One with the Nature

Driving through Canada's Rockies was pretty easy, the mountains are split by large open valleys because they were bulldozed apart by glaciers not carved by rivers, or so they told us on our lake Minnewanke tour.

So for those of you like me who are prone to motion-sickness the roads are good as they wind gently along the wide valley floors - that was until the mountain range between Whistler and Jasper.

First we stopped at Lake Joffrey, it was a light hike up to the valley where you suddenly step out of the trees onto the banks of a lake of the most intense and vivid blue.  The colour is ridiculous  #nofiltersrequired.

Leaving the lake was easier said than done, we had parked on the roadside in the gravel and when Haley hit the pedal the wheels started spinning. Going forward the wheels just spun and behind there was a steep drop-off so we weren't going anywhere.

Haley was all, 'Oh god, we're stuck! My cars going to fall off the cliff!'
'Nah, we'll be right,' I said wandering off to collect some sticks and rocks to put under the tires. I squeezed my small collection of twigs under the wheel, but they just spun out. I looked for more sticks and stones, but the gravel was pretty bare.

As Haley continued to freak out, I scratched my head wondering where I'd be able to find bigger sticks and Robina was probably off taking a selfie when a rusty old 4wd pulled up.
'Need some help?' said the driver.
'You don't have a couple of big sticks do you?' I asked. (Jokes, I didn't ask for the sticks)

The guy, a random kiwi in Canada, grabbed a tow rope from his rust-bucket and had us out in five minutes.
'Great,' said Haley. 'I was worried we wouldn't get to the winery in time!'

We drove through a tiny country town called Lillooet, pulled up at the winery just before closing and I rolled out of the car for my second vomit. (Told you the roads got worse!)

In the winery Haley asked for Armand and the guy at the counter pointed out an old dude pouring wine and chatting to a couple of ladies. He came over and asked if we were there to taste some wine, Haley told him we were looking for him.
'I'm Haley and I play cricket with Ali in Melbourne,' she said.
'WHAT?!?' he shouted, eyes wide. 'Oh my god! Oh wow, really?!?'
Robina had gone to the loo and said she could here him shouting from all the way out the back.

Armand's son Brent is married to Ali who Haley plays cricket with. Armand was super excited to meet some random Aussie who knew his son and poured us all some wine.
'Where have you come from? What are you doing here? Where are you going? Where are you staying? How long are you in Canada?'
Armand had a lot of questions and when he discovered we had no idea where we were heading that day he invited us home to meet his wife Ida and told us we could stay in their RV.

We ended up in Lillooet two nights, Ida was an absolutely lovely, funny lady and she makes an excellent chilli and Armand was super excited to have visitors and insisted on taking us on a 'hike'.

Armand drove up into the hills, at the end of a bumpy dirt trail he jumped out, we took photos of the wildflowers and ate salmon berries before Armand just walked off into the bush.

'Hmmm, haven't been this way in a while,' he says crashing through the undergrowth, but after ten minutes we appeared at the side of a lake. A wide blue lake like Joffrey Lake the day before but without the million people on the track. We had the entire lake to ourselves. Armand led us around the lake, balancing on fallen logs to cross the water and rock-hopping through scrub and swampy patches.

'We'll go to the waterfalls,' said Armand pointing way, way up at a tiny trickle of water streaming from the top of the mountain, right up near the snowline.

We didn't realise that by 'hike' Armand meant eight hours scrabbling over landslides and scaling mountains up to the snowline.

Armand was hilarious and to top it off made an excellent video of our hike, make sure you watch it, it's fantastic!