First Nations Pow Wow

On Sunday we were lucky enough to be invited to a First Nations Pow Wow, it was a three day event where several bands of the First Nations culture get together. There was markets, food, and lots of people dressed up in costumes who later performed in the competitive dances. There was also drummers for the dances and elders speaking who shared the importance of their culture.

It felt like I was in my of my anthropology films we always watched at uni, it was pretty amazing to see.

 I got some pictures of the beautiful costumes..

Vancouver Island

Last week we spent four days over on Vancouver Island, about 30mins to the port and 1.5 hours on the boat so not too bad. We left one night after work and arrived on the island round midnight, we drove as far as we could before pulling over to sleep in the back of the truck. Next morning we finished the last of the drive to the west coast,Tofino.

Brendon was stoked to surf Tofino..

We went and checked out the little hippy township and found this funky cafe

The next day we went down to the rocks for a fish before heading to the Tofino Botanical Gardens

The gardens where nice, you could get a coffee at the Darwin Cafe and take it with you while you wander around the gardens. It was a pretty random place though with some weird statues

Random stuff like this...

As we left the west coast to head inland, we did a tiki tour past another small town called Ucluelet with a nice coastal trail to walk

We drove pretty late into the night so when we went through Chemainus which is well know for its murals we didn't get many good pictures. There were so many older brick buildings and most of them had giant vintage murals painted on the sides of them

Luckily that night the park ranger at Bamberton Park forgot to close the gate to the beach carpark so we found somewhere nice to stop and sleep.

Third day in we drove through a town which I absolutely loved called Duncan on our way to Victoria. It was the town of totem poles, and randomly there was a Maori totem pole from a carvers exchange program which was choice to see

This town also had lots of beautiful painted buildings

My favourite thing in this little town was this awesome old building turned into a tiny indoor market with all organic stuff, I could have lived in there

We quickly checked out the Birds of Prey park, before we got back on the road. Most of them looked to be rescue birds, and had a little area with food, water and a perch so they were so close to you but couldn't reach you

Turkey Vulture, he was in a cage

This little guy was my fav, look at him clutching his little lead

That night we spent down town outside the famous parliament building in Victoria for Canada Day, there was live bands, fireworks and tonnes of people out on the streets

We actually got a place to stay here, three nights in the back of the truck was enough, we managed to find a nice little old done up apartment walking distance from all the action

Our last day over there we walked around the town looking at all the old buildings and going for the famous alley way walks past all the little alternative shops

The last alley way ended up in old Chinatown

We had a bit of time left before we had to catch our boat so on the way out there we stopped into Butterfly Gardens

Heading back home on the boat...

Squamish

Hi all, so I haven't put up a post in a few weeks...we have been having lots of fun partying in Vancouver while Brendon has had to work Saturday shifts so there wasn't many tasteful pictures and stories to tell haha

BUT...last weekend we went camping in Squamish, an hour up from Vancouver (we stopped there on the way to Whistler). Saturday we went down to the river for a fish but our adventure was cut short when I went to put down my bag to help Brendon with his fishing line (that caught more trees than fish) and turned to see a snake behind me!! We later learnt they are pretty harmless - as in you'll just swell up but not die if they get you apparently - but every little branch that brushed past me after that freaked me out.

It poured with rain when we were heading to the campsite so we picked up these awesome $2 ponchos to wear while we set up

We got a spot tucked in next to the river, and had a huge tarpoline so stayed pretty dry while we waited for the skies to clear up

Ahh the fire poking stick, great camping past time...





Sunday was a really nice day, we spent the day on a hiking trail up the Stawamus Chief, one of the worlds largest granite monoliths. The trail first went through the bush then up the side of a waterfall and the last 20 minutes or so was climbing the rock dome to get to the top. It took us 4 and a half hours, 3 of them walking and the rest eating.

Some of the paths where pretty rugged but ladders and chains were bolted in to places that needed it which was fun

The view at the top was amazing - 360 degrees, when the small airplanes flew by it felt like they were at eye level we were that high up

We made a friend as well while we were up there having some lunch, this little chipmunk was super keen on our almonds and kept stuffing as many as he could in his mouth, running off and stashing them then coming back for more