After leaving Big White, we took our car we bought in Kelowna and we headed to Vancouver Island to go wwoofing...which is for those who don't know working on a farm in exchange for food and board. We headed to a small town called Duncan which is at the bottom of the island. We were headed to a place called Hillbank Farm. We couldn't have gotten luckier in our choice of wwoofing. When choosing where to 'woof' you read a 2 paragraph profile and make up your mind if you want to apply to live and eat with those people for 2 or more weeks. taking a bit of a risk! Maggie and Norm were our hosts and they were just so nice. Norm was an ex-military guy, who didn't take crap...and didn't want to try wwoofing in the first place. he didn't want a bunch of dreadlocked-hippies on his farm. Needless to say of course he loved us! He was dad's age and reminded us a lot of dad. Had a great collection of war movies. We got on really well with Maggie and Norm, they fed us really well, and we had a whole downstairs granny flat to ourselves. Maggies Dad lived with them, he was a really nice guy who told us the same stories everyday, he lived for beer and going to the Canadian equivalent of the RSL. He went every Friday and Saturday and every other day of the week was counting down to those days...'what day is it?....Wednesday?... only 2 days til Beer Day!' He took us all out for dinner and drinks one night..it was awesome! I spent most of the days in the garden weeding etc and dick spent a lot of time helping Norm with building some new fences. We fed the animals in the morning, all round we don't think we did enough to earn our stay but Maggie and Norm begged to differ. They were so happy to have us there.
On the first day we were there we found a dead rooster, when we showed Norm he told us it was that "GOD DAMN RAVEN!!'. The next day he went looking for it with his shot gun....and couldn't find it. The Raven knew he was looking for it though, while we were in the garden it would fly, over real low and hang around, we'd get Norm, it would fly off.. and Norm..."SON of a WHORE RAVEN!!'. it kept taunting him, One day he was in the barn and it just flew up and sat there looking at him, basically going him the finger. it was pretty funny, and god damn raven became a bit of a catch phrase, we'd throw it in there when we could. God Damn Hippies was another common one.
One day we were working and i heard my first Gun shot, here is what had happened!
While we were there, they kept urging us to go and explore, so after they asked us to stay on for another week we took the weekend and went to Tofino. Tofino and Ucluelet are pretty sea side small towns. we didn't have great weather the first day and nothing really looked too impressive, but after the sun came out we could catch the vision.
So much else happened while wwoofing it really was an amazing experience, without a doubt one of the best decisions we have made the whole trip. When we arrived they had 11 piglets that were 1 day old, and boy did they grown up, and get fat and feisty quickly. You could sit and watch them for ages, they were so funny running around the pen. We saw 4 lambs being born..AMAZING! We looked after meat hens in a free range/organic way and then got to eat one of them before we left, we now know what chicken is meant to taste like...freaking amazing, and it was enormous. They leant us their bikes and we biked around and visited the wineries. I had one of the loveliest birthdays. Maggie went out and bought lamb for a treat (without knowing that mum makes it for me every birthday). They also leant us there canoe and we paddled around for the day. Because it was my birthday Dick paddled all the way home while i chilled out. It was a special few weeks, and we were so blessed to have met Maggie and Norm.
So from there we move on to Seattle. We have been here for 3 days and really liking it. We have had unusual sunny weather, and now it has just started raining for the first time. The hostel we are staying in is awesome, the first place that you can book a queen bunk bed in a dorm room which works out to be cheaper then 2 dorm beds in a dorm room. Such a great idea. We are staying right downtown, basically in the 'Pike place food market' basically THE seattle place. great spot. lots of Sleepless in Seattle spots. We can see this from our window.
the hostel has heaps happening and free dinners 3 times a week. we went on the 'dead guys tour' yesterday. Last place Kurt Cobain was seen, his house where he died, Bruce and Brandon Lee's grave, Jimi Hendrix's grave and a general tour of the city. It was pretty fun...the highlight though? where we stopped for lunch... in the 'International District' at a dodgy Vietnamese store. Dick bought an amazing BBQ chicken and salad roll (Vietnamese style of course) for 2.50....we weren't clever enough to buy 2 and take one home for dinner.
SO when we left Maggie and Norm bought us a 'Seattle City Pass' which gets us free into all of the main attractions, it's great cos we're doing all of the things here that you usually have to pay for that we don't normally do. Yesterday we went up the Seattle Space Needle, which we are glad we didn't pay for, cos without the needle in the skyline, it's hard to tell it's Seattle. But great to be able to do it, without paying. Today we went to the 'Experience Music Program Museum' GREAT! spent the whole day there Dick loved the Nirvana and ACDC exhibitions, there was a great Avatar exhibition. But the surprising standout for me was the horror movie exhibit, cool props from sets, Dad---the face hugger, and many other Aliens from Alien. They had a scream booth where you screamed as loud and you could and they took pictures, heaps of fun!
Well we are loving Seattle so we've decided to stay another 2 days and we are going on the hostel's famous food tour, and then hitting up a proper Roller Derby on Saturday night.
From here we are probably heading through Montana and then we start another wwoofing post on the 26th of May.
Sorry to everyone who we haven't replied e-mails to...we do love you!!!
Lots of love and missing everyone,
Jordy and Dick xo
