the Eurostar. Ultimately, though, it’s a no-frills commuter train. The bar car needed reupholstering, the dining car smelled of fried fish, and the middle-aged woman in charge bossed me around like a canteen matron scolding a school kid. Plus it was overbooked.

“Is this the first-class dining car?” I protested as she shoved me into a booth.

“Only one dining car on the train, darlin’,” she snapped, tossing me a menu.

I ordered the short ribs (pretty good) and a mini bottle of merlot (not so good), and dreamed up a new marketing strategy for Amtrak: tuxedoed bartenders serving martinis; plush lounge cars with poker tables and burlesque dancers. Heck, maybe even a cinema car.

“It’s good but it ain’t like grandma’s,” mumbled a voice opposite me. I woke from my reverie. An elderly African-American gentleman was tucking into his fried chicken. His name was Turner and he was on his way to see his sister in Atlanta, Georgia, the train’s next major stop, where we were due in at 8:00 am. I asked him why he hadn’t flown: a plane would have taken one hour, maybe two; Atlanta was 16 hours away.

“Planes fallin’ out the sky like stones these days. We safer on the ground.” I couldn’t argue with that.

Around midnight I went back to my cabin. North Carolina rolled past, its moonlit fields haunted with the ghosts of civil war soldiers.

I felt the train strain as it eased through the Blue Ridge foothills. Ten hours later I awoke, annoyed to discover that I had missed the last breakfast call because the public address system was broken.

Then came the bomb scare.

Irondale (pop 9,000), however, turned out to be something of a treat. Just back from the tracks was a line of shops that included a secondhand bookstore and a restaurant named the Irondale Cafe. I walked in to find a packed lunchtime crowd, Muddy Waters playing on a crackling blues station, and plates of fried food misting up the windows.

“What’s your speciality?” I asked the server, a young kid, possibly on his first day.

“We don’t have one,” he muttered.

The diners around me erupted.

“Yeah we do,” they shouted. “Fried green tomatoes!!!”

I looked at the walls. They were covered with posters for the eponymous movie and signed photographs of its stars Jessica Tandy and Kathy Bates. It turned out the Irondale Cafe was formerly the Whistle Stop Café, made famous by a local writer, Fannie Flagg, in her novel and the later hit film, Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Café (although much of the movie was filmed in Juliette, Georgia and Senoia just as much of the hit series, The Walking Dead is). I ordered a plate of the delicacy – delicious salty-sweet green slithers wrapped in a crisp batter – and called Lisa, my sister. She told me San Diego was hot. I thought nothing of it, and bought a copy of the Whistle Stop Cookbook. She would like that.

Outside, sniffer dogs and soldiers inspected the train, and a local TV crew arrived. Before I knew it the crew stuck a microphone in my face was trying to interview me about the bomb scare and my reason for taking a train across the US. I declined. By 2:00 pm the train was declared safe, the call a hoax, and we were on our way.

The landscape got flatter, greener. A hot air balloon floated over a cane field outside Tuscaloosa. We eased into Mississippi. Tumbledown shacks – trucks in the yard, generations of motor parts piled high out back – rolled by. It looked pretty poor. I was keen to see to the “shimmering bayou country” mentioned in the route guide, but by the time we got to Louisiana it was dark and we arrived in New Orleans three hours late.

I didn’t mind. I’m happy arriving in New Orleans any time. I checked into the Soniat House, a gorgeous French Quarter hotel, and went out for a bourbon. I was surprised to find that, as with sailing [being on the water], one gets motion sickness from being on a train for a long time. I felt wobbly, unsteady on my feet, and not even the famous brandy punch at Brennan’s Restaurant or the turtle soup at the legendary Commander’s Palace in the Garden District was able to steady me.

Up until the 1940s, wealthy east coast Americans heading west would catch steamers from New York to New Orleans, from where they would get the Sunset Limited to Los Angeles. Now, Amtrak trains rattle into New Orleans from the east coast and Chicago. The Sunset, however, remains the flagship train of the south.

Established by California’s Southern Pacific in 1893, and originally connecting San Francisco to New Orleans, it now runs three times a week between Los Angeles and Orlando, Florida; New Orleans is the mid-way stop. I checked in at 11:00 am Monday, jazz drifting out of the station speakers, a faint hint of carnival in the air. The passengers – young couples, families with kids, European tourists, a couple of dusty young troubadours with guitars and harmonicas – gave it a holiday feel. I even joined in with a harmonica I was given when I was 13 (story to follow). Then I saw the train: two-decks, streamlined as a bullet. This was more like it.

Ahead of us lay 1,995 miles, 21 stops and five states, and there can be few more dramatic scenic train routes in the world. We cruised out of New Orleans, crossing the muddy Mississippi on the 4.4-mile-long Huey Long Bridge. We headed west, through Bayou country and the Cajun coast, the historic towns of New Iberia and Lafayette. After a while, the land levelled out and we travelled parallel to a highway for several hours, giant billboards for porn shops and casinos competing with churches and exhortations to join Jesus.

The food and the service improved too. For lunch I dined on barbecued beef brisket with a lovely Napa Valley cabernet served by a graceful six-foot-tall attendant and part-time actress named Deborah. She told me she had bit roles in Paradise Cove and some reality shows. “I was just on the Crescent line,” I told her. “This is much better.”

She winked at me. “Baby, we from Hollywood. We do things in style.”

The announcer, named Jose, was part of the new mood, too, joking as we arrived in Houston, that the train would leave the station at 9:50 pm – according to his watch, no one else’s. “Not to worry if we’ve gone when you get back,” he said, “because, there are some good blues clubs in Houston and we’ll be back in two days to pick you up.”

I woke to a spectacular view of the west Texas desert beyond San Antonio, and made my way to the observation car, a sleek, 70-seat, top-level deck glassed in like a gallery. We sat back and watched the great canvas of the Texas desert unfold before us.

Around Del Rio, a border town on the Rio Grande, two park rangers boarded the train, part of Amtrak’s Tracks & Rails programme, and for the next three hours pointed out cactus, exotic wild flowers, names of lakes and rivers. We were soon in the Chihuahuan desert, watching turkey buzzards circle the heavens, tumbleweed blown rail-road towns ghosting by.

By now the train had turned into the great democracy, passengers excitedly talking to each other, telling their stories. I met Opal, 56, from Chicago, on her way to LA because she had just discovered that her biological mother, whom she’d never met, was alive and well and living in an old people’s home. There was Guadalupe and Angie Sanchez, a mother and daughter from a blue blood Tex-Mex family: Angie, tough as nails, was returning home from a spell running armed convoys in Iraq. Now she was off to flying school. And there was Louisa So, a beautiful Hong Kong tourist on a four-week train journey across America. I say tourist. She gave me her website address and I looked her up. Turns out she’s a very famous Chinese actress. No foolin’.

By the time we barrelled through Marfa (my dad and sister wrote about before) – the artsy west Texas town that has been the backdrop for the Coen brothers’ No Country For Old Men, Paul Thomas Anderson’s There Will Be Blood and George Stevens’ Giant, James Dean’s last movie – the entire carriage had broken out in song, Opal leading the way with Smokey Robinson and Otis Redding tunes, with even the dining car stewards joining in.

Indeed, when we reached El Paso at around 5:00 pm, my second stopover, I felt rather attached to my new friends and sad to be leaving them. I would catch the train again in two days’ time.

El Paso is hot, dusty, sprawling. I’d half expected a film-set wild-west town, wide streets lined with swing-door saloons; it looked more like a war zone. In fact, just across the Rio Grande, fenced off and seething, lies its Mexican sister, Ciudad Juárez, currently the most dangerous city on earth. More than 3,400 people have been murdered in drug-related violence in Juárez in the past 20 months. El Paso is Geneva by comparison.

A friend had recommended a downtown hotel, the Camino Real, a 14-story tower block close to the station. I walked there in blazing sunshine, cursing myself for not choosing Tucson as my second stop. I arrived at the back entrance. It looked like an airport hotel. Who would recommend this? I opened the door. And there, spread out before me was the most glorious sight: a plush, cool, carpeted lounge bar with a circular marble counter centrepiece, all set below a giant glass ceiling dome. It looked like a church. “Welcome,” smiled a bartender. “Margarita?” I felt I was in paradise.

My iPhone rang. It hadn’t been working right through the desert. It was my sister, Lisa. She didn’t sound well. My heart raced. “Listen, I don’t want you to worry, but . . . ”

It was about our dad, who was in hospital, on a drip, laid low by a heat wave, and likely over-extending himself…again. Our dad would be in hospital for two days. Apparent he and Lisa were riding back from a family friend’s ranch when dad felt ill. I would book the next flight out of El Paso. I still hadn’t made it across the United States . . . but I had an idea. Maybe when dad was well, we would catch the Sunset Limited out west. This land seemed filled with possibilities. Outside, somewhere near New Mexico, a train whistle blew.

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Abbotsford Travel Agents
To make your travel plans to or from Abbotsford start with Abbotsford Connections and make your bookings for Abbotsford, BC, Canada or anywhere in the rest of the world. If you’d prefer, our professional and friendly Abbotsford travel agents will give you a hand to ensure everything goes smoothly.

For a complete list of Abbotsford Travel agencies simply click here.

Abbotsford Airport
Situated at the heart of the Fraser Valley and connected to the entire Lower Mainland region of British Columbia, Abbotsford International Airport has been proudly serving the surrounding communities of the Vancouver and Lower Mainland for over 30 years.

In 2008 more than 500,000 passengers came through Abbotsford Airport. Come discover why more and more people are choosing to fly YXX.

Abbotsford Tourism
What to do in Abbotsford – all the links to all the activities and sites you’ll want to see during your stay in Abbotsford. Check out the opportunities for Agri-Tourism, Sky-Diving, Hiking, Restaurants and Nightlife all in one location. Abbotsford Tourism’s website provides you with a one-stop-shopping opportunity to experience Abbotsford.

Everything tourism-related about Abbotsford is at your fingertips.

Travel Abbotsford/Travel BC
Accommodations, activities, attractions, camping, real estate, tours & packages, and transportation in Abbotsford. Book your reservations, choose your hotel/motel plan your tour, explore the possibilities in Abbotsford and around BC all with one click.

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Find out what’s out there. Destinations, adventures, peoples, places, sights and sounds … and go ahead and book you reservations, flights, trains and rental cars. Use Microsoft’s new search engine to find exactly what you want and grab it.

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Excellent River and Lake Fishing
Chaunigan Lake Lodge started as a fishing lodge in 1953. History has proven that our greatest asset,
after our scenery, is our wild rainbow trout fishing.

Lake Fishing
There are many days when an experienced fly fisherman will catch 50 fish a day in the 1 to 5 pound
range on Chaunigan Lake. Our angling guide is available to take you out on the water, explain the entomology, or
help you with casting and retrievals. The average fish size is about 2½ pounds. In addition to Chaunigan Lake
we have boats on several walk-in lakes and easy access to stream fishing.

Walking & Hiking
Chaunigan Lake lodge is located in the midst of impressive glaciers, alpine meadows, and untouched
wilderness. We have a variety of trails ranging from a half-hour self guided nature walks to 7-day backpacking
trails high into the alpine.

Western Horseback Riding
Western riding is available with a skilled wrangler along forested trails with birds, wild flowers, and
beautiful vistas. Two-hour morning or full day rides are available.

Activities for Children
Kids have a wonderful time at Chaunigan. The chipmunks and occasional Whiskey Jacks will eat out of
their hands. They can enjoy the swings, slide, and horseshoe pitch, pool table, and various board games, in
addition to swimming, fishing, canoeing, hiking and riding horses.

Evening Activities
Although the avid fisherman will be chasing the evening rise until midnight, many guests relax in the
Lounge, games room, or sit around the camp fire and share stories of the day with other guests. We also provide
evening slide shows that highlight the plants, animals, aboriginal and Gold Rush history of the Chilcotin region.

Chaunigan Lake Lodge

Nemiah Valley, Southern Chilcotin
Chaunigan Lake toll free: 1-888-879-8885
tel: 1-604-746-5461
fax: 1-604-746-5463

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To make your travel plans to or from Abbotsford start with Abbotsford Connections and make your bookings for Abbotsford, BC, Canada or anywhere in the rest of the world. If you’d prefer, our professional and friendly Abbotsford travel agents will give you a hand to ensure everything goes smoothly.

Abbotsford Connections:

Abbotsford Travel Agents
To make your travel plans to or from Abbotsford start with Abbotsford Connections and make your bookings for Abbotsford, BC, Canada or anywhere in the rest of the world. If you’d prefer, our professional and friendly Abbotsford travel agents will give you a hand to ensure everything goes smoothly.

For a complete list of Abbotsford Travel agencies simply click here.

Abbotsford Airport
Situated at the heart of the Fraser Valley and connected to the entire Lower Mainland region of British Columbia, Abbotsford International Airport has been proudly serving the surrounding communities of the Vancouver and Lower Mainland for over 30 years.

In 2008 more than 500,000 passengers came through Abbotsford Airport. Come discover why more and more people are choosing to fly YXX.

Abbotsford Tourism
What to do in Abbotsford – all the links to all the activities and sites you’ll want to see during your stay in Abbotsford. Check out the opportunities for Agri-Tourism, Sky-Diving, Hiking, Restaurants and Nightlife all in one location. Abbotsford Tourism’s website provides you with a one-stop-shopping opportunity to experience Abbotsford.

Everything tourism-related about Abbotsford is at your fingertips.

Travel Abbotsford/Travel BC
Accommodations, activities, attractions, camping, real estate, tours & packages, and transportation in Abbotsford. Book your reservations, choose your hotel/motel plan your tour, explore the possibilities in Abbotsford and around BC all with one click.

Travel The World
Find out what’s out there. Destinations, adventures, peoples, places, sights and sounds … and go ahead and book you reservations, flights, trains and rental cars. Use Microsoft’s new search engine to find exactly what you want and grab it.

Sponsored by Orbitz Bing Travel is your Gateway To The World

Editor’s Note: Lisa left us on March 17 and the last column she wrote was about the challenge of facing death.

Out of respect for Lisa we are publishing the columns she sent us in the days before she died.

Lying in bed, swollen throat, head throbbing, replaying sequentially the evening’s events, the evidence would appear to suggest that I have misbehaved. Of course, things got a little fuzzy after midnight but, yes, there were definitely alarm bells that rung, and no, I ignored them completely. Note to self: when girls from the evening stripper pole workshop suggest to go out for ‘just one’, learn to say, no.

I couldn’t walk into work this morning with my head held high, as there was somebody at the pub who had set the bar for idiocy, so low, a sozzled fool against whose antics one could all offset their own misdemeanours, because, yet again, it was me.

So, later this afternoon, when a few biker friends, three of my dad’s club, stopped around to say hey, and wanting to chat about road trips, I was forced to recall some of my dad’s stories. After making a nice big pot of tea, and a mysterious little flick of the wrist, those cobwebs dissipated, and my rider senses started to tinkle like windchimes on a gentle breeze heading down a long windy road.

As I detailed one story where I was riding with my dad, several biker colleagues, eyes like saucers, and shaking their heads in disbelief, while nodding them in a wild manner reserved for serious congratulations, I had a full Westminster-Abbey-after-a-coronation going on.

White Rim Trail, Utah

I urgently needed to sit down and revisit the witching hour, as the ‘drink’ the night before, granted me the strength to look them in the eyes and said, “Bollocks!”

Oh God, what had I said? What had I done? I just insulted some very scary outlaw bikers (albeit in their dreams).

I didn’t have to wait long to find out. Apparently, in that euphoric place where everything’s possible, one of them announced that this summer I was going on a motorcycle road trip with them. And not just any old motorcycle road trip, but a big one. Imagine if you will, Long Way Round, without Ewan McGregor and Charley Boorman, nor the reliable BMWs they road. Picture, the wild one’s ugly older cousins, Inglorious bastards without the jews, riding bikes too small to be comfortable, and too fast to be safe.

Oh, how glorious it would all be, I had said out loud – a sentiment shared by all, sober and enthusiastic, who had declared, in front of many equally enthused witnesses, that I was, not only going to ride it and love it, but also to write about my adventures in my weekly column.

Alas, what I had neglected to share with my biker colleagues was that I hadn’t been on a long two wheel road trip since an inglorious month long adventure with my dad, involving a Lambretta, a crash and an 18-month ban for drink-riding (by my dad). Cliche fans might also like to note at this stage I am almost 30 (May), with thinning hair and a very recent decree absolute – I swore off hairy biker dudes in exchange for a Pope from Quebec.

So, I was in a pickle, and no mistake. The last thing a girl (biker babe) wants to do is admit that she has been writing cheques with her drunken mouth that she has no way of cashing. The type of people who just take off on a motorcycle can perform heart surgery with a coathanger or decide to join the Foreign Legion for a laugh. They do not consistently get on bus going the wrong way.

However, interestingly, since word started getting around of my proposed, I mean, imposed trip, my stock seemed to have risen, especially with men and women of a certain vintage, as if I had become an unwitting poster girl for the disaffected middle-aged having a midlife crisis. Further, if in lager-veritas I had been attempting to reclaim a waning virility, trying to spice up a life that had become little more than a sleepwalk through the shadows to see why my daughter was cooing in the adding room, then how to backtrack with any dignity? I might as well knock up a sandwich board reading: ‘Loser, in need of a brazilian, mildly fractured confidence, bad lower back and now no bottle.’ As Tim from The Office said so eloquently: ‘Form an orderly queue, ladies.’

I decided I had to go for it, and not be the ‘big girl’s blouse’ I was starting to feel like. ‘The moment one commits oneself, then providence moves too,’ wrote WH Murray in his book about the 1951 Scottish Himalayan expedition.

And so I discovered two things: I can’t say no to hairy scary bikers who have done prison time, and when it is pointed out that, ‘Your Dad would do it’, how can I possible not go.

————————————————————————————————-

To make your travel plans to or from Abbotsford start with Abbotsford Connections and make your bookings for Abbotsford, BC, Canada or anywhere in the rest of the world. If you’d prefer, our professional and friendly Abbotsford travel agents will give you a hand to ensure everything goes smoothly.

Abbotsford Connections:

Abbotsford Travel Agents
To make your travel plans to or from Abbotsford start with Abbotsford Connections and make your bookings for Abbotsford, BC, Canada or anywhere in the rest of the world. If you’d prefer, our professional and friendly Abbotsford travel agents will give you a hand to ensure everything goes smoothly.

For a complete list of Abbotsford Travel agencies simply click here.

Abbotsford Airport
Situated at the heart of the Fraser Valley and connected to the entire Lower Mainland region of British Columbia, Abbotsford International Airport has been proudly serving the surrounding communities of the Vancouver and Lower Mainland for over 30 years.

In 2008 more than 500,000 passengers came through Abbotsford Airport. Come discover why more and more people are choosing to fly YXX.

Abbotsford Tourism
What to do in Abbotsford – all the links to all the activities and sites you’ll want to see during your stay in Abbotsford. Check out the opportunities for Agri-Tourism, Sky-Diving, Hiking, Restaurants and Nightlife all in one location. Abbotsford Tourism’s website provides you with a one-stop-shopping opportunity to experience Abbotsford.

Everything tourism-related about Abbotsford is at your fingertips.

Travel Abbotsford/Travel BC
Accommodations, activities, attractions, camping, real estate, tours & packages, and transportation in Abbotsford. Book your reservations, choose your hotel/motel plan your tour, explore the possibilities in Abbotsford and around BC all with one click.

Travel The World
Find out what’s out there. Destinations, adventures, peoples, places, sights and sounds … and go ahead and book you reservations, flights, trains and rental cars. Use Microsoft’s new search engine to find exactly what you want and grab it.

Sponsored by Orbitz Bing Travel is your Gateway To The World

First published in July 2010.

By Doreen Jung. A visit to the San Juan Islands is a great way to get in touch with your inner explorer and recharge your batteries. Once a mountain range but now an archipelago, the San Juan Islands number between 428 to 743 islands, depending on the tides. [Click On Image For Full Story]

Spread between Washington and Vancouver Island they bask in about 247 days of sunshine annually thanks to the “rain shadow” effect of the Olympic Mountains to their south.

Beautiful Mountain Vistas
The trip from Abbotsford takes about 3½ hours if there are no delays at the border crossing. With our destination being the island actually named San Juan, three friends and I headed out for some adventure. We drove to Anacortes and then took a ferry ride to San Juan Island. The ferry took us through passages between islands of the archipelago. We saw summer homes on rocky outcrops, sandy beaches, and lush green forests. There were beautiful mountain vistas in the distance. The ferry followed the historic canoe pathways of the original inhabitants of the San Juan Islands, the Coast Salish people.

We arrived at Friday Harbor and chose a cozy cafe for lunch. Chatting to the friendly hostess, we discovered that The Cannery House offered delicious gourmet sandwiches and soups along with a breathtaking view of the Harbor. We enjoyed our lunches on a large outdoor patio where we could see sailboats bobbing on the waters, the Washington State Ferry departing, and the landing of float planes. With a backdrop of clear blue skies and the sparkling ocean waters, we enjoyed our lunch while dragonflies hovered over the hanging flower baskets.

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Following lunch, we set out to explore Friday Harbor and discovered that it is home to museums and art galleries showcasing works of talented local artists. Contemporary Native art captured the spirit of the Northwest Coast, Alaskan and Inuit Native cultures. Local artists exhibited original paintings and prints, pottery, sculpture, jewelry, weaving, glasswork, photography, and more. After we satisfied our appetite for art, culture and shopping, we decided to drive around the island and enjoy its natural beauty.

A Chorus Of WOWs
San Juan Island is circumnavigated by a road that takes you along rocky coastline and cliffs as well as through farmland and meadows. We stopped at several beaches, explored rocky shores, and gazed at breathtaking ocean vistas. Rounding a corner we let out a chorus of WOWs as we came upon lavender stretching out in rolling fields.

Pelindaba Lavender Farm

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Continuing on our journey, we stopped at Lime Kiln Point State Park. We walked along a trail that led to a lighthouse and a marine animal viewing area. There it is possible to see whales from shore as several pods of killer whales swim regularly through these waters of Haro Strait. The trail wound through a forest of Madrona, Arbutus, and tall Douglas fir trees ending at a rocky shore. Although we did not see whales, there were great views of the Olympic Mountains and we could see kayakers hoping to get up close and personal with whales.

Further along the trail, lime kilns, which were built in 1860, were still standing. They were used for almost 90 years to produce lime. Limestone was extracted from quarries and then heated in the kilns to over 1800 degrees F to convert the calcium carbonate into calcium oxide. In this form, lime was shipped to different points in the USA for use in the manufacture of many products including paper, steel, sugar, plastics, and paint. Impressed by this history, we returned to our journey around the island.

A Cacophony Of Eagle Cries
As we drove along the island road, we came to a long meadow. Suddenly from the opposite direction five eagles swooped down and alighted on the meadow. We pulled over and jumped out of the car with cameras. Trying to get as close as we could to the eagles we admired their size and beauty. Before anyone could photograph the eagles, they spread their wings and flew up into the tall Douglas firs. Too far to capture on camera, we stayed to listen to a cacophony of cries as the eagles voiced their views on the odd creatures gazing up at them.

Further along, we arrived at Westcott Bay Reserve Sculpture Park. The park is a 19-acre nature reserve with forests, meadows, wetlands, and rocky outcroppings. Along with the diverse wildlife, the park housed over 90 sculptures in bronze, stone, wood, metal, glass and ceramics. The works were created by artists from all over the Pacific Northwest. A self-guided tour map allowed visitors to meander through the park enjoying the beauty made by both man and nature.

Historic Hotel de Haro in Roche Harbor

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The charming hotel had noticeably slanted floors and crooked windows bringing an old world ambiance to this seaside village. After walking along the cobblestone streets of Roche Harbor, enjoying the view of the marina, and exploring the shops, we headed back to Friday Harbor to catch the ferry back to the mainland. With tired feet and sunburned faces, we had satisfied the explorer within.
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Doreen Jung