On top of the world in Whistler

Whistler! What a place! It's a lot like Queenstown but a whole lot richer and more pretentious - there is a Four Seasons, 2 Hiltons and a Fairmont in town for all the rich buggers! We poor folks stayed at the glamourous Cascade Lodge which was about 3 minutes walk from the action and thankfully quiet at night compared to being right in the heart of it.

Heres the view from our balcony our over the hills. Note the pool... Not really swimming weather but some crazy people were still swimming.

Looking in the other direction at Whistler. The clear lines are the ski runs - awesome!
This is Whistler by night, very pretty but very cold!

Now you'll have to excuse the order of the photos but I'm sure you'll get over it :)

This is the view over one of the ski bowls on Whistler Mountain. Imagine how awesome its going be when its covered in snow...

Looking up at one of the chair lifts from the base. I think there is 16 lifts and over 40 ski runs across the two mountains!!

Alll excited about heading to the top.

The view from the top is just incredible! The day was really pretty crappy in town but once we popped up thru the clouds it was just beautiful.

Looking backwards at the view over Whistler Town.
On the track walking to the tea house at the top of the mountain. Again, imagine this covered in 12 feet of snow in winter...
Soo blue compared to the smog over Vancouver.
How high were we!! And you wonder why we took the chairlift and not the foot option!
Taking it all in.
God he loves having his photo taken!!

Karen Walker being modelled at the top of Whistler - I should be getting paid!
The Harmony Tea Hut - the scones here are not even close to our version of scones... But it was fun watching the very cool and tame chipmunks running around.
This is some of the construction for the 2010 Winter Olympics, which the locals are not at all excited about. In fact most of them are packing up and leaving town while its on!
We had such a great time and can't wait to get up the mountain in the snow - its gonna be great!

Kayaking Adventure

We decided that we should really be getting some adventure during our time at Whistler and decided to go on a kayak trip. We decided to go on the River of Golden Dreams Ecotour which started off a bit dodgy on the choppy lake but then settled to become heaps of fun in the river. Unfortunately the river was a bit low cause its the end of the season so we had to get a bit wet pushing ourselves thru the river but all in all it was a great time and who says you need to be able to feel your frozen feet! And we saw a beaver - they are huge!

Not too many photos from this trip cause I didn't want to trash the camera but here is Mr Burgess showing how to gracefully exit a kayak.
Us being the naughty kids we are couldn't help but have a water fight at the end. The water in the river is straight from the snow so is bloody freezing but soo much fun to biff at each other. The dodgy little guy was our guide, John (we think he may have taken a shine to Hayley, lucky!)

Freezing cold but still smiling! Thank god for the heater in the van.

Ziptreking our way thru Whistler!

Ziptreking! What a blast! and SOOO much better than bloody bungy jumping!

Despite the weather we ventured out ziptreking which is basically a pully along a cable over a river.

Heres me and Hayley looking dead sexy...
Getting rigged up on the practise line. You have a practise go so you don't get up the mountain and freak out!

Hayley on the practise run.

Me in action up the mountain!

The harnesses had a nice wedgie effect as modelled by these two fools!

Most of the time he is really handsome but put a helmet on him and Jesse looks like a right dick!
The view up the river from one of the jump spots. I didn't see a bear no matter how much I looked.

Now heres the real action shots! This is me on the final zipline. (Click on the play buttons to watch the videos and turn your head to the left to watch the first one)

And here's Jesse earlier in the day showing how its done.

Birthday Boy

So Friday saw Jesse's first birthday in Canada! I did a midnight mission to decorate the house for the big day ...
This is us with Whistler in the background , all dolled up before going out to celebrate with birthday dinner for the old boy!
Sad but this was his birthday cake - it's amazing what you can do with oreos! I had candles in my handbag all ready to put on his dessert at dinner but he wanted to go to the Irish pub and they didn't do dessert :(