The Unicycle Diaries 8: Grouse Mountain, Vancouver

When Narrelle and I visited Canada last year, we spent a day at Grouse Mountain, north of Vancouver and a popular recreation area. Here's an account, lightly adapted from the notes I made on the day...

It's surprising how close this rugged area is to the city, making it an easy day trip or even a half-day outing.

The shuttle bus from Canada Place drops us off at the cable car station at the foot of the mountain. The cable car is an impressive smooth ride up the steep green slopes, taking 6 minutes to get all the way up, with a couple of exciting lurches on the way as the car passes over its supports.

On the way up we can see the city and its hinterland spread out over a great distance.

It occurs to me that we should be able to see into the USA from here, and I realise I can indeed make out the US border quite distinctly just south of Vancouver - a straight line of much lighter vegetation heading east-west.

It's fascinating - I'm not quite sure why I can make it out so clearly from this distance, the border clearing should be only a few metres wide as I understand. It's odd to be able to clearly see a border, they're supposed to be invisible. Or maybe it's all just an optical illusion.

Grouse Mountain is a rambling set of buildings and attractions spread across the mountaintop, most within easy walking distance.

We make our way past carved wooden figures of animals and people which look like remnants of a secret pagan past, to reach the grizzly bear enclosure. There are two bears, about five years old, who were rescued as orphans from the wild and raised here.

It's a big open area with a lake and trees and a winter shelter for hibernation, so it looks a good life. One of the bears goes for a swim as we watch, lazily lying on his back in the water and playing with a floating piece of timber.

We go for a short walk up a slope which leads to a peak near the Eye of the Wind lookout situated within a wind turbine, and pause to take in the view. We can see the city framed by slopes and trees now, and that hint of the US border is still evident.

Then it's back to the "World Famous" Lumberjack show. While sitting on benches waiting for it to start, we munch on a Beavertail - a long doughnut like confection with soft edges and a brittle centre, dusted with sugar and cinnamon.

The show is good fun, a nice balance of humour and skill. An MC directs two "lumberjacks" through a series of competitive tasks - woodchopping, sawing, logrolling - while we take sides.

The two guys performing the impressive feats are also decent actors, each taking on a character and bantering with each other and the audience. It's not too blokey, the female MC keeps the humour cheeky and funny, rather than too stereotypically cheesy.
It's broad humour but it's funny and works for the big diverse crowd.

Highlights include an opening gag in which a "tourist" invades the area and climbs a tall pole before losing his gear then falling to safety; and the log rolling is particularly athletic.

There's also a bit of audience participation, eg two women joining the lumberjacks to saw through a log, dressed in 19th century gingham dresses.

We finish with lunch at the onsite Altitudes restaurant:  British Columbian salmon on flatbread, long pretzels served with Guinness butter, fish tacos made with lingcod, and a chicken club sandwich. Accompanied by beer from Granville Island Brewing, a lager and its Ginger Ninja.

It's decent cafe-style food, though with the usual North American tendency to enormous serves.

From the patio where we sit there's a great view over the mountain greenery and the slope below, with occasional hang-gliders passing. Impressive.

Find out more about Grouse Mountain and its attractions by clicking here. Disclosure time... On this trip I travelled courtesy of the Canadian Tourism Commission.

The Unicycle Diaries 7: The Bison That Time Forgot

After my first Lonely Planet assignment in Poland in winter 2006, I pitched this bison-related story idea to a number of publications. Nothing came of it, but I thought it'd make a good backbone for a picture story here...

I’ve never felt much like Little Red Riding Hood... until this very moment.

Having left the minibus at the turn-off from the road to Białowieża, a small village near Poland’s border with Belarus, I’m trudging along a road caked with thick snow. My footsteps are the only thing audible, though even they are muffled by the crunchy white layer beneath my feet.

It’s the middle of the day, but the sky is a strange muted grey and the bare spindly trees look like extras from The Blair Witch Project. And I know there are wolves in these woods. And I know the European Bison Reserve must be just a kilometre or so ahead. But my hindbrain isn’t so sure this is a good idea...

On my first Lonely Planet assignment in Poland in the midst of winter in 2006, I journeyed through the snowy forest to see the last wild European bison in a reserve near a tiny eastern town. What I discovered was snow, bison, wolves, tarpans and the village that time forgot.

The Unicycle Diaries is an occasional series wherein I use excerpts from diary entries or story pitches to create a snapshot of a past journey. For previous instalments, click on the Unicycle Diaries topic tag below, then scroll down.

The Unicycle Diaries 6: Kuala Lumpur Snapshots

Was looking through my records and came across this diary scrap from a media trip to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia in early 2009. Add some photos and - bingo! - instant blog post. Hope you enjoy it...

Friday 6 February 2009

- Visit to Thean Hou, a big Taoist temple, decorated with lots of colourful figures for Chinese New year.

- Lunch at Menara KL, allegedly the fourth tallest tower in world, though a little shorter than the Petronas Towers. Revolving restaurant, choice of Malay or Western food. Lots of excellent choices involving curries, roti etc. Also desserts with a twist, like soupy durian and a creme caramel with strips of banana baked on the top.

- Visited the amazing Starlight Gallery mall on Bukit Bintang. Was sceptical at first (not being a keen shopper), but its Feast level was impressive. It's a ritzy type of food hall, borrowing the hawkers' traditions and giving them the five star treatment.

The architecture draws largely on traditional Malay designs but uses unusual perspectives and arrangements to give them a thoroughly modern look. Wandering through Feast, down defined walkways that only reveal the next eatery once you’ve passed the previous one, is like walking through an Aladdin's Cave - dimly lit, cool, full of gleaming treasure.

- Skybar at Traders Hotel, 32nd floor. Spectacular! Has an open roof so the afternoon tropical rain falls through into the swimming area. Along the side are cushioned alcoves right up against the glass windows looking across to the Petronas Towers. Had a swim, then sat in alcove with a very nice martini and a book, occasionally glancing at the view.

- Staff at the hotel have the balance just right - they’re attentive and efficient without ever seeming obsequious. Being among Malaysians makes me feel cheerful, they're generally relaxed and open people. And you can't fault the view...

Tim Richards travelled courtesy of Tourism Malaysia and Malaysia Airlines.

The Unicycle Diaries 5: An Imperfect Grasp of the French

A fragment taken from my travel diaries written in French Polynesia, in October 2005...

Passage at patisserie this morning:

"Comment dis 'receipt' a français?"

Blank look.

"The bill... l'edition?"

Glimmer of understanding.

"Ah! Le ticket!"

Hands receipt over.

Vaguely remembered schoolboy French is a dangerous thing (especially if, like me, you never actually studied it at school). A receipt in English is a recipe in French, a French 'ticket' is our receipt, an English ticket is a 'bilet', and our billet is... oh, never mind.

Overnight, the previously perfectly sunny weather gave a hint of the coming wet season, pouring down in the wee small hours. We later went swimming in a steady light shower, experimenting with the waterproof casing of Narrelle's camera by taking pics of the hotel from the sea.

Preconceptions of paradise

The aquamarine shade of the ocean is so distinctive and somehow instantly relaxing; it makes me wonder whether it's a case of chicken and egg. Is aqua an instinctively relaxing colour, or have we been brainwashed by decades of travel brochures and tropical movies into finding it so?

It's the same with the holiday destination; we're attracted by what we know about it, what's entered our consciousness through media coverage and fiction. Polynesia immediately conjures up images of Bligh and Mutiny on the Bounty, along with an 18th century focus on free love and sensuous women.

Add to that Paul Gauguin's paintings and the tropical cliches like palm trees and pineapples, and you have a simple compelling picture. But how valuable is it? Westerners know a fair bit about Japan and nearly nothing about neighbouring Korea, yet presumably both of them have just as much to offer the traveller.

Pacific pacification

Either way, there's something extraordinarily relaxing about Mo'orea. It has the air of a quiet beachside town par excellence; akin to holiday locations on the Red Sea or the quieter islands of Fiji. The medium-priced hotels here have the best of both worlds - comfort and informality.

At night there's nothing much to do, no TV in the room and nothing but the stars and the quietly undulating surf to watch. To anyone living and working in a city nowadays, that's all it takes to qualify as paradise.

We combined breakfast with experiments involving French, and some clever deductive work by the patisserie proprietor ("You are Australian? Your chapeau is like Crocodile Dundee"). Yes, that's the choice you make when you consider the hot sun of the Pacific: risk sunstroke or risk constant identification as an Aussie on vacation.

The local shops are refreshingly un-mall-like, with wooden verandahs enclosing a green quadrangle. There's a bank, newsagency, Internet access and  a little supermarket selling fresh baguettes, limited vegetables, and some local fruit such as pineapple and grapefruit.

Even supermarket prices are breathtaking in French Polynesia, but it's cheaper than eating out all the time. For 20 cents you can even buy a sac de pain, a long narrow plastic bag for putting your baguette in - does your supermarket at home offer that?

The French connection

Back at the hotel we met Michael, a stocky tattooed Tahitian who will take us for a tour of Mo'orea on Wednesday. Turning our back on the obvious attractions of the sea (local aquatic activities include swimming with sharks and stingrays), we want to turn inland and see more of the interior landscape and local culture.

After setting up the tour, we chatted for a while about French Polynesia. He's dismissive of the push for independence, basically on economic grounds; Tahiti and its neighbours have become deeply reliant on imports and French spending over the years, especially while French nuclear testing was operating in the area.

I suggested the French would have to compensate the territory either way if the testing proves to have dangerous long-term consequences, as are already hinted at in scientific investigations of damage on Moruroa.

But Michael had done well out of Tahiti's French connection, living in Paris and travelling across Europe and Asia. He's the modern face of a once-remote people who are now connected to the world, like it or not. The advantages of this connectedness no doubt help maintain this region's vestiges of colonialism, decades after it became a dirty word and vanished elsewhere.

Propping up le bar

At night I sat in the bar for a while, reading the Wodehouse biography and half-hoping to strike up a conversation with someone. But it was one of those nights when there were no English speakers around.

Coco said hello when I arrived and I had a brief chat with him and two gorgeous Tahitian women exuding Parisian chic in strapless tops; but conversation would be too hard to sustain with our limited grasp of each other's languages, so I took a seat inside and ordered a Hinano beer.

Not for the first time, I felt frustrated by my lack of the local lingo; but there was something pleasingly exotic about sitting with a beer, reading about the quintessential English humorist, while listening to the gentle flow of French around me. As has been frequently noted, it really is a beautiful language to listen to.

The Unicycle Diaries is a random series of excerpts from my travel diaries. For previous instalments, click on the Unicycle Diaries Topic tag below, then scroll down.

The Unicycle Diaries 4: Pining in the Pacific

In March 2007 I flew to Norfolk Island, an autonomous Australian territory in the Pacific Ocean. It was a mere 24 hours' stay, as part of a contingent which included retired football coach Ron Barassi, entertainer John Michael Howson and a bunch of travel writers. It was simultaneously fast, furious, fascinating and curiously low-key. Here are some notes I made in my diary at the time...

- I’m in a pleasant timber cafe on the main shopping drag, with espresso coffee and wireless Internet access. The service is suitably relaxed, though the coffee is no threat to Melbourne’s best. But what it lacks in urban sophistication, Nl makes up for in laidback small-town charm. Our driver, Les, likes to make fun of the island’s remoteness (“The Internet? What’s that?”), but of course that’s the whole appeal of the place.

- Quirky, daggy & just plain fascinating place names: we pass Burglars Lane on the way to dinner.

- The island is full of Norfolk Pines (funny, that), its originally volcanic landscape softened to rolling green hills by time. For anyone brought up in an Australian country town, it’s curiously reminiscent of rural Oz in the 1960s, especially those trees, which used to pop up in small town parks with predictable regularity.

- “We got everything Tahiti got, we only no got the coconut,” sings Trent Christian during our Rotary Club hosted ‘fish fry’ at Puppy’s Point. Also “Captain Cook came to our isle... (something) made... (something) smile”. OK, didn’t catch all that.

- Puppy’s Point: a gorgeous picnic spot with an odd name, wedded to a sheer cliff, a magnificent showcase of the Pacific Ocean, interrupted only by the conical silhouette of a lone Norfolk pine.

- The food is a strange blend of the exotic and the old-fashioned (Rotary Club lemon pie is just like mother made back in the ’70s).

- Fish fries are apparently very big on NI, more of the whole unconscious retro thing. The accommodation too seems dated; one major hotel has a dining room identical to the one in Fawlty Towers. Though there’s something kinda reassuring about it all.

- Taxi service: There’s only one taxi on NI, the sole form of public transport available. The cab’s fare structure is interesting, at least if you can believe what you’re told. I was informed by one islander that journeys are $5 inside the cattle grid which keeps the cows out of the commercial centre of Burnt Pine, where they might play havoc with the duty-free shopping, and $10 to anywhere outside it.

- Cows are a recurring symbol of Norfolk Island as they’re grazed in common, as they have been since the early days of the colony, so they range free outside the cattle grid. A piece of trivia that every visitor somehow learns is that the fine for killing a cow by collision with your car is about $500. These wandering bovines are not holy, but they’re also not cheap.

- The picnic spots on NI are simple, with limited facilities, but they’re absolutely gorgeous. I could easily spend days at Emily Beach or Puppy’s Point, provided I’d brought some food and drink with me.

- After only a day here, I’m swimming in the clear blue waters of Emily Bay, feeling myself tangibly unwind as I ignore the work awaiting me at home, the world news and anything else which might be stressful.

- In some ways, it’s hard to know quite what to make of Norfolk. On one hand, it lacks the full-blown exotica of other Pacific destinations like Vanuatu or Fiji; on the other hand, you can’t fault its climate or its absolute tranquillity.

Tim Richards travelled courtesy of Norfolk Air and Norfolk Island Tourism. As this article is based on personal experience from 2007, the author takes no responsibility for readers' reliance on the information within. Always check on the current cow fine situation before travelling to Norfolk Island.

The Unicycle Diaries 3: Slovak Mountain High

From my travel diaries written in Slovakia last year, wherein I wander through the mountainous mist and learn about nudity etiquette in spas...

Wed 18 June 2008

- Got up to find the mountains completely vanished, covered in heavy mist that begins just above town. Clearly not a great day to go up major peak in cable car as planned, as no views.

- Plan B: Take train trip along the local mountain railway to Štrbské Pleso, at other end of Tatra mountains; lots of snowsports etc. Also more forest, as it was less damaged by the windstorms a few years ago.

- Starý Smokovec train station is a quaint part-timbered, pocket-sized place, with tourists milling about waiting for the next trains heading in all directions. There’s something both soothing and artificial about a purely holiday town. Staff at station even speak some German, and there’s English used extensively.

- Train is red and sparkling new, winds its way west , twisting along slopes, sometimes below roads and townsites, sometimes above. Very green and misty but you can still see a lot of damage from the storms. Occasionally rocky streams pass below us.

- Štrbské Pleso is bigger than expected, lots of accommodation under construction, and yes lots of trees. I have a hiking map so grab a coffee near station and work it out. These colour-coded paths are good, easy to follow. It’s misty still and a bit cold, threatening rain, so I decide a short walk along the red trail into the forest would be good. It is pleasant, though I’m walking into the clouds and vision is short... creates a magical kind of fairy tale forest look, all those dark greens and the rocky trail.

- After a while I turn back and take a turn around the lake. Starts raining but I encounter timber cafe overlooking water. Opens at 12 noon so an old lady and I sit just undercover on deck, me reading my book, her loudly answering mobile calls. But the lake is fascinating – mist shrouds other side, fading slowly across water, dark green trees fading out in distance. Cool but not freezing.

- In cafe, order grilled sheep’s cheese on a garlic baguette, comes with sour cream and is very good. Have beer with it.

- Eventually wend way through construction to station, then back to my hotel and its wellness centre. Despite the weather – maybe because of it – it’s been a pleasant day. It’s good to get out in nature after all my urban adventures, just take it slow, take a breather.

- At wellness centre, get talking to a Croatian guy staying at the hotel for a railway conference. I’d been wondering about spa etiquette, as men wander around naked or near-naked, even though it’s a unisex space. He says it’s like this all over Europe; chalk the puzzlement up to Anglo-Saxon prudery. I think the basic rule is: if you don’t flaunt it, it’s OK to be naked occasionally and briefly, ie heading into the spa, shower, cold pool. Seems a healthy attitude. There, I've learned something today.

The Unicycle Diaries 2: Transit of Tahiti

Taken from my travel diaries written in French Polynesia...

Travelling eastward across the Pacific and the International Dateline is like starring in your own personal version of Groundhog Day; only with the added variety of radically different scenery as each day is repeated.

We spent Saturday 29th October and the Sunday morning in Auckland, then spent Saturday evening all over again in Tahiti, and now Sunday 30th on the neighbouring island of Mo’orea.

When we finally get past this weekend to Monday 31st, it’ll be a relief. Not that you should really be watching the calendar when you’re on holiday.

Our flight arrived at the capital Papeete at an impractical hour (as many flights into Tahiti do) on Saturday night, but in the end there was enough time to walk to the waterfront and have a meal.

The Saturday night collection of food vans and fold-up tables was fun, exuding casual charm. Patrons order from a surprisingly diverse range of dishes including Tahitian fish like mahi mahi, French standards like steak frites, and displaced Chinese food like "chow men".

Because we’re only here for a few days, we hadn’t applied our minds to speaking French, but were suddenly faced with linguistic limitations. My French stems almost entirely from literary references in Agatha Christie, PG Wodehouse, Sherlock Holmes and films like Amelie, while Narrelle’s is sourced from imperfectly-remembered schoolgirl lessons.

As a result, we’ve been committing blunders like asking for a receipt (‘recipe’ in French) instead of the correct word. Fortunately the French speakers of Tahiti take a more sympathetic view of Anglos mangling their language than their compatriots in Paris. Funny to think that after visiting that city 15 years ago, the next time we’d enter French territory would be so far away from Europe.

Here’s something strange I’ve noticed: the soundtrack to every overseas experience is in English, no matter how exotic the locale. On the Papeete waterfront, we could hear ABBA drifting from a nearby cruise ship; on a ferry’s radio, a Jamaican guy was singing “I need some nookie tonight”; and as I sit typing in the hotel bar, the background music is alternating between French numbers and English covers.

Before leaving Tahiti we went out early to visit the Marche, the city markets. The building is one of those practical open-but-covered structures you see in the Pacific, a vast mostly timber shed housing numerous stalls. Locals crowd in, buying and selling handcrafts, fish, flowers and fruit, including the more interesting varieties of bananas you never see in the West.

There are some beautiful but huge wooden masks that would never fit in the luggage, and some suspiciously sexual statuettes - you could imagine them selling by the truckload to sniggering tourists mindful of the old Tahiti stereotype regarding free love.

And now we’re on the neighbouring island of Mo’orea. The catamaran ride from Tahiti only takes 30 minutes, and the two islands are visible the whole time. While both are volcanic outcrops, Moorea's eastern approach is far more dramatic, a sharp protrusion of jagged peaks covered with greenery. I felt like chanting "Kong, Kong!" as we approached, but that’s a story for another day...

Note: As this article is based on personal experience from some years ago, the author takes no responsibility for readers' reliance on the information within.

The Unicycle Diaries 1: All Roads Lead...

Nothing is more fascinating than rediscovering forgotten experiences via an old travel journal. This inaugural wander down memory lane (part of an irregular series) is written by fantasy novelist Narrelle M Harris.

I face a particular challenge when travelling – for me, directions are something that happen to other people.

The main reason I am not still wandering around lost and dazed on the moors of England after my first overseas trip is that Tim was there to make sure I found the hotel again.

To be fair, I can mostly read a map. Provided it’s turned around so that it’s facing the same way as I am. I comfort myself with the knowledge that I have other skills useful on the travelling trail.

For example, having only English at my disposal, I have mimed my way across Europe, South America and the Middle East.

I may have spread bemusement and hilarity wherever I go, but I’ve also managed to purchase the required candles, bubble wrap and other sundry items along the way. So that’s +2 points for International Relations and Non-Verbal Communication.

My capacity to be geography-challenged is not all bad, though. Occasionally I get to have unexpected adventures as a result of not knowing where I am or where I’m going.

Rome, for example.

On our 2001 trip to Italy, I took the map and bravely flung myself out on the streets of the Italian capital on a solo mission to find a clock shop I had spotted a few days earlier.

The clocks, you see, were brilliant. Simple flat ceramic faces, glazed using a Japanese method called raku and bearing inscriptions in Latin. They became my had-to-have memento and I was determined to never leave Rome until I had bought one.

Consulting my travel diary of the time, I find two pages of handwritten notes, all about how lost I got. Note how carefully I have retraced my steps afterwards, using my otherwise useless map:

“I came to the Piazza Cardelli… then the Piazza Nicosia… then the river. Quick look at the map. Head west-ish down to via di Monte Brianzo (maybe) and get confused and down a different street… wander past several butchers, an art gallery, scaffolding, local apartments. Not a tourist in sight and I’m clearly in a residential area.

“Map check and then to the via della Stelletta, but too far… there’s the river again, but a different bit this time. Down a different road and round the via dell’Orso… getting kind of dizzy by now… and out I pop at the top of the Piazza Navona!”

I like that exclamation mark. How surprised I was to arrive at a place that was both familiar, and nowhere near where I was meant to be. But it continues:

“…head off around the Ai Monestari, heading for the Largo G Toniolo….the Piazza Rondanini… Piazza della Meddelana… is this where I found the beautiful paper shop, or was that earlier at the Piazza di Firenze?

“Forge on. I think I got muddled somewhere around the Chiesa di Santa Maria in Aquino… up the via dei Pastini to emerge at the Tempio di Adriano – Hadrian’s Temple. Which I’ve never seen before.”

At this point, I gave up looking for the clock shop and poked around some souvenir shops in the vicinity, before:

“I began to head back via dei Pastini – AND THERE WAS THE CLOCK SHOP!!! I’d walked right past it. Twice.”

I dived in to buy my clock. Alas, they did not have one inscribed with ‘Tempus Fugit’ but I got ‘Carpe Diem’ right enough, and carried it at the bottom of my suitcase for the rest of the trip.

Proving I can read a map when I actually know where my destination is supposed to be, I met Tim for lunch. My diary records him as being ‘vastly amused by this story’ of my fevered wanderings through Rome.

Eight years later, I still have my clock, and I still have the wonderful memory of bumbling along Roman back streets which are rarely seen by travellers who actually know where they’re going.

Find details of Narrelle's vampire novel The Opposite of Life at her website, along with details of her other books.