Tag Archives: canada

What Jody Did in 2010

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It’s part pure-self-indulgence, and part diary… as since I started drinking less my memory’s started getting worse… and I thought it was supposed to be the other way round!

Below is a list of what I achieved/enjoyed/did during the year of 2010, which has gone down as One Of The Best Years Of My Life(TM). Most of you will have been involved to some degree, some of you will have followed my adventures, and some of you have come here wondering who the hell I am, and those that know me will wonder just how the hell I managed it all! Well, join the club.

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JANUARY

The year started with snow and Gareth “Big Perm” Brown stayed snowed-in at mine for a couple of days. It was also (my youngest son) Bam’s first real snowfall that he could go out

If you can't drop your trousers in front of a strange, hungover German, who can you drop them in front of?

and play in. Work and schools are closed as are most roads.

Started my radio career with Vectis Radio – an online radio station based here on the Isle of Wight – as Bully’s assistant during his afternoon show.

Brighton Tattoo Convention was also our destination at the end of the month where I got a shark tattoo on my thigh by Mark Halbstark -  a tattoo which ends up in Skin Deep magazine later that year!

The Wild Bunch hit The Folly for Richie’s birthday.

MARCH

For my birthday my sister Kay and her husband-to-be, Steve, got me 8 weeks of salsa dancing in revenge for the Des O’Connor tickets I gave her for her birthday the previous year. I take my partner-in-crime – Simon Cope – with me as punishment for him laughing about it. I won’t digress exactly what happened… as all these “birthday presents

Me, Ollie, Perm and Copey.

spiralling out of control” are for a future blog… or book!

My birthday is also shared by Amy Bailey! Who then ups and leaves me to go to Australia… this trend continues through the year as Gareth Brown also goes to the same country and Chris ‘Anal’ Ettritch and Caroline Uncle also head out to the far east.

The Ryde Taxis 16 seater bus I drive got on TV on South Today! I volunteered to sit in it while they filmed… they said no. Face for radio, anyone?

I’m also the bus driver for local band The Dead Perrys for their photo shoot. It ends up in true rock and roll style as we ruin places, pubs and rock out til 4am…

APRIL

I start my own show at Vectis Radio, playing soul and funk. The first show I’m nervous as hell, but soon into my element and start playing tracks that have sampled old songs, so hip hop becomes prevalent. The show morphs and later in the year I move to Tuesday nights

The WIld Bunch

and get free reign and host special shows covering the Wu Tang, the Beastie Boys, DJ Shadow and Cypress Hill. Thanks Macca!

The Wild Bunch hit the Windmill in Bembridge.

I see Mat Carrington for the first time this year after promising us both I’d make more of an effort to get over to see him in Wimbourne. I do well on that promise through the rest of the year.

I join Twitter. It takes me a good month or so to get into it but it is very rewarding and has allowed to me speak to many other writers, sports fans, stars, etc. By the end of the year I will have struck up a friendship with Dan Gold, and spoke to DJ Mistajam, page 3 girl Rosie Jones, porn star Rachael Williams, UK hip-hoppers Foreign Beggars, Brighton stars Rizzle Kicks, and writer Rebecca Woodhead! An honourable mention goes to Marni Mann, a writer awaiting publication who I will be talking to throughout my own process of trying to become a published author. *note to self: ask Marni if I can be the first to interview her once published!* (also, Marni’s blog is on this page under the ‘blogroll’ section)

MAY

The garden outside the flats Copey and I live in gets a big renovation! The grass and wild bushes are cut and a fence is put up by Lee Daniel… thus allowing us to have some big, crazy barbeque’s that run throughout the summer. Strangely, once the grass is cut, I find a

You can't actually see the pain we were in.

pair of Jamaican pants.

I win £400 as Norwich win League One.

The Wild Bunch hit the Folly. Again.

Copey and I Walked The Fucking Wight. All 26 miles of it for charity. It wasn’t my choice but Bully asked us live on air on Vectis Radio, so how could we refuse? My feet hurt afterwards. A lot. Almost as much as I hurt Isle of Wight Radio when I got to the finish line and they asked who I was walking for. I was wearing a Vectis Radio t-shirt and I proclaimed it live on their show!

Went to Wembley with Bully, Frank and his son Danny to watch England play Hungary in a friendly before the Shit World Cup. It wouldn’t be my last visit to Wembley this year.

We roll up at the Bournemouth Tattoo Convention. I don’t have any work done but I do get to meet Dan Gold of London Ink fame!

JUNE

The Wild Bunch hit The Sloop.

Got my picture taken with Kate Moss after driving her back from the Isle of Wight Festival, along with her rocker boyfriend, Jamie Hince – who was a lovely fellow!

But Kate wasn’t a patch on the Bunch’s own H-Bomb – Ms Haley Owen. We rocked up at On The Rocks in Yarmouth for her birthday.

We host a barbeque to end all barbeques for an England World Cup game. It’s still talked about in pubs and clubs across the island. Apparently. Also, it isn’t a patch on the

She was a little starstruck at first.

monster BBQ we hosted the month before, in which we had more people than the pub across the road! Inman also supplies much mirth with his bionic leg…

The Wild Bunch hit Portsmouth for Copey’s birthday. (I do realise that some of you have no idea who the Wild Bunch are, but they are a close group of my friends and will feature in a blog coming soon!)

My bus and I ferried passengers backwards and forwards to a church and reception in nearby St Helens for one of Jimmy Choo’s designers.

The Bunch hit the Alamo for Emily’s birthday.

I start up an email-writing-humour-filled friendship with Mr Jason Tabrys; truly my partner-in-crime. One of us will end up famous. The other will be riding the others coat-tails… but as long as there are big houses and bitches involved, I don’t care who does it.

JULY

I finally take over the gold mondeo I’ve been driving sporadically over the last couple of years. I’ve no real intention of driving it as I need to give my dad some more work as the markets he’s been grafting for years don’t seem to be a viable long term prospect. Plus it’s warmer in the car. Only downside is he’ll probably meet some of my idiot mates… but at least the car is now mine after a long, drawn-out process of trying to buy it. And blowing an engine in it. Twice.

Bam, Jo and I go to the Isle of Wight Zoo which is always good fun. Her brother – Darren (of the NFL blog fame) – works there and feeds the goats with Bam while I look after the monkey. *ahem*

Tommy Harding manages to coax me out of beach football retirement to play a game for

What the fuck were we thinking?

him along with some of my old team as he’s short of players. We lose. I don’t even make it onto the pitch after realising how unfit I am walking to the pitch.

The Ryde Taxis weekly golf tournament starts. Copey and I are very similar in scores throughout the next few weeks. The sessions also allow Frank Allen the following observation:

“Jody’s golf swing is perfect – he actually looks like a pro… until he hits the ball.”

The Wild Bunch hit Weatherspoons. Hard.

Had a five minute chat all about Bam with Hawksbee and Jacobs on their brilliant TalkSport afternoon show. I have intentions for TalkSport but all will be revealed at a later date…

I take Bam to the Thomas Day Out at Havenstreet Steam Railway, a day we always both enjoy. It’s also probably Bam’s favourite place on the island and we’ll be back again a couple of times during the year.

And in July I started blogging.

AUGUST

Take Bam to Space Island and catch up with some old friends in the form of Skeete, Lucy

Lee’s photo of Bam, through a treestump

and Lee Richards and all their kids. Lee takes a photo of Bam which gets reproduced many times by myself and ends up as a Christmas present to my mum. Lee definitely needs to get more involved in photography. And he also qualifies for a blog on his own… not just through his photography but because every time he asks me to come out for a quiet drink, things go veeeeeeeeeeeeery awry.

Went to Brixton Academy with Lindon Plumley and saw the Wu-Tang Clan! Blogged.

Bam and I go to the Chale Show to confront my fear of flying by going up in the helicopter tours they do every year….

…this year they’re not doing them.

It’s my old friend and boss Andy Younies’ 40th birthday at the Oakfield Club House… a truly colourful event!

Andy's 40th

Saw Mat Carrington BA Hons III again!

Gabbi Wickes and her dad, Kev, come down for a week and we end up on a good night out.

Back to Havenstreet with Bam, this time for the Steam Fayre.

The island is besieged during it’s always-brilliant Scooter Rally, and Frank Allen and I are convinced to go down to the King Lud pub wearing our football shirts as we were informed THAT everyone would be doing the same that night. Frank and I are the only ones with football shirts on.

The last barbeque of the year is – as always – a big event, and this time we even have the debut of local island band The Hay Stack Rats!

SEPTEMBER

It’s off to Thorpe Park we go on a day out with Copey, Jo, The Guv’nor (Andy) and others. I worry Bam will be scared of the rides… but he soon puts me straight on that one. We also see Louie Spence, Duncan James, and Tamzin Outhwaite there. As you do.

The Wild Bunch hit Appley Manor for some joint birthdays. It ends up in my garden at 2am doing headstands.

OCTOBER

Most of this month is taken up with Jo and I going on holiday to Canada. I’ve already blogged the hell out of it so go read them.

The Wild Bunch hit Ryde Tandoori.

I hang around with him for his intelligence and humour. Since he sold the car I haven't been over to see him, however.

Saw Mr Carrington again.

Bump into old friends Joz and Jodie on a random night out in Spoons. It’s messy, but fun. Some of the Bunch are in attendance.

Remember the salsa dancing Kay and Steve got me? Well, I make them read The Worst Poem In The World(TM) at the Quay Arts Centre in front of the Island Poetry Society. Again, one day this will be a blog or a book. Or read out at my funeral.

Darren and I go to Wembley for the Annual International NFL Game. Again, blogged.

NOVEMBER

Andy, Bam, myself and loads more kids go to Splashdown in Poole.

Bam.

The island suffers some heavy floods. Bam and I go play in them!

The Ryde Taxi drivers have a Jolly Boys Outing to France and Belgium.

DECEMBER

Snow falls heavy right at the start of the month.

I take Bam, Cameron and Chloe to the Spinnaker Tower in Portsmouth, and a quick trip round Gunwharf.

I manage to get a part as a zombie in The Zombie Diaries 2: World of the Dead thanks to old family friend Liam Kealy! The film is released this coming July (2011) and I will put up the blog about my day of being dead up then.

A man of natural beauty.

The Wild Bunch have their annual Christmas dinner… this time at the Beijing Palace. Nothing like a good old traditional chicken korma for Christmas…

Chris ‘Anal’ Ettritch and I take out Jo’s car with Bam in the snow… and rag the shit out of it. Must admit, it’s a gem in the snow, that little Fiesta!

This is quickly followed by Anal and Caroline’s leaving do, as they are off around the world for four months

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So, that’s my year in summary. Again, self-indulgent and a good way for me to look back in years to come and remember just exactly what the hell I was doing, but it’s fun nonetheless, and it should be a good read if you’re one of my friends or if you simply want to know about me!

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ve still got a bloody book to write!

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I’m Going To Write a Book

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Yeah, you heard me. After last years’ successful blogs (most notably the blog about ambition) I’ve decided to go for it. I’m 34 years old and should’ve had a book in print by now. Nope, it’s not bragging, ‘cos I know I got the gift, it’s just the graft I’ve always been lacking.

But the blogs have helped. If I hadn’t written the blog about wanting to be in a zombie film last year then I would never have been an extra in the Zombie Diaries 2 (released July 2011), and the blogs also allowed me a further additional experience to my holiday in Canada as I looked at things in a completely different light with a view to blogging all about it. I think it also helped me enjoy the trip more in a way.

So now the power of the blog shall help me again. By making this bold statement I’m putting additional pressure on myself. By telling all of you my plans it wouldn’t just be myself I would be letting down. I like to think that there are a few of you out there that would like to see me succeed in this, and would like to come along for the ride as I aim to get this bad boy published.

Let me explain my gameplan:

If you have read any of my previous articles then you will know that I have (at my feet beneath my computer table) two large notepads in which I have written 253 pages of badly-hand-written scrawl. And if you know me in any way at all, you’ll also realise that this is a book about my favourite subject: zombies.

No wait, come back!! It’s good! (I think) I’ve written many, many things throughout my short life, but this book was something I always came back to and toyed with. It’s a living, breathing beast awaiting release… and that time is due.

I’m also hoping that this blog and book will help any other wannabe writers out there, to guide then on which steps to take (or not to take!). Although I have never had a book published I know a lot more than the average layman does of the process. It’s something I’ve studied for years as I knew one day that I would need this knowledge. Now I’m going to put that knowledge to the test.

I’m planning on monthly updates as well to explain the whole process of putting pen to paper and then getting it to print. I’ll explore the methods of getting yourself an agent, or  – if I’m feeling lucky and confident enough – I might even just get it all ready and start sending it out to publishers. It should prove interesting either way. Let’s just hope I don’t end up with egg on my face! (Although that would be a series of interesting blogs in itself…)

Even if you have no desire to be a published author then hopefully the blog will still be as enjoyable to you as most of my others, and feel free to stop me in the street (or email, or Tweet) and ask me how things are going and to make sure I’m not slacking off either!

I’ll leave it at that for now, as I have declared January to be a month of detox from my many vices while I concentrate on getting The Book finished and published. Monthly updates shall entail, but feel free to comment below and ask me any questions you may have.

Let’s get this undead baby out into the world.

Wish me luck.

Canada – The Final Day

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And so it’s off home we head.

Spotting whale spotters!

I think on some subconscious level my body-clock  is already trying to adjust as I awaken at 6am after having turned off the tv at half-past midnight.

When we picked up our Ford Escape SUV way back two weeks ago in Vancouver, the car-rental clerk told us to drop it off with an empty tank. I took him at his word and dropped off the vehicle with the trip computer reading “5km TO EMPTY”. Hope there was a gas station nearby.

We check in at the airport as soon as the gates open and – after a full body scan which found a minuscule  piece of foil paper in my back pocket – we then sit by boarding gate 42 awaiting our flight home, but only after having bought a last couple of gifts for close friends.

Vancouver

Although I do rue not having bought Chris ‘Anal’ Ettritch an “I Love Big Dumps” t-shirt in Banff. I’m quite certain that not buying that for a man who has written-off my toilet a few times will haunt me…

So we sit in Calgary Airport; I with my pen and pad; Jo with her freshly-bought sanitary towels, looking back on a very successful and entertaining tour of Canada’s west-to-mid-west region. I’ve met some new friends, cemented other friendships, and feel that i have proven that Englishmen abroad wearing football shirts don’t necessarily equate to fighting thugs.

We have seen orcas, humpback whales, a beer and a deer all in the wild. We’ve seen baluga whales, dolphins, giant starfish and other animal wonders in an aquarium and even an

Stanley Park

awful undersea garden.

We have seen mountains everywhere we’ve looked, and even been up a couple. We’ve seen vistas of beauty and have looked down on people and the tops of giant trees through the glass floor of a gondola.

I have eaten bison, but alas, not elk. I have eaten a steak over two inches thick and discovered the wonders of garlic mash. I have (finally) eaten a Baby Ruth, a Tootsie Roll, but yet still the Twinkie eludes me.

Up a mountain in Whsitler

We have discovered that a tax hike earlier in the year meant that some things we had budgeted for way back in January when we booked the holiday were more expensive when we got there. We have found that the small b&b’s are just as good as the international accommodations. Fuel is a lot cheaper here than at home… even if I did look like a monkey working a washing machine trying to figure out how to get some of the fuel pumps to work.

We found that the Canadians are patriotic, hockey-mad, unafraid of what us Europeans call ‘the cold’, and they are also very, very friendly. We have discovered that ex-pats in Canada don’t miss England… except for small luxuries like gravy granules! And, strangely, I never

Views are like this all the time

met a single Scotsman on our travels… Maybe they all live in Nova Scotia?!

And I also saw no chavs! Well, not until we got to Calgary Airport where a Dappy-clone and his bitches were boarding a plane.

My plane, incidentally.

I have learned that no matter how long I stare at a handful of change it is always better to get the store clerk to sort the exchange for me. I have learned that the secret to driving on the correct side of the road is to “watch what you’re doing when you turn left at junctions”. I also know that a solitary englishman sitting in a sports bar in Canada will be the only guy watching an NFL game.

And I have also seen day meet night on the horizon at 36,000 feet, and I have then watched the moon shine on wing, cloud and sea at the same time… truly spectacular to behold.

I also  realised that not eating a thing on a 10 hour flight is no cure for jet lag. I learnt that one the hard way!

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So as we fly over an illuminated Glasgow at night I wonder where my next flight of fancy will take me, and I think about my next planned trip approaching in 2011 to Wisconsin to see an old friend.

Flying home

It’s exactly that moment that Chris Ettritch messages me tongue-in-cheek, asking about holidays, and by the same bizarre stroke of fortune it appears that two guys from the same road on the Isle of Wight may just both be in Chicago at the same time next year.

Us two in the Windy City?

Now that would be something to write about.

Canada Day Twelve & Thirteen: Banff and Calgary and Bob The Dog

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It’s a long six hour drive to Banff with a hangover.

On our way we pass an artic lorry on it’s side in a ditch so big I barely saw it at first, if it

The views are always spectacular

wasn’t for the guys in high-vis jackets and cones we probably wouldn’t have noticed it all. It leaves us wondering how it could have ended up in there.

Banff is beautiful and I can see why everyone fussed about it when we told them we were going through there. Someone even suggested we don’t go to Calgary and stay in Banff instead! However, we gotta get home somehow and the airport is in Calgary!

We arrived late and found a little Holiday Lodge B&B literally thirty seconds walk from the main street. It was cheap at $65 a night and a really lovely and quaint place. There’s a hallway between our room and the kitchen and the owner – Scott Yaeger – said he shut the kitchen door once and a Korean guest spent three days in his room as he thought he wasn’t allowed into the kitchen!

A quick walk around the site of an old zoo and a bridge spanning an impressive body of water and all that’s left for today is to get some food in the Old Spaghetti Factory – really good food at a decent price. Unfortunately we’re both too tired to eat it all!

Our thirteenth and final day saw us leave our happy little b&b under a warm sun and cool air… and ten minutes later both sides of the highway are covered in frost. A few miles further and snow covers everything and falls heavily around us. Yep, our last 24 hours on Canadian soil and it finally frickin snows.

I must admit to not being too impressed with Calgary and it just reminds me of London,

The Calgary Tower

but it might also be that all the Canadians we’ve met on our travels have told us not to bother with the place! I think it’s because that Canadians in general are outdoors-loving folk, with plenty of space and wilderness around them, and Calgary might seem too busy and confined for them.

Still, we’re here and determined to make our short stay as much fun as possible.

The 191 meter tall Calgary Tower is our first stop. The restaurant at it’s peak provides us with brilliant views as we chow down on very tasty pork subs and fries as the room slowly turns in a 360 degree view of the city. It’s a unique experience and I find myself warming to Calgary more.

An unnerving view from the glass floor of the Tower!

And suddenly it starts to snow and we’re sat up high watching the sky scrapers and buildings around us begin to disappear underneath the snowfall.

More than satisfied with both the food and the view, we depart the tower for a quick walk around the streets before our next rendezvous.

A few years ago I got my hgv licence and joined a website called www.truckersworld.co.uk where I became friends with an ex-pat trucker in Canada called Robert Menhenit – aka BobTheDog. I bugged him with Canadian questions about lifestyle and work and he always took the time out to explain and answer my queries, so when we realised we’d both be in Calgary at the same time we had to meet up!

We met at the Blackfoot Truckstop and Jo was so disgusted by the place she took a picture of everyone and everything in the restaurant! I didn’t think it was too bad…

Bob’s a great guy – really laid back and has a slow drawl to his talk which is infectious. He has an opinion on everything and is very knowledgeable on a host of subjects and soon Jo’s gone back to the car to wait while we continue chatting!

Calgary from the Tower

Evening draws in and we find a Travel Lodge to stay in before killing some time in the nearby Chinook Centre. It’s a very impressive shopping mall with unimpressive shops, but the real reason we went was to go watch Jackass 3d… but the queue was too damn long and I was getting hungry.

So, we walked back to the hotel only to realise that the building next door was a steakhouse called The Keg Steakhouse! Food time, and I had possibly the greatest piece of steak I’ve ever eaten. It was called a baseball steak served with garlic mash and I’ve never wanted a meal to never end before! All tales suggested Calgary was home of the steak, and I definitely agree.

Two legends finally meet: Solaar and Bobthedog

Retiring to bed I flick through the Canadian tv channels and suddenly feel a pang of regret that I’m not going to be able to watch as much Robot Chicken and NFL and college football games back in the UK.

It’s been a great two weeks and Canada has been amazing… and I like to think that I’ve made my mark on the second biggest country in the world as well!

There will be one more Canada blog after this one; just a summary of the holiday in general before I turn my hand back to normal blogs and stop boring people with my Canadian antics. Some people have slideshows to do it, but I use blogs!

Calgary from the air

Canada – Day Eleven: The Day We Nearly Died

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Rising for breakfast I bump into one of the guys from Quebec rummaging through the food in the communal fridge. He wasn’t helping himself, but he and his wife had filled the appliance with lots of their own food. I wish we’d thought of doing this kind of thing eleven days ago as it was the meals in restaurants and take aways that were making my wallet lighter! Ray’s (the owner of the hotel we were staying in) wife Liz mentioned that the other guests had bought enough food for a back-up superstore!

After a friendly and intuitive conversation with our fellow guests we were – once again – ready to roll. Both the Quebecans and Ray advised us to check out the salmon run in  nearby Sorrento as the BBC were there recently filming the biggest exodus of sockeye salmon in 100 years.

It’s a short drive before we’re herded into a car park packed with cars and more school buses than I’ve ever seen in my life. Kids are everywhere and some of the teachers look way out of their depth. I even saw one teacher grab some kids before realising they were from a different school!

Salmon swimming upstream

Even more disturbing was a young child leaving one of the portaloos asking the teacher if he should use the hand sanitizer inside.

“Only if you want to get cancer when you’re older.” was her unbelievable reply!

Watching the fish swim in their thousands upstream was really impressive, and the sight of hundreds of dead fish washed up on the shores all over the place were equally disturbing.

After a couple of hours we left and headed toward Salmon Arm, but on the way there we passed an old automobile museum so I thought I’d pull over a take a photo or two of the old and rusty relics lining the side of the road. We weren’t there long (as it was shut!) before getting back in the Escape. This is the point I made one of the biggest mistakes of my life.

Almost the last thing I ever saw!

In England you see the odd story of the 80 year old man who drives the wrong way down the motorway.

Today, I was that 80 year old man.

I turned left out of the museum and drove down the highway… the wrong way. Years of having driven on the left made me do it automatically, when all of a sudden I realised that the was a truck driving along behind me… on the other side of the road. I was about to question what he was doing before I realised to my horror what I had done, and that I was heading the wrong way on the wrong side of the highway – and switching my eyes forward I saw two cars approaching me over the brow of the hill at high speed!

The man on the right is called Thor... by me, anyway!

I stuck the Escape into the dirt on the side of the road as the cars skidded and swerved to avoid me, but thankfully it all ended safely, even if we were pretty shaken. After convincing one of the drivers (and his pregnant daughter) that I wasn’t drunk and that it was a slip of the mind and that the police didn’t need to be involved I waited until it was clear before slowly making our way again – this time on the right side of the road!

To this day the events can still creep into my mind and make me shiver, and sometimes I have to pause and remind myself what side of the road I should be on… even back home in England!

Carefully we returned to Salmon Arm to meet up with Matt vatkin, Jess Ladner, Matt Parnell, Curtis Schindler (plus a truly Nordic-looking man I dubbed Thor who crushed me in a bear-hug as we left) and the other locals for a Vatkin-inspired karaoke night and some much needed liquid refreshment, before heading back to Jess’ to smoke cigars, sit round the fire and then crash out in her spare room.

The Salmon Arm Gang

Canada – Day 10: Vernon and Davison Orchard

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An early rise (as always during our holiday) starts with what can be loosely described as breakfast at the Travel Lodge. It involves being crammed into a tiny room shared by the reception desk, with the other residents lining up to butter toast or dispense cereal from downward-facing containers. I almost skipped it, but one slice of dry, horrible cold toast and we’re heading for Vernon.

Lake Okanagan

Vernon – in my opinion – is one of the nicest housed areas we’ve seen, and there’s still plenty of hills and mountains in every direction to keep it picturesque.

We head up to Silver Star Road where our destination is a hotel called The Castle On The Mountain and it’s owned by Ray Clark and family – brother to my friend Kev, who lives half a mile away from me on the Isle Of Wight.

It’s a beautiful house, and the view is spectacular out of our front-facing window. We drop our luggage off and Ray briefs us on a couple of places to visit before we head into Vernon’s centre for some tourist time.

A wild deer we saw in Ellison Park

The town itself is the usual collection of shops, so we head out to Ellison Park – in particular a lovely little spot looking out over Lake Okanagan. Unbelievably the toilets are Chris Ettritch-proof: they’re simply holes in the ground covered by huts… and you certainly wouldn’t want to drop your wallet down one…

20km in the other direction (40k with Jo’s navigation skills) and we quickly visit a quaint farming community called Lumby before finding ourselves at the Shuswap hydro-electricity site – a very impressive amalgamation of nature and man-made machinery.

The Shuswap Hydro-electricity Plant

Afterwards we went back into Vernon and visited the Davison Orchard where they were ending their season of pumpkin harvesting. I was so hungry by this time I was sampling all of the free biscuits and dips on offer… and I heartily recommend the apple butter!

A bunch of pumpkin heads.

Pizza and pasta dinner at Boston Pizza that evening and we were done for the day, retiring back to our comfy room in the Castle On The Mountain to blissfully relax…

…unaware that tomorrow I would inadvertedly almost kill ourselves and two other people…