One sunny day out of twenty something...

Well, weather here as been rather nasty for the last 3 weeks so nothing much has happenned since my last entry! Last weekend we decided to get out of town and test drive our brand new (very old..) camper! So we parked the monster on the edge of a river, about 30 minutes from town, and hung out in the sun, reading, naping... and cleaning the dog! Saturday turned out to be a nice sunny day, contrary to what the forecast had said and we took full advantage of it!

Springtime paddling on the Yukon River

Well, I finally managed to get on the water for the first time this Sunday! Life has been pretty busy since I got back from Montreal... there's been lots of overtime to be done at work and I'm taking full advantage of it... kind of have to replenish my wallet after taking 3 months off!

But the weather was great on Sunday so we decided to take Tika for a little canoe ride... she seemed to be more interested in testing her ''wannabe sea otter'' skills by going back and forth from one shore to the other (quite inpressive for a malamute!)... anyways, it was a good little Sunday afternoon outing!

De bien belles surprises!

La semaine dernière fut haute en couleur et émotions pour la famille Camiré! Premièrement ma soeur Isabelle a accouché d'un beau garçon mercredi matin... un 5e neveu (1 nièce) pour moi! La famille s'agrandit vite! Et deuxiemement, après avoir menti à plein nez à toute ma famille pendant 1 mois, j'ai reussi à leur faire une belle surprise en débarquant à Montréal 2 jours apràs la naissance de Vincent! J'ai même réussi à surprendre Isabelle et Pierre à l'hopital avant qu'ils ne rentrent à la maison (un gros merci à ma complice Claudine qui a bien voulu venir me chercher à l'aéroport à 7am!!). Je suis donc ici pour une semaine à visiter tout le monde et a aider un peu ma soeur! Voici quelques photos!

Je fais la connaissance de mon filleul Vincent!

Isabelle et Pierre-Elliot avec leur nouveau bebe!

La grande arrivee surprise chez mes parents!

Sun, snow and a few northern lights!

Well, I'm back in Whitehorse! After an insanely long day of going from one airport to the other, I finally made it here in one piece! And except for a little trip to the Emergency room in the middle of the night on my 1st night back (I'm fine now!), all is good in the land of the midnight sun! Even got to see some really cool pink and green northern lights last night that were moving in the sky at a record speed! I must admit that going from swimming in the ocean to having to warm up a frozen car was not exactly that fun, but the weather has been amazing since a got here and it made it a bit easier to handle! Saturday was a gorgeous day so Marko and I decided to take advantage of the sun and go skijoring (see my first posts in January!). We borrowed 3 dogs from Pierre (Poco, Kluane and Indy) and took Tika along. It was my first time doing this with 2 dogs and I fell a bunch of times! It was not that easy to stay up going downhill pulled by two maniac dogs that were having so much fun they couldn't care less about my screaming in the back! Anyways, it was still very fun and exciting and we got to see amazing landscapes up in the Bonneville lakes (about 20 minutes drive from Whitehorse). Here's a few photos!

Time to say goodbye!

I am presently in a little internet shop in Auckland and it is pouring rain! I am flying back to Canada tonight and can't wait to get out of Auckland! Snow sounds like a good thing right now after spending the day walking around getting soaked!

Yesterday I spent 7 hours in a bus getting from Whakatane to Auckland after spending an amazing 5 days in Ohope Beach with Freddie, Marcel and Rob (and Takki the cat!). It was the best way I could have imagined finishing off my 3 months trip... great company, good food, lots of sun and tons of swimming and playing in waves at the beach! I even caught a baby shark kayak fishing in the ocean! It scared the hell out of me when it came out of the water (even though it was the smallest fish I've ever caught!).

Dank u zeer en zie u in Canada!!

Genevieve

Tongariro Crossing

The Tongariro Crossing is described in most guidebooks in New Zealand's as the country's best day hike... and I can see why! It is a 7-8 hours hike up a beautiful valley surrounded by active volcanoes! Almost the entire hike is above treeline which means everywhere you look you get a view! Love those hikes! My expectations of this hike was totally off... I thought it was going to be a lot more challenging physically and definetely not as beautiful... works for me!! The coolest thing about that hike is when you get to the top, it is very windy and quite cold, but when you sit down on the rocks, you get your bum warmed up by the heat coming out of the mountain ... a bit freaky to think that the volcano might erupt at any time (it did last time in 1975!).

The only negative thing I can say about it is that there were way too many people blocking the view! I knew it was going to be busy but not that bad! But, seeing the positive side of things, I got to have a few photos of myself for once because of all those people around! Anyways, it was still absolutely worth it! Here's a few photos to prove it! (On the third photo, you can actually see the trail I came down on!)

Strange things happen in Devil's country!

I knew there was something devilish about this place, but this is just plain weird, and very annoying... Last night I did a big load of (much needed) laundry and put it up on the clothes line at the hostel I was staying at... Well, I woke up today to go see if my clothes were dry and, to my surprise, noticed that half of it was gone! I thought to myself that this was pretty weird... but then I started thinking about what was missing, and I realized that all the stuff that was gone was black! So I put the blame on the devil! (or maybe it's just some goth kid in the neighboorhood who gets a kick out of stealing underwear...who does that anyways?!?!). Well, today I get to go shopping! Gotta look at the positive side of things right?!!