Woke up in Port Hardy today. Was drinking a lot of the night, talking to several dozen locals. Meet the bar owner (Babe - that's her real name!) and her workmate/friend Sandy. We basically sat at the bar all night talking to all comers. Luckily for me, the girls were pretty impressed with my methodolgy of 2 beers and then a handle of diet coke. It kept me sober (somewhat) and I didn't have to pay for the Diet Cokes. As pretty much everyone knew Babe (who doesn't know the pub owner of the best pub in town), I was privileged to meet a whole boatload of people, and chatted for quite some time with many of them. Expect about a dozen new immigrants in New Zealand next month haha!
Even though it was Friday night, it was a quiet night at Babe's Pub and they closed up at midnight. After that I was taken out on the town (Port Hardy has about 3 'approachable' pubs - the rest I would need to be either an Indian dude, or some sort of crazy deathwish as the town is a little bit scattered and rough. But after visiting several local taverns and meeting many more people, I meet a guy who was a nephew to Kiri Te Kanawa, Had an ex All Black father and about half a dozen other notable achievements. I hadn't heard of this guy but he was pretty much the authority on matter of New Zealand. He even was wearing a little tiki around his neck. He was a cool guy, and told me he went on a trip to the 'motherland' (New Zealand) a little while back and yadda yadda yadda, but I'll be buggered if he looked Maori to me. More like some sort of cross between Tongan, Samoan and Hawaiian. But anyhow, he was a funyn dude that stood out somewhat.
After all that I finally got dropped off back at my Hotel Room at the Glen Lyon Inn. But damn I had forgotton to turn the temperature down - it was well over 35 degrees (the max temperature that was showing and the needle was well past that). I almost melted and had to sleep on top of the bed with all the doors open. haha Until about 6am ofcourse when I woke up with no testicles because they had shrunk away to nothing in the freezing cold temperatures I was sleeping through. So later that morning I dragged myself up to the pub and found Babe and Sandy again and proceeded to knock backa few bourbons too warm myself up. Somehow, the time flew and I found it was 3pm before I knew it and I went down to the beach and took a few pics and then over to the ferry terminal where I am now typing this.
The ferry is a bit smaller than the last one I took, which is a bit surprising as I thought it would be a lot larger as we are travelling for approximately about 23 hours on this trip to Prince Rupert. I passed on the opportunity for a cabin, as I think it will be pretty warm and the ferry is very empty anyhow, so I will probably just be able to get some sleep on the ferry lounge seats somewhere (it has a small cinema to watch movies and sleep in if you name is Matt haha).
Not sure what I will be doing at Prince Rupert. According to my itinerary, I am going to leave on a 11 hour bus trip across to Prince George (which is waaaay inland). But a lot of people have told me that I should really make an effort to see the Charlotte Sounds. I think I might be able to squeeze it in. I can forgo the bus and get the train instead, which will be a little pricier, about the same time to travel, but I think it runs overnight and also it will probably be a nicer atmosphere than the bus. Plus I figure I can make up the time and not go to Jasper as originally planned. I can just go riht through it and go onto Edmonton. I will be coming back to Jasper later in my trip so skipping it at this point to make up time should be ok if I can wing it.
So far though, the trip is going awesomely. I've been having a blast, seeing new things, meeting loads of people and drinking loads of Canadian beer. Good times!
Cheers
Matt.
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