Ah well, the day has come – we said a very sad farewell to The Enterprise, after having done 13,108 miles. I’ve just looked it up and the distance from England to NZ is 11,682 miles, so we more than drove home (perhaps if they put in a couple of bridges...). It was perhaps fitting that we got this lovely sunset on the last night. And Gus took the photo, while I was away doing dishes. He who won’t usually lift his head off the couch, let alone go outside, to see a sunset or a moonrise! This trip must have softened him...
The very last of the UK was two nights in a London hotel, out near Heathrow. We fitted in a lovely sunny Saturday at the zoo. First zoo we’ve visited on the entire trip! May be just as well too because it was rather expensive. When we first arrived I felt like a little kid and wanted to run (metaphorically speaking of course) in all directions and see everything. Gus got hold of the map though and we did it in a logical order, we did get to see everything though and by the end of the day we would happily have swapped places with the children in the pushchairs for a wee nap. Our favourite parts were the walk-in displays. The first was a butterfly house, which was really beautiful and had some amazingly large specimens, very similar to the one near Cairns for anyone who has been there.
They had two monkey walk-in areas: one was inside and the humans had a walk-way around the sides while the monkeys, Emperor Tamarinds, had free-run of the whole area which included trees and ropes and the walkway if they wanted it. These fellows had the most incredible moustaches, I kept thinking they were wearing rings through their noses.
The squirrel monkeys were in an outside walk-in enclosure and had lots of ropes as well as trees and bark to explore. They completely ignored the humans which meant that we got to see them really behaving as they would in the wild. There were zoo volunteers standing around to make sure no-one was tempted to feed or touch them. One man was telling us that at some other place you can feed and touch them, and seemed quite affronted that he couldn’t here, but I thought it worked really well – otherwise they’d just seem like pets. We got to see them digging in the bark on the ground for grubs and chasing each other through the trees and along the ropes right over our heads.
The third display that really impressed us was, believe it or not, ants. They had set up a series of large jars with food in some and a place to build their nests in others. So the ants were going about their business of cutting leaves, climbing out of the jar along the rope and back into another jar which contained their nests. There were large signs up saying they bite which would have been enough to deter most humans from disturbing them, so they seemed completely oblivious to being in such an unusual environment. So that was our day at the zoo. Next we had a beautiful walk through Regents Park back to the tube station. I must say at this point too, that we are feeling very smug about our newfound abilities to catch tube trains and buses – this is a skill that neither of us has ever needed to acquire until now, having mostly lived in places where public transport is non-existent.
Then early next morning we flew to Vancouver. We were pleasantly surprised by how quickly the flight went – maybe because it is the shorter flight and we have the longer one in the few days back to good old NZ. We had some great views of the snow-topped mountains as we flew in. The lady at the hotel desk asked if we minded a high room and we said we were fine with that – neither of us minds lifts, so we are on the 29th floor! Fabulous views over part of the city and out to the mountains beyond. There’s no balcony so I can quite happily take in the sights from inside the room, suits me! I am writing this early in the morning as my body clock is all confused and I have been awake since midnight – stupid time-zone changes! Gus is asleep now, even though he was awake a lot in the night too, he might be a bit more with it than me today. We now have three days in Vancouver and then we’ll be home!
Vancouver was a lot of fun, really lovely city, little bit more expensive than we’ve been used to though. We particularly enjoyed Stanley Park, seeing our one bit of Canadian wildlife...
We enjoyed the city itself and went on a day trip up to Whistler. While we were there we decided to take the Peak to Peak gondola. Firstly we caught a gondola to the top of one peak – this takes about 30 minutes and on the way up we saw lots of mountain bikers taking their bicycles up to fly down the mountain tracks.
Then we got in the next gondola that goes from the peak of one mountain to the peak of the next – 4kms in one span – incredible views. We had lunch at the top and then enjoyed the view back across and down again. We were told there was a good chance of seeing black bears so I had my eyes well peeled but they must have all been in the shade of the forest because we didn’t see any.
The drive up to and back from Whistler is also lovely, the road follows a fjord and we stopped at a couple of waterfalls and across from a hanging glacier.
Now we are heading home on our last flight...
To quote Captain Kirk: “These are the voyages of the starship Enterprise. Its five-year mission: to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilizations, to boldly go where no man has gone before.”
So... These were the voyages of the Campervan Enterprise. Its five month mission: to explore the old world, to seek out diverse languages and ancient civilizations, to boldly go where millions have gone before.
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