If only we'd known!

Show me the way to go!

I love lighthouses and this is a particularly picturesque one situated on the rocky Monterey peninsula in California. It's the Point Pinos Lighthouse and is notable for being the oldest working lighthouse on the West Coast of the US. Not only that but you can also come and take a look round it. If you get the right day that is - it's open five days a week but not on Wednesday when we were there! Next time maybe.

One way to get over jet lag!

Our flight from Brisbane to Vancouver arrived at 7 am in the morning. What we didn't know was the fact that the Richmond Olympic parkrun is only a 10 minute cab drive from the airport. So, if we'd flown on a Saturday we could have done a parkrun in Brisbane in the morning and one in Vancouver the same morning. (Brisbane is 18 hours ahead!) And, rather like two runs on New Year's Day, both events would have been recordable. However we flew on a Wednesday - should have done our homework - next time maybe.

Island in the sun - for some of the year!

I had mistakenly thought that Vancouver Island was around the same size as Great Britain. When we got there we found that it was much smaller and we could have done a bit more exploring in the time that we had. I realised how my confusion had arisen - the capital of Vancouver Island is Victoria. However Vancouver Island is bottom right on the map (just digging into the north west tip of the US.) Victoria Island on the other hand is on the frozen wastes - it's the red bit. Just as well we didn't book a flight there. It's slightly larger than GB (as I'd seen on the list of the world's largest islands), round about 2,000 people live there (in igloos?) and it's notable for having the world's largest island within an island within an island!! Part of Victoria Island is in the recently created province of Nunavut, this includes all those islands surrounding Victoria Island. And here's the real fun fact - the car licence plate for Nunavut is in the shape of a polar bear! Oh go on - here's another odd fact - it's illegal to lock your car doors round those parts. Why you might ask? Well if you're walking down the road and a hungry polar bear takes a shine to you - if there's a car parked nearby - get in the tin can, he's not got an opener!

Got your antit-freeze?