Tag: forest

Sunshine Coast, BC

Place 91 – Sep 14 to Sep 18 2021: Sunshine Coast, BC ðŸ‡¨ðŸ‡¦

Kim & Curtis Hale

Day 1

We’re back! Hello! We went on a little trip to Sunshine Coast for Curtis’ birthday. You can read about it here.

On Tuesday 14th September, in the evening, we drove out to Horseshoe Bay to catch a ferry out to Sunshine Coast. Whilst it is not an island, it’s technically connected, there’s no other way to get there without a boat, so we took the ferry.

The ferry arrived late, but that didn’t make much difference to us, other than the fact we were hungry!

There weren’t many people on the boat, so it was quick and easy to get ourselves some food. We ate that and then the ride was pretty much over. (it’s only 40 minutes).

We drove off the boat and drove on to our first accomodation, which was a cute little cabin!

Here’s a low quality video of the cabin!

When we arrived, the cabin was incredibly cold as the windows were open, but after a bit of time with the fire on it got nice and toasty. We arrived fairly late, so once we got settled we watched a little bit of TV before sleeping.

Here’s another low quality video of the cabin!

Day 2

We woke up in the awesome cabin and drove down to Gibsons for a spot of breakfast.

We got a breakfast bagel each from a cafe there. The staff were wonderful (and one was British!) which made it a very nice experience.

Once we had our breakfast, we had heard that people were filming down the street for a holiday film! We went down to check that out, but not much was happening at the time, other than there being some fake snow on the floor.

We walked around Gibsons for a bit as there was a nice little marina area and the sun was shining!

After walking for a bit, we found a park to go to for a hike/walk!

We drove to Cliff Gilker Park where it said there were waterfalls and hiking trails, which sounded perfect.

The walk was through the forest with nice big trees and some really nice little wooden bridges!

We saw the waterfall, but it wasn’t really much of a waterfall, but still peaceful.

We walked around here for quite a while, mostly to just find all the bridges…we love bridges!

Once we left here, we drove to a petting zoo to let some animals, but unfortunately it was closed on that day, so we turned around and drove to something nearby that we found, called Robert’s Creek Pier.

Robert’s Creek is a small town with some nice little buildings that we looked at and when we went down to the pier we nearly got blown over it was so windy!

Wind!

We drove back to the cabin and had a look online for some places to get food and also a look for other things to do whilst we were in the area.

We eventually found a place for dinner, which was a Mexican place. Luckily, they were able to seat us once we got there (they were very busy!) And we grabbed ourselves some pretty tasty Mexican food!

We went back to the cabin and watched a bit of TV and relaxed.

Whilst relaxing, we heard some noises outside, so we checked and sure enough, it was a BEAR! We saw him right next to our cabin trying to get at the bins, but we think he scared himself away when he knocked over the bin.

It was our first time seeing a bear in the wild and it was pretty large and right outside!

Day 3 – Curtis’ Birthday!

We woke up, got ready and left the cabin to grab some breakfast.

We went to a cafe (after a bit of back and forth between two) and managed to get a seat. It was pretty small and busy!

We had to wait 45 minutes for our food, which seemed pretty long, and when we got the food it was…Alright. It looked good but wasn’t incredible. Curtis had a smoked salmon and dill cream eggs benedict whilst Kim had a breakfast bowl.

We left here and tried to go to a few cool looking spots with nice views, hikes and waterfalls, but they all seemed to be closed for some reason!

We ended up finding a park near the new cabin we were moving to, so we sat there for a bit and stared into the water.

We checked in to the new cabin and it was not quite as we thought. It looked like a cabin, but was pretty large. It was quite dark and just not as good as we hoped. But it did look cool!

Looks cool outside, right?

We relaxed for a bit once we got in. The weather had started to deteriate, which we knew was going to happen, so we prepared to just hunker down and do very little.

Kim found a really nice brewery called Batch44 and we headed there for some drinks and dinner. Kim also found out there was a quiz, so we entered that and didalright! We weren’t last, which is a win!

We headed back to the cabin and got some really good sleep.

Day 4

It was raining all day, so we just slept and stayed in, watching some TV and playing card games.

We went and got pizza for dinner. Nothing fancy but a bit of a tradition for lazy days!

There was a large wind/rain storm which blew over a power line! This caused us to have an outage and, as the power line was laying on the only bit of road in/out of the town, we were stuck in the dark!

We were able to get some candles from a neighbour and we spent the night playing cards and chatting. It was kinda nice, in a way.

We didn’t get too cold and headed to bed. We were however awoken around 02:00 when the power came back on! But we were glad that was able to get sorted.

Day 5 – The Final Day

We woke up and got some breakfast at a diner style place and then looked for something to do before we needed to catch our boat.

We found somewhere called secret beach (it was sign posted, so not very secret!) And we had a wander around on the beach and the logs that were on there.

Pretty nice place!

Kim found a nice rope swing and had some fun on that!

We took the ferry home and drove back. It seemed to take far less time!

We got home and made some dinner and then it was time for Curtis to play hockey. He’s finished his 3rd game now and is really enjoying being back out there on the ice.

Curtis has a goal and two assists already, all of which came from the last game!

And there we have it!

That was our sunshine coast trip. We hope you enjoyed having a blog to read again. We had some fun times and we were excited to share it with you.

Maybe we’ll have some other fun stuff coming up at some point, but we hope everyone is well.

Mr And Mrs Hale

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Vancouver, BC

Place 72 – Day 918: Vancouver, BC – Finally Exploring A Little

Kim & Curtis Hale

Kim went out to get croissants for breakfast and we ate those and then very slowly got ourselves ready for the day.

Here in BC, we are able to travel within our health region, which is quite large, and they no longer suggest not doing so, so we went a little further today!

We drove out towards where we stayed when we first got here, near Burnaby, and walked around a park we’d been to a couple of times.

We walked through the forest areas and almost all of the park. We were met by many squirrels and birds and the weather got way hotter then it was meant to be, which was lovely!

We walked around for a while and then started to need a drink and got a bit too warm, so we headed back towards home.

We needed to go to the supermarket, so we stopped in there on the way back.

After we got home, we did some laundry and vaccuming and then Kim made the teriyaki chicken burgers that she’s made a few times! She made a decent amount of them so we can have them whenever we want without having to make them again!

Kim cooked up the burgers and we had that with sweet potato fries and corn on the cob. A delicious dinner.

We ate and relaxed and then Kim went for a nice relaxing bath.

We watched a little TV after that and then went to bed, ready for work tomorrow.

This Time Last Year

Mr And Mrs Hale

Vancouver, BC

Place 72 – Day 409: Vancouver, BC – Shannon Falls & Porteau Cove Beach

Kim & Curtis Hale

Shannon Falls

We got up and Kim made some breakfast, and we relaxed for a short time whilst we ate this.

We got ourselves ready and hopped in the car for a 1 hour drive.

We drove up to Shannon Falls, which is almost in Whistler!

We got there and it seemed a little smokey again, which was unfortunate, but we continued anyway.

We saw the falls from the floor and from a small viewpoint and they were certainly pretty!

We continued walking towards a hiking trail, only to be stopped by a fence as the trail is closed for gondola repairs! We were going to do a nice hike, but due to this, we just left instead.

Some Beach Somewhere

Kim found a beach fairly close, so we drove onward to that as there are apparently seals there!

It took us down a strange gravel road which lead to a ‘beach’ right by some construction and logging sites!

It really wasn’t interesting at all, so we got back in the car and drove onward to another location.

Porteau Cove Beach

We drove to Porteau Cove which has a beach and a little pier. It’s mostly for people boating, but there is a beach which you can walk on.

The beach wasn’t sandy, it was just a lot of fallen trees and some rocks, but we made the most of it by walking up and down this for a very long time!

Kim climbed a large rock, only to get worried about getting down which was some entertainment for a bit, whilst she tried to get down safely (which she did!).

We got tired, hungry and thirsty, so we slowly made our way up to the car.

We drove back home and when we got back, we had some pizza and watched the film Brave.

We played some Crash Bandicoot and watched some more TV for the evening.

This Time Last Year!

Mr & Mrs Hale

Whistler, BC

Place 87 – Day 1: Whistler, BC🇨🇦 – Some Time Away!

Kim & Curtis Hale

Breakfast!

We finally managed to have some breakfast from Small Victory!

Kim had an appointment in the morning and then she picked up the breakfast.

We each had a normal croissant, which was amazingly flakey and buttery, and Kim had her usual coffee (Spanish latte) and Curtis had a terrific cappuccino.

We got ourselves ready and we managed to leave by around 12:00.

Off To Whistler!

The drive up to Whistler was really nice, but it was still smokey, so not too much could be seen.

We stopped in at Canadian Tire in Squamish and got some jump cables after our debacle the other week.

We grabbed a coffee too, of course.

We drop up to Whistler and the hotel was awesome!

We got upgraded to a suite, so we have a table and a sofa etc. Super nice!

Village Exploration

We got our stuff up to the room and then just went for a walk around to see different things around the village and different areas.

We walked through a small forest of sorts and saw a Blue Jay, which is cool!

We took a walk through the village area and spotted a few nice places for food!

Came across a nice bridge with an awesome river.

Dinner

Our legs got tired after a few hours and we began to get hungry, so we walked to a place we had seen earlier called Noodles and we grabbed ourselves a box of food each. Kim got a Korean chicken box and Curtis got crispy spicy beef with rice.

We went back to the hotel room and ate our food and chilled out in the room for a bit, then went out to get some things in the drug store. This meant we got to see the Village at night, which was dark for sure!

Drinks!

We went for a drink in the bar downstairs from our hotel room, which was a very empty bar, and then headed back upstairs to play some card games and watch TV.

We’ve planned the remainder of our time here, we’re here until Friday evening, so that’s great!

It’s Curtis’ birthday tomorrow, too!

This Time Last Year!

Mr & Mrs Hale

Comox,BC

Place 86 – Day 1: Comox, BC 🇨🇦 – Travel, Forest Walk & Evening Get Together

Kim & Curtis Hale

Travel

We were up early, around 06:00, and hopped in the car and headed up to horseshoe bay.

We got to the ferry port and had a little nap on the car until we boarded.

We got onto the boat and got a coffee for the crossing.

We got to the other side and drove from Nanaimo to Comox, where our friend lives!

We met him at his house and had some lunch which his mum prepared for us.

Forest Walk


Brody took us our for a walk around and to a town up the road for a walk around the forest!

There was some very large trees and beautiful views. This was a great relaxing walk, exactly what we needed!

Evening Get Together


We went and had a beer at a local brewery and then we went to meet Brody’s friends out at a beach so they could walk their dog.

We walked the dog and then headed to the supermarket to get some food and snacks.

We went to Brody’s friends house and took a lasagne that Brody’s mum made.

We all chatted and met a bunch of people and had a bunch of really good food, from salads to pasta to the lasagne!

We just hung out at this house and had some really good chats and a really good time.

This Time Last Year!

Mr & Mrs Hale
Vancouver, BC

Place 72 – Day 154: Vancouver, BC – Lighthouse Park & Horseshoe Bay

Kim & Curtis Hale

Lighthouse Park

We left the house and jumped right into the car once we got ready!

We drove for around an hour (in all the traffic) to get up to West Vancouver (which is weirdly in North Vancouver) and visited a couple of places.

We first went to lighthouse park.This is a park, unsurprisingly, with a lighthouse.

We parked up and first noticed the enormity of the trees. It was more of a forest than a park.

There were multiple routes, but we walked down the default one for a while and followed to the Lighthouse.

There were two viewing points for the lighthouse. One was down someone’s driveway (which you can go down).

This had the best view of the lighthouse and it was a standard red and white lighthouse.

We moved up to the 2nd viewing point, which was just up the hill from a few huts. The second viewing point was ontop of a rock, but the view was a bit obstructed.

We continued on for a while, walking down a few different trails and came across a small ‘beach’.

This spot had beautiful views as well, and the sky looked awesome.

We left the beach and wandered around a few more tracks and then started to head back up.

We wanted to reward ourself with a coffee, so we went to find some!

Horseshoe Bay

There was a place nearby called Horseshoe bay, which people have told us about before, so we thought we should check it out whilst we are in the area.

We drove there in search of coffee, but were a little disappointed.

The only place was a Starbucks, which we enjoy, but we were hoping for something a little more.

We finished our Starbucks and got a snack to sit next to the water and eat, even though it was raining a little bit!Whilst we sat there, we saw a seal swim past!

We left here and drove back home, tired from all the walking, but really happy with our day.

Boring Shop

We got back home and had to do the shop, so we did just that.

We got the essentials for the week and went back home.

Giant Yorkshire Pudding

We couldn’t be bothered to cook, so we went up to the pub near us (The Wicklow) and each had a giant Yorkshire Pudding, stuffed full of beef, gravy and mashed potatoes! (And some wine, of course)

We were absolutely stuffed from this and we walked back home.

We sat and watched an episode of Vikings and then got ready for work tomorrow.

What a great day we had! We need to head back as there were so many different trails.

This Time Last Year!

Mr & Mrs Hale

Vancouver, BC

Day 72 – Day 118: Vancouver, BC – Steveston Town

Kim & Curtis Hale

Steveston Town

We had a lazy morning, just had a bagel each and watched some YouTube.

We eventually got ready and decided we wanted to go out for the day. We hopped in the car and googled to find somewhere fairly close to go as its long weekend, therefore all places places to go will be very busy, so we found somewhere a little different.

We drove for about 30 minutes to get to Steveston.This is a fairly small, former fishing town in Richmond.

We arrived and eventually found some parking. We had a couple of plan for whilst we were there, but we didn’t really know anything about the place.

Coffee, Of Course

We started by finding a coffee spot. We found a really nice, and cheap, place called Rocanini Roasters.

Curtis had a flat white and Kim had a mocha.They were both pretty good, but not the best we have had!

Former Tram

This town used to have a tram system that ran through it.

We went rright across from the coffee shop and there was the tram they used to have!

We walked along the tracks and came to a small forest walk, so we partook in that for a bit.The town is quaint but also a bit built up in some areas, though a lot of the older buildings are still around.

Waterside Walk

We walked along the side of the water for a while, just for something to do.We got to a point and wondered if we should continue as it didn’t seem that there was much going on, but we then saw a cool old building in the distance so wanted to investigate.

Former Fishing Area & Living Quarters

We stumbled upon the former fishing area, where there were living quarters and multiple buildings, which could be entered, which were used during this time.

This was a museum area and was actually very interesting.

The first building we entered was a building for both hanging nets as well as making things, such as steering wheels for boats.

There was many older artefacts still around and in good condition, as well as a lot of machinery.

We moved on from here to the living quarters.

All of these are segregated, so there were the likes of a Japanese house and a Chinese house.

These were all pretty small for the amount of people that would have lived in them.

Boat House

We finished off in the boat house, which had a few different uses but was used most recently to store and build boats.

We looked around and saw lots of things along with boats, such as a few ddifferent workshops, such as the engine workshop and the blacksmith.

Ice Cream!

We walked back and had previously spotted an ice cream place, so went and got one there.

Kim got salted caramel and chocolate and Curtis had whisky coffee.

We sat outside and had our ice cream and just chatted about our day!

After our ice cream, we got back into the car and drove home.

Hockey Gear

When we got home, Kim vacuumed the car whilst Curtis got his hockey gear ready! He has a team scrimmage tomorrow, which he is very excited for!

Kim went out to get some things from the shop and then when she got back she began to make dinner.

Sweet Chilli Wedges

We have been discussing having sweet chilli wedges for a few days now, so we finally decided to today, and it was an excellent choice.

We ate some dinner, drank some wine and watched some TV. A fun day all around!

This Time Last Year!

Mr & Mrs Hale

Vancouver, BC

Place 72 – Day 16: Vancouver,BC – Central Park

Kim & Curtis Hale

Central Park

We wanted to have a walk today and it was a nice day, so it made perfect sense!

We took about a 40 minute walk down to Central Park, which is a large park here in Burnaby.

The park was incredibly peaceful, even though the was quite a few people enjoying it.

We came across a nice lake which also had some ducklings in.

The park was beautiful and calming. We walked around it for a while, watching all the squirrels and lookimg at all the tall trees.

We got to a certain point in the park where we noticed we wanted to have a coffee, so we stopped to find a Vietnamese cafe to get Vietnamese coffee.

Coffee

We got to a Vietnamese restaurant and they said they wouldn’t serve us JUST coffee, so we hastily left and decided Starbucks would be easier, which it wasn’t.

We went to 2 Starbucks but neither had seats. We couldn’t be bothered to keep looking, so we got our iced lattes and walked around instead.

Train

We had thought we would walk home, but it was an hour, so we got the train home instead.

We watched a bit of TV and then made dinner, which was the same as yesterday, followed by more TV.

This Time Last Year!

Mr & Mrs Hale

Kerikeri

Place 68 – Day 9: Kerikeri – Rainbow Falls

Kim & Curtis Hale

We were up a bit later today, but it was also our last day of this HelpX.

We had about 1/3 of the outside of the house remaining to clean and the same amount of windows inside and out also.

We got all of this done and then had some pesto pasta and watched some TV. After lunch, we got all sun lotion’d up and got in the car to go down to Rainbow Falls, which is a waterfall just down the road from where we are.

We walked down to the waterfall and decided not to go into the water as it was full if very slippery rocks and quite dirty.

We did notice a lot of rocks down stream, so we walked down there instead. We found an area to enter the rocks and then walked down them. We got pretty far, navigating the rocks and trying not to fall in the water.

We eventually ran out of rocks near us so we walked all the way back to the waterfall and headed to the car.

We drove to the supermarket and got an ice cream which was much needed in the hot weather! We also got a doughnut from a local doughnut shop.

Once our host got home, she got our cheese and crackers, so we sat out on the sun eating cheese! A great end to the day.

We then relaxed and talked about our days and then our host made us a delicious spaghetti bolognese!

We watched some of the latest Kong film and then went to bed.

We will probably be leaving here around 10:00-11:00 tomorrow morning.

This time last year!

Poroporoaki!

– Mr & Mrs Hale

Auckland

Place 49 – Day 296: Auckland – Post Modern Jukebox

Kim & Curtis Hale

Curtis’ Day;

The start to Curtis’ day was great! He actually remembered his keys do was able to go to work.

After he got to work, he spoke with his family back in the UK. It was lovely for Curtis to speak with them, it was just a shame it was to receive bad news.

After, Curtis had to clean his bag as the leftover swedish meatballs had gone everywhere! Finally, Curtis began work.

The day started with admin and then Curtis did training for most of the morning.

In the afternoon, Curtis had a couple of remote sessions penned in, two of which went really well and the third was unable to happen.

Both of us;

We both got home and did some laundry.

Post laundry, Kim made a spaghetti Bolognese and we ate that pretty quick!

Tabitha came over at 19:15 and Curtis drove Kim and Tabitha down to the city as they were watching a show.

Kim and Tabitha watched post modern jukebox, who take new songs and cover them in a vintage style. This was an amazing show!

Kim and Tabitha left and went to McDonald’s to get an ice cream. After that, Curtis drove down to collect them, drop Tabitha home and then drive home.

When we got home, we finished packing for the weekend! We have an awesome weekend planned with Josh and Danielle which should be great fun, though and early morning tomorrow!

This time last year!

Poroporoaki!

– Mr & Mrs Hale