Cardiff Museum & Techniquest - May 26 - Day 11

In the morning, Helen needed to do some studying for her upcoming exam, so Heather headed off to Cardiff Museum.  By that point, she was pretty tired of museums, and therefore took zero pictures.  After lunch, Heather headed over to Jammo's house to find Helen (which was quite the adventure, since Helen's hand-drawn map was not QUITE the right degree of helpfulness, so Heather got a little lost after the official touristy map of central Cardiff ended and she entered the neighbourhood where Helen actually lives).

In the afternoon, Helen and Heather went down to the bay to go to Techniquest, which is a hands on science museum.  It's a little bit like the Science Centre in Winnipeg, except it's not in a basement so it's much more well lit.  We lucked out because it turns out that if you get there after 3:00 (we got through the doors at 3:01), adults only need to pay 3 pounds and they also get a free drink and snack (which is a significantly better deal than the normal price of 7 pounds and no drink or snack).

Some of the fun and exciting things in Techniquest included a heat sensor (turns out that, being from Antarctica, I'm actually pretty cold), a plasma static electricity ball (which are far too much fun to play with.  Also, you can shock people, which is pretty great), fun mirrors of all shapes and sizes creating various effects (including bodylessness!), and strange musical instruments.  Also, there's a telescope over the bay, and you can use it to spy on people walking down the street, which is a little creepy but also kind of fun.  I wonder how many young children figure that out... A good time was had by all.

Cardiff - May 22 & 23 - Days 7 & 8

In the morning, we checked out the hotel in Manchester and took a somewhat roundabout way to the train station and an equally roundabout way to Cardiff.  This was exciting, because Heather got to see Helen for the first time in about 2 years.  The first afternoon in Cardiff was spent at Helen's friend Matt's house, where she, Matt, and Jammo were studying for their ridiculously exciting exam the next morning.  Heather watched Doctor Who while they studied (which was much more interesting).  Helen introduced Heather to Black Books, a sit com from around 2000 or so that, naturally, never aired in Canada and is absolutely HILARIOUS.  After a delicious supper (prepared by Matt and Jammo), Helen and Heather headed home so Helen could get plenty of sleep before her exam the next morning.

The next day was Heather's first full day in Cardiff.  We went and visited central Cardiff, starting with Cardiff City Hall.

After deciding it was far too expensive to go INSIDE Cardiff Castle, we circumnavigated it instead (well... almost).

Next to Cardiff Castle, there's a very lovely wall known as the Animal Wall.  It has a lot of animals (but sadly, none of them are penguins).

We visited Bute Park.  It was a very lovely park, full of flowers and rivers and things.

There was a stone circle which isn't nearly as old or mysterious as Stonehenge OR the Nine Ladies of Stanton Moor, but still looks pretty cool.

For some mysterious reason, some of the trees had the COOLEST branches.  They grew straight up, and I was quite impressed.

There was also an old abbey that was excavated by the Victorians.  Apparently, Victorians were not very good at excavating things, since they covered it up again with some weird red stones.

We found a really hilarious souvenir shop, full of very Welsh things (such as rugby, dragons, and sheep) and with the best sign you will EVER see on a shop.

In the afternoon, we went to meet Helen and her engineering friends in the Student Union pub, where we spent quite a long time playing ridiculous quiz games trying to gain money (between the 8 people or so in the group, they won 4 pounds.  People, unlike penguins, are not so bright).

Post pub, we went to another pub for supper (2 for 1 burgers!  Cheap and delicious!)

Then we went home to bed.

London - May 18 - Day 3

On this day, I went to London to visit the Queen.  The Queen failed to make an appearance, so instead I went to museums.  The best part about British museums?  Most of them are free to visit, which is excellent.

First, we went to the London Natural History Museum, which had a pretty great building:

And also a pretty swell geology section (which was pretty much a museum in itself), where we ended up spending most of our time.

Since it's natural history, there were dinosaurs...

Plants...

Animals (see above photo)...

And an earthquake simulator.

Second, we went on a visit to the British Museum.  The British Museum is most excellent because it contains almost nothing British.  Heather decided relatively quickly that vases and the Parthenon were boring, so she spent most of her time hanging around the Egyptian mummies, currency through the ages, and clock exhibits.

Post museum visits (which naturally took all day), Heather took the Tube to the middle of London to meet her friend Hannah for supper.  They hadn't seen each other in four years, but it was still a good time.  Post-supper, we went on a walk to London Bridge.  To avoid confusion, I would just like to point out that London Bridge is not the bridge in the background of this picture (that's Tower Bridge).  London Bridge is, in fact, that bridge we are standing on.  It's not anywhere near as exciting or pretty, but it is much more practical because it is far less inclined to rise up in the middle if you're trying to cross it.

After nearly missing the train back to Oxford, Heather returned to Helen's granny's place for a lovely sleep.

Day 5 - August 22: Travel day

This morning, we drove to the parking lot, where the van would be living for the next two weeks.  Then we got into the shuttle van and headed to the Edmonton Airport to catch a flight to Fort Nelson via Fort St John. Essentially, we spent most of the day plane hopping into progressively smaller airports.

In Fort St John, we met Gord and Jim, a father and son who would be tripping with us.  In Fort Nelson, we met Dave, the owner of the outfitter who was leading our trip.

In Fort Nelson, Dave needed to pick up some groceries from our trip (there's a chain of grocery stores in BC called the Overwaitea, which is a ridiculous name for a grocery store (seriously, try saying it loud)), so he dropped us off at the Fort Nelson Museum, which is approximately the only thing to do in Fort Nelson.  It's not a very big museum, but it is absolutely full of stuff!  There were lots of old things that were used for the building of the Alaska Highway (one of Fort Nelson's claims to fame is that it's on the Alaska Highway), and a bunch of other things.  I'm not in any of the pictures because the lighting was kind of lousy.

The only grizzly we saw on the whole trip was a stuffed grizzly in the museum, which was most unfortunate.  However, it means that Heather didn't get eaten by a grizzly bear.

Heather's dad got a little bit excited by the old fire alarms and fire extinguishers and stuff that were kicking around in the museum.

Some of the old cars were a little bit exciting.  There was a whole garage full of them.

And of course, Heather got a little bit excited about this sign:

Which was the first in a long series of geology things that she got excited about.  We weren't even on the river yet!

Some of the old power tools were entertaining.  Heather got excited about those too.  Particularly the most terrifying chainsaw she's ever seen.

Once we were done at the museum, we started our trek down the highway.  Once we crossed the border into the Northwest Territories, the road stopped being paved, and we spent the next two hours driving down the gravel road that is the Liard Highway.  We made on brief stop at a very hilarious biffy on the side of the road.

We also saw a couple of bison on the side of the road.  The look even bigger and even stupider on the side of the road!  But it was still very impressive, considering they weren't even in a park.

The end of the road for us was Blackstone Territorial Park, where we would be spending the night before heading to the Nahanni.  There, we met Luke and Dan, who would be our guides for the trip.  We also got our first good look at the mountains.

There was snow on the top of the mountains, which reminded me of home!  

Once we got to the park, we did some packing so we'd be ready to go bright and early in the morning and head to Fort Simpson to another even smaller airport...  I was definitely starting to get excited to get onto the river.  We were so close!  At least now we were in the right territory...

And of course, this sign on a bike at the museum was probably a sign as to what was to come: