From British Canada, where they pretended to tolerate the French side of the dual linguistic nature of the country, to French Canada where it was entirely ignored. Although, having said that, it’s amazing how many of the citizens are fluent in both languages, particularly the younger generation. So much so that it’s actually worse trying to speak French because they can tell you’re not a French speaker just by looking at you (or probably Lea). And you might need to be rescued and get your accidental order of ‘almond’ latés changed back to ‘small’ latés…I still can’t work out how that happened. Or lose all your hair by walking into the dozens of barbiers, that were neither bars nor served any biers.

It really was surprisingly difficult to get a drink in this town. But while there, we were told that it was even harder to get a joint, as 2 days in to their legal weed experiment…the country had run out. That’s why you can’t leave the government in charge of weed supplies, bunch of dopes.

In Montreal we finally managed to try the very French Canadian dish of poutine. It may have been the sound ‘poo’ in the name along with the faint hint of horse crap in the air that didn’t really make this dish seem appealing. Or maybe it was the fact that it’s made of soggy chips covered in cheese curds and a strange gravy. Or maybe it was the similarity of the name to the word ‘putain’ (pardon my French). The difference here is one’s a ‘gros mot’ and the other is just gross.

This was just a very small bite of French Canada (proportional to the size of the bite Lea took of her poutine) and one of the most amazing things to us was the strong tie to French France. We’d tasted incredible wines in BC, but it was tough to find many non-French wines in any restaurants, half the restaurants were French themed (at least in the old town) and the other half seemed Portuguese, which is probably more culturally relevant to Montreal these days. In stark contrast our experience has been that the French French couldn’t give a ‘poutine’ about Canada…nor I guess, anyone. Maybe that’s the egalité they’re always on about.

PS- Despite not having any close encounters with wildlife or anything funny happening in Montreal (see above), it snowed on us for the first time!! So I guess it is kinda cool. Lea also managed her first full cheese dinner for the trip, giving her that sense of being in little Europe and James the familiar feeling of needing to carry a couple of Euros in his pocket in case he needed to find a train station dunny.

So it turns out that the plural of moose isn’t in fact meese as one Canadian lady who tried to take advantage of us in moment of sheer terror would have you believe…I’ll explain later, but other possible post titles included: “The Rockies and Bullwinkle” or “Are you a man or a moose?”

Having worried about the drive into the Rockies for months, we were confronted with picture perfect driving conditions so all of a sudden had absolutely nothing to worry about!! That wouldn’t last long….

Before heading to Lake Louise, we made a few stops along the way. The first was a pretty, little walk along a river through the trees. We were completely alone when James pondered whether bears would be more likely to eat a human just before hibernation season so we decided to cut it short, as risking our lives for a trail named “Skunk Cabbage” didn’t seem worth it, despite the obituary material it may provide.

Our next stop was the mirror-like Lake Emerald. So inspired by the beauty were we, that we decided to hike around the lake without checking a) how far it was, and b) what to do when confronted by wildlife. We remembered from our time in Yosemite that if you see a bear or a mountain lion you need to stay still for one of them and run from the other…just not sure which for which animal.

The walk started out being lovely. The scariest moment came as James, pushing for the perfect photo for the readers, walked a little close to the lake and started to hear cracking underfoot. Not having walked on ice this thin since the beaver jokes in the previous post he backed away carefully. I’m sure there’s a gag in there about crack and ice, but I’m not clever enough to…roll it all together…is that how you do ice?? No? How about: James-1, Ice-0, stick that in you pipe and smoke it..I really don’t know how to use drugs.

A little later / further away from help, we heard what we thought must have been a small waterfall into the lake, so we wandered over to investigate. Upon closer inspection we thought, “it must be people swimming”, then we saw some faces and thought, “oh no…it’s actually horses, how weird??” Then the panic set in as we realised it was a group of 4 moose (not meese)…3 “babies” and one big horny father walking in the edge of the lake. Unfortunately we were only ~2m from the edge of said lake, where we acted like snow and froze…apart from James’ shaking legs. We had no trees to cover us from their sights as the babies freaked and ran away. As the daddy then passed by, any thought James had to get out the camera to get a selfie with this magnificent looking beast were quickly quelled by the picture of what those horns could do with my burger bloated belly. The Canadians that later took this piss out of us, told us how lucky we were to have seen them as they were 60 and have only ever seen 2 wild moose! They then looked very relieved when we told them how close we were, saying we were lucky again, with a slight different intonation and adding “that’s a little too close eh?” NB: The photos of the moose below were supplied by these guys. What followed was another hour hiking around the lake, trying to take in the beautiful views rather than focus on the moose footprints on the path and the parting words of our new friends, “we’ll send you guys ahead in case of bears eh?”

Comparing notes afterwards, Lea and I both agreed this was as scared as we’d ever been in the wild. Not even being stranded in an open top jeep in Zimbabwe in the middle of the night listening to the lions on either side of us while waiting for help that was coming ‘just now’, or being stuck in a canoe in 4” water on a creek in Zambia staring simultaneously at a lion, a hippo and a herd of elephants as they all stared back was quite as scary. Lea commented that was safe because the guides had guns, James confirmed to Lea that they might have had guns, but they certainly didn’t take them in the boats. It’s hard to judge retrospective fear, but maybe the canoe situation might be number 1 for Lea now. NB: scorpion to the face is clearly number 1 in fear factor, but not considered in the wild…as it was really in tents.

We then spent 2 days staring at the incredible Lake Louise from the comfort of our room or the bar (taking too many photos…sorry). Ie. back to normal holidaying. Our last night in the Rockies was in the surprisingly stunning Banff. A gondola up a mountain to take in 360 degree views of more snow capped mountains, lunch at the strange, wonderful Banff Springs hotel and a night spent ‘chilling’ out in front of yet another gas fireplace.

After a week in the US it was finally time for us to head off alone and explore Canada eh? We were very tempted to stay in the States, but if we didn’t go to Canada we’d need to redo the title of the blog and we ain’t got time for that.

First stop, Vancouver, one of the ‘most liveable’ cities in the world and it’s not hard to see why…everyone on the streets seems very much alive. That’s unfortunately only half true, there seem to be more people living rough here than we recall seeing on our first trip to San Francisco, and significantly more than our trip to Monaco.

October is generally the 4th wettest month of the year in what is a VERY wet city, so, of course, with our luck, we didn’t see a cloud the entire time we were there. The downside to this was that we felt obliged to engage in some of the many outdoor activities, such as: Wandering the impeccably maintained Capilano suspension bridge and park grounds (even more unfortunate were the incessant calls to ‘squeeze me, honey, honey…’) and catch the gondola up Grousse mountain. A mountain so good it was named by my sister in the late 80s. It could so easily have been “Choice mountain” (early 90s) or “Tattslotto Mountain” (late 90s). We partook in one of our favourite sunny day activities of drinking while taking in the view, and got to see two grizzlies frolicking in what seemed a rather poorly constructed enclosure. Lea, desperate to contribute, described the scene as ‘unbearably cute’, which will go down as one of the lowlights of the trip…only because of my feelings of guilt, what have I done to this poor girl.

We were lucky enough to see the bears, but didn’t manage to see any beavers. However, this didn’t stop the Vancouverians from using the beaver title almost everywhere, from the name of lakes, parks, creeks, etc to its common appearance on menus. I’m sure some of the dishes, such as beaver stew etc, didn’t use real beaver. But if they used some faux beaver surely they should call it “murkin stew” to be clear?? And with so many menus dedicated to beaver, I’m surprised nobody was clever enough to offer up a surprise palette cleanser, or an…amuse bush…

Vancouver impressed us greatly, with everywhere playing easy listening from the 70s, 80s, 90s and the now (ie. James and Lea’s home playlist) and gentle waft of dope, wait that’s not cool, let’s say marijuana cigarettes in the air, there were just a couple of things that we found strange. Long lines at bars and restaurants even through there were an abundance of free tables (just not enough servers for the host to assign extra tables too!) and the fact that everyone stared at us a little more than usual. Lots of ‘heys’ and even one high 5 for James makes us sure he must “bear” (Lea again) a resemblance to what we hope is some current superstar for the Canucks or Roughriders, but a more likely is to a retired curler who’s let himself go.

Lea made the mistake of commenting that we’d had more Caesar salads than burgers on the trip (pre-BC, 2:3). So we sure made up for it here (post BC, burgers 6: Caesars 3, see photos for proof). In Vancouver, Lea had an incredible burger with truffle aioli on the side which she said was the best so far…and that’s the truffe!!!

After Vancouver, we somehow managed to find ourselves in another wineland, a mere 6 hour drive away! #chasingthegrape #raisindetre We only had 2 days to explore, day 1 was enough for Lea to say, “..this is without doubt the prettiest wineland we’ve visited…this year…I mean this financial year…”. By the end of day 2, we conceded the full 2018 was beaten. I guess we only went to 7 in NZ.

After wine, we headed to the mountains, with our final base camp in Revelstoke. <Revelstoke paragraph>

After a massive weekend on the booze in Palm Springs, we needed a break. So we flew to San Francisco (aka San Fran, aka Frisco…aka queue looks of disgust from James O) so we could head to wine country. The cause of and solution to all our problems. NB: If you’d ever wondered if a flight through a desert valley over a windfarm would be bumpy, I’d recommend you to stop reading now to avoid anymore head scratching…But since you haven’t I’ll continue.

In Palm Springs, Heather had enlightened us of a new phrase, which both “justified” / explained / described our existence and has become our new mantra…or at least our answer when people ask “what do you do?” When last in Sonoma they had met a much more interesting couple than us describe their, now retired, existence as “Chasing the grape”, ie. travelling from wine land to wine land…THERE ARE MORE LIKE US!!! I’d probably say for us it’s more than a mantra, perhaps a “raisin d’être”…

In an incredible feat of dedication to our ‘new’ raisin d’être, we (Lea, Dave and I [or ‘me’…wine seems to blur the proper use of first person subjects and objects]) managed to catch our first grape at ~10am (it turns out grapes are quite slow and no match for our drunken stumbling through the vineyard or our collective collection of primary school athletics participation awards). This first visit just happened to be at the winery where our friend, Sally, (Dave’s wife) was working for vintage. Quelle coincidence!! (Sorry not Canada yet, translation: “let’s get pissed in the morning!”). A much appreciated complimentary tasting thanks to Sal (although the super ripped server spent more time checking out his own guns rather than dishing out compliments to the Geophysicists and Reservoir Engineers present…and Lea), was followed by a private tour of the winery, where Sally told us how cultured she’d become before showing us the special “kill room” where she’d spent the last two months breading yeast…

We had a great drive along the ironically named Russian river, which was barely moving, tasted so many wines that Dave ended up commenting how one tasted ‘purple’ <insert photo of Ralph Wiggum that only James remembers> and visited Francis Ford Coppola’s winery where there were by far more disabled parks than abled, and only slightly fewer for horses… I guess it takes a brave horse to visit Francis’ place, and an even braver one to request a sleep over. We walked the impressive building and grounds with sprawling palm trees and lush vines, but didn’t do a tasting as it was getting late in the afternoon and we love the smell of palm in the morning.

Other than Chasing the grape, our next favourite phrase of our two days of tastings came from the last person you’d want to hear it from. On an amazing, James O organised tour, a lovely man introduced us to what he described as a “Porch Pounder”. Once we realised what he meant by an “easy, approachable, white, with a good nose and great body that you’d smash on your balcony after work”…was in fact an easy to drink ‘white wine’, we felt much more comfortable.