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Saturday, April 19, 2014

Day Trip from North Vancouver to Chilliwack and Back: Our Back-Road Drive April 22, 2014








      Last Tuesday, the two of us took a trip out to Mission to get the winter tires off of Eeyore, Kait's Yaris, and also to visit Kait's grandma. We got out there late in the morning and after sitting down and chatting with Kait's grandma for a while, we went out to get the tires exchanged before having lunch at one of the local restaurants. Lunch was pretty tasty and we decided to head to the bookstore and wander around while we waited for the mechanics to finish up with Eeyore which didn't take too long. After the book store we drove over to the shop to collect Kait's car and after visiting with her grandma a while longer, we left to go home.

Looking towards the cliff.







       Kait had mentioned that she wanted to show me a monastery that was located up on a hill just outside Mission, so off we went. The drive there was pretty cool in itself. Kait gave me a tour of Mission and there were several old houses which had belonged to some of Kait's family back in the day with really beautiful yards. As for the monastery, it was a very cool and creepy place. The grounds around the monastery were gorgeous with lots of beautiful paths surrounded by flowering plants and trees. One edge of the property ended at a cliff that gave us a really nice view of the Fraser River and all the farmland and mountains surrounding it.
 


Top of the monastery tower.
Another shot of the tower.

















      

     We started off along a pathway that began right near the front door of a big church service auditorium. The pathway led into the forest and then opened up behind a hill dotted with some cherry blossom trees. Since this was the first time we had a chance to use our new camera, we kept stopping every few steps to take pictures of anything and everything, so the going was slow. After about 10 minutes of walking along the path and taking pictures, we
reached the cliff and as you may have guessed, we started taking more pictures. Once we took all the pictures we wanted, we continued on along the path. Often along the way we walked off into the bushes to take pictures of pretty flowers and cool plants. 


Inside of the auditorium.
While the trail is beautiful, it isn't all that long and so we quickly found ourselves walking back up to the monastery. We decided to try to sneak into the auditorium and look around. When we entered, there wasn't a soul in sight and our footsteps echoed loudly around the large, open room. The sunlight shone in through several different stained glass windows casting all sorts of colours onto the grey cement walls. The place gave me the chills and a bit of the hebey jebies . It reminded me of an old, European cathedral, except without all the nice artwork that helps you forget about the creepiness of the place. That and there weren't any bones stashed away in the basement (that we know of). We took our pictures and made our way back to Eeyore to head home.


     We started driving back down the driveway to the road and made the turn to head to the highway only to decide that we wanted to take the really, really long way home and just drive around to explore all the cool little back roads we'd never been on before.  I honestly can't give you even basic directions on the roads we took because I have no idea what the names of most of them were, but we headed in the general direction of Agassiz. Again, we stopped often to take pictures of the landscape and pulled many U-turns in search of roads and places we hadn't yet seen, but we mostly just drove and drove, taking pictures along the way hoping that they weren't blurry. Along the way to Agassiz, we came up on a small little residential area dominated mostly by farms and orchards. We were looking for a dike road to explore but were having trouble because they were all gated and locked with chains and padlocks. Only a few feet off the the side of the gate, however, was a beautiful robin sitting on top of a fence post that ran along a large, open field. It was pretty comfortable around people because we must have been only seven feet away from it across the road in the car and we took the opportunity to snap as many pictures of it as possible. As we were taking its picture, it even turned to stare right at Kait and the camera. It was pretty damn cool.




It started a staring contest.

     After the run in with the robin, we drove another ten minutes or so until we reached through Agassiz. We passed through to the Agassiz bridge within about five minutes. As you may have guessed, Agassiz is pretty small. Just across the bridge though, we turned off to take the back road that passes underneath the bridge and continues on all the way to Chilliwack. This road was probably the most beautiful part of the drive, and if you are ever passing over the Agassiz bridge and have some extra time on your hands, I encourage you find and drive along this road. Along both sides of the road, tall trees wall you in and almost arch overhead too. In the Spring and Summer, when the leaves have all grown in it would be even better I bet. We took picture after picture after picture, and while most turned out blurry, there we still quite a few that turned out really nice. Towards the end of the drive as we neared Chilliwack, we even found a trail head that looked pretty nice which we may one day go back to hike.
     Once we reached Chilliwack, it was about five in the evening so we decided to may our way back home. We were even lucky enough to avoid all that terrible rush hour traffic on the way into town.

     It was a great day! More pictures below and if you'd like to see all the photos we took, visit our Facebook page!


-K & A


     P.S. Stay tuned for our next blog post on our Easter Weekend trip to the Shuswap.


More Pictures:


Looking out from the cliff.


Looking further to the right from the cliff.

An old man was smoking his pipe and enjoying the view.

Looking back towards the trail from the cliff.




There were lots of colourful plants and flowers along the trail.












Note: Don't bring a bike.

A shot of the monastery tower.

Beautiful stained glass windows inside the auditorium helped make up for the creepiness of it all.



Eeyore, our chariot.

Beautiful rolling hills just downhill from the monastery.

A shot of the tower as we left.

One of the dike roads.

The back road we took all the way to Chilliwack. This shot was taken just after we passed under the bridge.




Random bike we found on our drive.

The trail head we plan on returning to.

 
    

Tuesday, April 8, 2014

Monday's Evening Jaunt in the Woods





     The last few months have been pretty busy. Kait has had quite an eventful (read stressful) practicum and school semester and work has been keeping me pretty busy too. All that being said though, things are starting to turn around. School is coming to an end for Kait now and life has been more relaxed, especially since her practicum ended. The weather is warming up and you can tell Summer is getting close. The sun seems to have been out just as much as the rain has lately, which is rather unusual around here. Even cooler, just last Friday Kait and I got to see Chris Hadfield when he came to the Centennial Theatre for his talk "The Sky is Not the Limit." I even had the awesome opportunity to meet him beforehand in a separate Meet and Greet event, all thanks to Kait for buying the tickets as a gift (Thank you again, Kait!). He's a lot taller than I thought he would be. It was the highlight of the week and Kait and I both enjoyed his speech a lot. The mayors of the City and the District of North Vancouver even made April 4th Chris Hadfield Day in North Vancouver.

 
Mark your calendars.


Another shot of the creek.
Looking west.




     With a little more time on my hands on Sunday afternoon, I decided to go for a nice, long 10K run with a work friend of mine who also happens to be a triathlete. It was tiring, particularly when I tried to keep up to his race pace, but it was a lot of fun. I thought I would be sore on Monday, and I'm happy to say I was wrong in that assumption, but nevertheless I decided to go for a hike instead of a run as what my triathlete friend calls "active recovery"-at least that's what I think he calls it. So after work yesterday when I found myself with not a lot to do, I decided that I would make the most of my opportunity and also take the opportunity to upload another blog post since Kait and I hadn't had a chance to in over a month. 


 
  
    










     

     

     

     Before my hike, I quickly ordered a car mp3 adapter for an upcoming road trip and I made myself a nice snack consisting of a tasty ham/spinach/cheese/cream cheese wrap and an apple. I then grabbed my phone, backpack, and boots and headed out the door. The sun was nearing the horizon so I hurried to one of the trails at the base of Mt. Seymour, a trail that I had previously hiked when it was snowing.
      I made my way along a small foot trail to the stream and after taking a few photos I crossed to the opposite bank and climbed up a short but steep hill. Once at the top, followed the stream up the mountain about a kilometer, again stopping here and there to take photos while there was still enough light. I managed to slip a few times on the wet forest floor as well. Good times. Along the way, I came across a pretty pink flower that was growing out of a small tree and I wanted to get a nice photo of it with my phone, which can be pretty difficult at times. This turned out to be one of those times. The flower was at the end of a small twig and this small twig liked to bounce all around anytime I exhaled a little to hard anywhere near it, so I grabbed the twig to try to stabilize it so my phone's camera could focus on it properly. It must have taken me five minutes to get the camera to focus on the darn thing, but with a little patience the picture turned out half decent, and so I continued on my way fairly pleased with myself.


It turned out half decent. Right?
Need to invest in a better camera...



    
    









    

     

      

     I continued on for another five or ten minutes, but with the sun setting and the forest canopy blocking out most of the remaining light, I decided to head for home. The walk back to the car was uneventful and the drive home even more so.


Close up of the stream.


      It was really nice to get back out on the North Shore trails, and I plan on making it a more regular thing now that Kait and I will have more time for it earlier on in the day. Kait and I are especially excited for the chance to branch out to other trails throughout BC this Summer, such as Frosty Mountain in Manning Park, so stay tuned for more upcoming adventures!






-A