Blood Pumping Good

Pinch and a punch for the first day of the month!

Jamie and I started the month off in Dennys Diner with pancakes, bacon and eggs fuelling ourselves for another 5 hour drive towards Jasper. Today we entered the Rockies region. Amazing mountains. We stopped for a picnic lunch at Mt Robson. Mt Robson is quite shy as he rarely shows his head through the clouds. After some food a group of us swapped buses ready for our next adrenaline pumping activity. White water rafting. Exhilarating, rough, extremely wet but so much fun. We got chucked around in our 8 passenger raft along Fraser River for 12 kilometres. We were skilful enough to not fall out, instead we had a choice to swim in the freezing melted-snow water with a wetsuit to protect us. Jamie and I jumped in as we knew this was an opportunity we wouldn’t forget. It was cold. The German gentleman we met over dinner leant me his jacket for the ride home, how lovely!

We reached our hotel in Jasper. It reminded me of the hotel in some of those British comedies with moose heads hanging on the wall, old wallpaper and floral covered arm chairs. Good vibes. We settled in, had time for a warm shower and then headed out to a brewery for dinner which was followed by drink at the bar within our hotel. Tonight we experienced something only Conitki participants experience. A shot which was invented and only drank for Contiki people, only at this hotel. A Beaver Licker. It has it’s own Canadian touch, with maple syrup whiskey and butterscotch schnapps. A ritual. The night ended very well, we spent it talking to our fellow contiki-ers including S&A.

Canada in many angles

Today was amazing. New experiences everywhere! I'm in awe of how beautiful Whistler is and I'm so excited to see what the rest of our tour has in store for us. This morning Jamie and I joined majority of our tour group for a canoe along the River of Golden Dreams. This was a beautiful, clear and clean lake with a view of mountains and silence all around. Picture perfect. The lake lead onto a river which we paddled on for approximately two hours. Minor rapids included. Jamie and I had the paddling down pat! We had to concentrate when riding on the rapids as no one wanted to capsize or fall into the water. The water was from the snow from the mountains - freezing! We had worked up an appetite from this activity therefore we enjoyed some Canadian hamburgs and fries for lunch. At 2.45pm we met with 8 others to participate in zip-lining. OH MY GOSH! This was beyond amazing and something that words or photos can not explain. We swung above the tress, over creeks and between valleys. Four zip-lines later we had gone over 90km/h, screamed, laughed and had enough adrenaline pumping to do anything {See the photo above - we swung on those cables}. Jamie and I felt so blessed and happy to have the opportunity to do this. The time came to take off our harness's and helmets and go back to Whistler. We were sad for the fact the time was over but excited that our adventures aren't over. We had some time to chill out before going out for dinner with everyone at an Irish pub. This was nice. I tried a tried Canadian Cocktail - it was disgusting. My food was good though. We sat with a couple from Germany who have worked in Toronto for the past 10 months, we learnt a lot over such a short amount of time. At 10pm, the day was not over, we joined everyone at a local club for an '80's night. We felt young. When some found out I wasn't even born then, they were shocked. A couple hours later we were back in our hotel ready for sleep. Bring on tomorrow!

Last Day in NY

Jamie and I started our day heading towards 5th Avenue in search of New York's Public Library. We found it. It looked impressive from the outside but was very hard to navigate around on the inside, it was as though they had made it hard for tourists on purpose. After some photos in front of the library we started our walk to Central Park. Along the way we stopped at a few stores including a Lindt store. Bad idea - Chocolate was bought. This store had so many flavours of lindt that I had never seen before, Jamie and I had to try some. We only could afford to look through the 6 floors of Tiffany & Co. and visited the apple store which is open 24/7!! Jamie and I located Central Park and started our stroll. It is massive. 843 acres is quite hard to navigate through therefore we bought a map. We sore baseball fields, green 'paddocks' to kick the ball or have a picnic, volleyball courts, cafes, restaurants and lakes. We paid US$12.50 to hire a row boat and paddle along one of the lakes in Central Park. We had the boat for an hour which was enough to enjoy the beautiful scenery.

It was around 4:00pm when Jamie and I decided to catch our first New York taxi. Definitely an experience as it had its own TV for the passengers and very comfortable seating. We got dropped off at one of the biggest department stores in the World, Macy's. Nine floors of every shoppers dream. After fighting temptation to buy something Jamie and I walked 8 blocks back to our hotel room to get ready for The Lion King in broadway. The show was everything we could have hoped for and MORE. We had goosebumps from start to finish and would do it again any second. Money well spent and definitely recommended. Incredible.

After a busy last day in New York, we managed to see the end of the Olympic 2012 opening ceremony. We will be cheering our home country on from the states and Canada, go Australia go!