From Madrid to Silver Star Mountain - the epic journey of a lonely man

From Madrid to Silver Star Mountain - The epic journey of a lonely man

This is the story of Kyran Findlater, travelling from Madrid, Spain, to Silver Star Mountain, in British Columbia, Canada.

I left Madrid early in the morning with aunty-in-law Ester and my wonderful wife. They were nice enough to drop me off at the airport on their way to work early in the morning. After lots of tears and hugs and goodbyes, I strode off - determined to get on that plane without any hassle!

I successfully checked in all of the baggage through Lufthansa (who were carrying me on behalf of Canada Airlines) to Frankfurt, and going on to Canada. Thankfully I had no issues going through Spanish customs/border control, I did not need to show them my in-process paperwork - I was worried about being deported! All the hard work getting papers legalized and stamped back home did come to bear fruits though, as our marriage is "in progress" of being registered, and I have an application for residence also "in progress".  

The first flight to Frankfurt was about 2.5 hours, and was pretty straight forward. The transfer was short too, and soon I was on my way to Canada! Seen below is a picture of the in-flight entertainment screen, showing the flight path from Frankfurt to Calgary, in Alberta, Canada. 

I watched about 4 movies on that flight, I think they were "The Edge of Tomorrow", "Hercules", and some others. My plane-buddies were nice and quiet, and skinny, but needed to get up and go to the toilet every hour or two. 

I arrived in Calgary with an amazing view out of the plane (sorry, no pics) of snow covering the vast flat-lands, all the houses and fields totally covered in deep snow. My bags had to be collected and re-checked in at this airport, and I had to get my work permit/visa done at the Immigration desk. It all went smoothly!

When I arrived in Vancouver finally, after close to 15-16 hours of transit, I decided to save money and take the train to the city center, and walk to the Samesun Hostel where I had pre-booked 3 nights stay. On my walk, I stopped to take a picture of all the pretty lights, shown below, as I walked down one of the main streets in the city center:

Once at the hostel, I was in a 4-person shared room. I ended up having all 3 of my original room-buddies leave before me, and had 3 new guys show up the day before I left. The pictures below show the room, and my bed was the top bunk with the green water bottle up on the shelf. Also shown in my survival food of choice - Mi Goreng noodles!

While in Vancouver I had to organise my Social Insurance Number (essentially a Tax File Number in Australian terms) and a bank account. I also needed to get a Canadian mobile phone number, find a voltage converter for my 220V european engineering equipment, buy some new shoes and sunglasses, and finally (most expensively!) get all my snowboarding stuff sorted out. 

New shoes! Merrels, with Gore-Tex inner layer for waterproofing and insulation. Very fancy. $120 :(

I visited an Airsoft/camping/military shop which was about 50m down the road from the hostel. Yay!

Inside the hostel was nice enough, this is the common room area shown in the two pictures below. There were also little lounge areas at each floor's staircase/hallway area.

While on my way to go find a voltage converter (was very hard, took up a whole day) I took the subway again, and noticed there was no driver! See the picture below. Speeding down the tunnel!

I ended up getting a voltage converter, and on the way found a second hand sports shop called "Sports Junkies". They had reasonable stuff, and for $299 (not including tax.. as usual..) you can get a board + bindings + boots. I wasn't sure at the time if I should get a board set-up there so I continued on to get the converter. By the time I did that, time was running out and I didn't really want to spend $600-700 or more on new stuff if after 6 months I would have to find a way to get rid of it, and probably lose lots of money in the sale. I ended up getting the board package for $299. They were good brand items, so I shall see what happens!

The two full days in Vancouver ended up as just enough time, with plenty of sleep and one night of beer consumption in there too. The free breakfasts were enough to keep me going through the day, and some Mi Goreng would be okay for dinner. On the last day though, I got a nice vegetarian platter with lots of mexican stuff for lunch. 

The next phase of my trip was to take a Greyhound bus from Vancouver to Vernon, changing at Salmon Arm. The bus left at 6:30am on Friday, so I had to get up really early and get my stuff down to the taxi. I am pretty sure the Indian taxi driver ripped me off over double the usual amount, and then I tipped him heaps on top. Bastard. 

The picture below is looking towards the middle of the Greyhound terminal - nice and early in the morning but there was quite a few people there.

My bus! Number 19, to Salmon Arm with change-over to get to Vernon, which is at the base of Silver Star mountain. The next set of pictures is from my bus journey.

Icicles on the side of the rocks, where the water was flowing down and turned into ice-spikes! Was weird to see all the icy patches on the rocks.

The bus trip took ages, because the estimated 9 hours and 15 minutes was extended to over 10 hours due to delays at Salmon Arm. When I finally got to Vernon, I was certainly tired and it was extremely cold. The other Aussie guys in the bus with me didn't have any way/idea how to get to the mountain, and I had my boss coming to pick me up - so when she arrived she offered to help them get groceries with me and take us all up to the mountain - how nice!

After getting supplies and getting to the mountain, I put my bags in the apartment and went with the boss to the Bulldog Hotel (my new workplace!) for the first night of the bar being open! It was great fun, got to meet lots of people who I will be working with for the next 5 months. The food (vegetarian of course) and beer was awesome! 

The next day, after a lot of sleep, I went for a walk-about and took some pictures. First is the sign for Silver Star mountain village!

In the picture above, my accommodation is in the block of apartments to the left. There are other apartment blocks further down to the right as well, where some of the other staff are also staying.

The Bulldog Hotel! up these stairs and through two sets of doors is the lobby area that will be my workplace for the season. See the two pics below!





The colours are epic right??

The Grand Cafe and Lounge is on the other half of the building to the lobby area, and has just re-opened after the Great Flood of 2013 (December). The whole area was damaged, including most of the lobby, after a water mains pipe burst from temperature stress. The renovations are still underway in some areas, but for now the main restaurant is back in action!

The view from inside the restaurant, looking out to the ski slopes and alpine trees.
I made some curry on my second night, and tonight I plan to make some spaghetti with tomato + veggies sauce! 

Some pictures of the entrance to my unit thingy, and the name of the apartment block is "Shooting Star". There is a hot-tub and community area, including laundry, in that area under the building's name sign.  

So that's it for now - I really can't wait until Mercedes comes to join me here for Christmas, I miss her so much already! The future holds great things, lets see if some of that comes true around this joint haha. Buenas noches y buenas suerte! Good night and good luck!

Back to Bilbao! for some hiking, caving and visiting a family nun!

Hello world this is another blog from the Findlaters in Spain and it will the the last one of the Findlaters together for awhile.

This week coming Kyran will be heading to Canada to start his job in the ski slopes near Vancouver and I will remain in Madrid to finish out my work contract. 

So the blogs from here on out will be alternating between Kyran and I (Canada and Spain). 

So stay tuned this is where it gets interesting!!

 This weekend however we headed back up to Bilbao to say our good byes to my grandmother, and while we were there we thought we would go check out some of the sites we missed the first time around. 

First up we visited San Juan De Gaztelugatxe,  

 It is an island located just off the shore along the Bay of Biscay. The island is cone-shaped and features a tiny church on its highest point that is dedicated to John the Baptist.  Although not proven, it has been said that he even set foot on the island.

 

Over the centuries the church has burned down and been rebuilt several times. It is believed that the first hermitage that existed here was erected in the 9th century.

Later on, San Juan de Gaztelugatxe had a strategic purpose as a defensive outpost for the lords of Biscay. It was used as a bastion against the King of Castile, Alfonso XI. The seven knights from Biscay fought against him at San Juan de Gaztelugatxe. Alfonso XI was humiliated and was forced to retreat

 

Gaztelugatxe, literally means “castle rock” in Basque (“gaztelu” = castle + “aitz” = rock) 

As luck has it, two weeks before we got to the island it was closed for maintenance and will open in two weeks after we left. So we managed to get to the bottom of the island but we were unable to climb it, so sorry that all the photos are from the mainland.

Above you can see the island San Juan de Gaztelugatxe in the back ground.

 

 

Next stop was the cuevas (caves) de santimamiñe

 

Santimamiñe cave, Kortezubi, Biscay, Basque Country, Spain, is one of the most important archaeological sites of the Basque Country, including a nearly complete sequence from the Middle Paleolithic to the Iron Age.

It is best known for its mural paintings of the Magdalenian period, depicting bisons, horses, goats and deers.

Its excellent location over the Urdaibai estuary was probably most important in its continued habitation, first by Neanderthals and later by Homo sapiens.

The cave was the most important cave in the area because it got the most sunlight during the day and it's entrance was protected from the north winds - this is important if you are cold! From what you can see in the pictures, we are wearing heavy duty warm gear and we were STILL cold!

One thing that this cave was famous for was it's "fried egg" formation which is really a baby stalagmite. 

As a child I visited the caves and you would be able to walk all the way about 70 meters into the cave to the see the fried egg formation and apparently all the local children would touch it. As a result of the constant touching the fried egg has dried up and "died",also as a result of the huge school groups visiting the caves over the past 90 years the temperature of the cave has risen and has caused the painting to disappear and lichens and mosses growing on the walls degrading the cave.  

Due to the above mentioned damage to the cave, it has now been restricted so that you can only enter in the first chamber area, about 30-40 meters at most. The cool part is now you get to go down to the Chapel of San Mames and they have set up a 3D video theater, and you watch a guided tour of the caves at the end of the tour. The guided tour is a virtual representation of the caves, from (I assume) survey scans with 1cm accuracy. The tour lady had a game style controller and she can walk the character/camera through the caves and explore on our behalf!

Next after the caves and an attempt at a picnic in freezing conditions we were off to visit Lekeitio

The municipality has 7,293 inhabitants (2005) and is one of the most important fishing ports of the Basque coast. 

Above. Huge waves hitting the wave break and as you can see from the building in the background the waves are breaking above two stories high. 

 

Lekeitio is definitely a very beautiful town, if I had the money this would be somewhere I would consider settling down.

Below: the Island just off Lekeitio, on low tide you can walk out to the island and on high tide as you can see the waves go around the island and actually cross over also known as cross sea. 

In surface navigation, a cross sea is a sea state with two wave systems traveling at oblique angles.

 

Now the real reason that we went to Lekeitio was to visit a dear old great aunt on my fathers side who is a nun at the convent of Madres Dominicas, where she has been 'in prison' most of her life.

It was lovely seeing my great aunt and even all the other nuns were happy to have a visit and all came out to say hello, and apparently nuns have a roomba vacuum cleaner.

There is a saying that i have learned of since visiting my aunt. 

If you loose your cows you should go ask the nuns where they are, as despite them being locked up they seem to know everything before you do.

Next up: a bunch of random photos that i didn't want to bore you with earlier.

  

 

 A GIANT wasp and a GIANT slug!!

Above: When we got home the little resident mouse family has spawned a couple more!

Well that is all from us again for this week, the next blog with be brought to you by Kyran from Canada. 
here are some final videos of the waves that caught our fascination.