Bad News Central

I spent Canada Day hiking with my dad and brother up Mt. Yamnuska in the Rocky Mountains.  When we got near the top, we noticed a squirrel climbing around on the rock face.  My dad tried to snap a picture of it several times, but the damn thing was just too quick.

I thought it would be funny to take a picture of my dad trying to find the squirrel.  When we got home and looked at the pictures, we just about died laughing.  Look at the picture below, and check out the space between my dad’s head and the dog.

(click for big)

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My Life is a Sitcom, Travel

With the world’s population rapidly approaching 7 billion people, it’s getting harder and harder to get away from it all.  Humans have colonised every habitable place on the planet.  Antarctica, once considered the most remote and inhospitable place on the planet now boasts a population of 5000 people.  Things are bad when you can’t even go to Antarctica without having to jostle scientists for elbow room.  Luckily for you, I’ve scoured the Earth to find the last places around where you can catch your breath.

• Edinburgh of the Seas, Tristan da Cunha

Tristan da Cunha is the most remote inhabited archipelago in the world, 1,750 miles off the west coast of Africa.  You’ll probably be living in the town of Edinburgh of the Seas, confusingly located on an island also called Tristan da Cunha.  Edinburgh of the Seas is the only major settlement on the island, or at least as major a settlement can be for an island with a population of 269.

There are several other islands in the archipelago, the most prominent being Inaccessible Island.  That’s not a nickname.  The first discoverers in 1652 couldn’t find a way any further inland than the beach.  It took 230 years of exploring before a survey team managed to find the center of the island.  Every attempt to colonize Inaccessible Island has ended in failure, including several tries at simply stocking it with cattle.

For such a tiny, sparsely populated, utterly remote archipelago, Tristan da Cunha has had more than its share of disaster.  In 1880, an American named Jonathan Lambert became the first permanent settler on the main island.  He declared himself sole ruler of the island, and then promptly died in a freak fishing accident.  In 1961, a volcanic eruption on the main island meant that the entire population had to be evacuated.  You’d think that having your entire town buried under a river of molten rock would be just about the worst that fate could throw at you, but when everyone returned in 1963 they found that, in their absence, the surviving parts of the town had been sacked and raided by pirates.  In 2008, the island’s fishing factory and electrical generators were destroyed in a fire, in one swipe knocking out all power and destroying the entire economy.

• Alert, Nunavut

The most northern settlement in the world, and with a population of five, this is about as roomy as it gets.

There’s a big signpost outside of town with dozens of signs stating the distance to other cities.  New residents get to put up a new sign showing how far it is to wherever they came from.  There’s basically nothing else there.  In other words, the major social activity in the most remote northern town on earth is to meditate on just how remote they all are.

• Supai, Arizona

Here’s a place for people who want to get away from it all without ever leaving the continental United States. With a population of fewer than 500, and some of the most beautiful scenery in the entire country, Supai is absolutely perfect for those looking for a little peace and quiet.  The only problem is access.  No roads go to Supai, which would be a major problem for any town.  SUpai goes one further, however – the town is located at the bottom of the Grand Canyon.

As it is, Supai is an eight mile hike through the blistering Arizona desert.   This makes the use of horses almost a necessity.  In fact, Supai is the only place in America where mail is still delivered by mule.

The sheer inaccessibility has occasionally caused problems for the town.  The 2000 US census missed the town entirely, recording its population as zero.

• Motuo, China

The most remote county in China, it’s the only county in the entire country completely inaccessible by road.  This hasn’t always been the case – in 1993, they finally got around to building a highway.  It existed for two days, carried a total of four vehicles (one of which got stuck and had to be abandoned), and was promptly swallowed up by the jungle.  Today, the only access into the county is via a 200 meter long suspension cable, 100 meters in the air.  Supplies such as food and medicine have to be carried in and out by hand.

• Chang Tang, Tibet

Swedish explorer Sven Hedin, in a crossing of Chang Tang, reported not seeing a single person for 81 days.

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Articles, Travel

For years now, of my life’s goals has been to scuba dive at the Great Barrier Reef.  It may just have something to do with growing up in Alberta, the most bland, colourless, and featureless place on Earth, but pictures of the reef always made it look like the most beautiful place possible.

A few months ago, I finally made the trip.  Not to dwell on the negatives, but here’s approximately what it cost:

• Flight to Melbourne – $1500
• Flight to Cairns – $500
• Hotel in Cairns – $150
• Dive boat rental – $200
• Dive cost – $120

All told, it cost me close to $2500, and it was totally worth every penny.  The Great Barrier Reef really is the most beautiful place I’ve ever seen.  It not only lived up to my dreams, but surpassed them.  The diving instructor even took a picture of me holding a sea cucumber.  It was pretty much the greatest moment of my entire life.  I couldn’t wait to get the picture developed so I could frame it and hang it proudly on my wall.  I got home, got my pictures developed, and started leafing through them right in the store.  I had to see how that picture turned out.

It turned out like this:

It’s still going on the wall.

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My Life is a Sitcom, Travel

Day 1 – Saturday, February 28

According to my travel itinerary, getting to Australia from Calgary takes 24 hours, plus an additional 10 hours wandering around various airports while looking for something to do.  By “something”, this invariably becomes “shopping”, as every square inch of airport real-estate that isn’t taken up by gates or absurdly overpriced fast food is taken by up duty-free shopping.  While you’re waiting for your flight, there’s always a duty free store to browse while whittling away the hours.  When you’re in the air, there’s a duty-free magazine waiting in every seatback pocket for you to browse, which the Capitan and flight attendants will helpfully inform you every chance they get.  There are even sample products available on board for the discerning air shopper.  And, just in case you forgot to buy that tax-free booze or designer watch in the preceding 34 hours, there’s a duty-free store or two waiting for you in the terminal when you land.  In fact, the Melbourne airport helpfully deposits you directly in to an enormous duty-free store, which gradually becomes the immigration department.  Air travel has turned into a shopping spree with partial meal service.  I came to this conclusion while standing in line at Melbourne immigration and noticing that the stack of remote control cars available for me to purchase (if I so desired) was approximately as tall as I was.

Before Melbourne, however, I had 34 hours of shopping ahead of me.  I took off from Calgary at 8:30, which meant that I had to be at the airport by 6:30, which meant that I had to leave for the airport at 5:30, which meant that I had to get up at 3:30, because I’m a man, which means I hadn’t packed anything yet.  I was on my way to Australia to see my girlfriend, Leslie, who I had chastised for doing this exact same thing three months earlier.  My trip there consisted of flying from Calgary to Denver, Denver to Los Angeles, Los Angeles to Auckland, and Auckland to Melbourne.  The Calgary to Denver leg of the flight went by without incident since I was asleep for the entirety of it.  I had to get some sleep because I had a mission once I got to Denver – find the Masonic keypad and the baggage gargoyle.  The Denver airport is filled with some pretty crazy shit (look it up), and I decided that with the little time I had there, these were the two things that I absolutely HAD to track down.  Unfortunately, it turns out that none of the interesting parts of the airport were anywhere near my terminal, meaning that I had to kill my time by browsing the internet on a web kiosk using my sole American dollar.  And then shopping.  At one point Charles Grodin was paged over the intercom, which was pretty exciting to hear after an hour of browsing tax-free chocolate.

The flight to Los Angeles was similarly uneventful, and I wound up sleeping through it as well.  The only problem I encountered was the seven hour wait for my Auckland flight once I got to LAX.  I wandered the terminals for about half an hour, and then went to the famous restaurant/bar in the middle of the airport for a drink.  Finding a way in to the bar was difficult, as the building was under renovations (understandably) after a small chunk of the building fell off.  Trying to find a way in, I almost wandered into what I thought was a military museum, and turned out to be a genuine military post that I was 100% absolutely not allowed to enter, according to a tiny sign on the door and glare of the well-armed man on the other side of it.  I was also accosted by many, many people claiming to be collecting money for charity.  One attempted to befriend me by talking about Indiana Jones and asking if I was a fan (I think it was my Kingdom of the Crystal Skull shirt that gave me away), whom I eventually gave a few dollars to after he helped me brainstorm how to kill time in LAX (we settled on getting drunk).  I eventually found my way to the bar, and sat and drank while reading one of the four books I brought along to kill time precisely under circumstances like these.  This killed another hour.  I tried to think of something to do that would eat up the rest of my time, and looking out the window at the panorama outside, I got the perfect idea – find a way out of LAX on foot, and… go shopping.  My brain was already mush by this point, I figured  I might as well embrace it.

I hiked for well over an hour before I realized that it’s virtually impossible to leave LAX on foot.  I came so close – I could see shopping centers and restaurants, completely different shopping centers and restaurants than the ones available back inside the airport!  Instead, I gave up and resorted to hanging out under the big light-up glass tubes that mark the entrance to LAX.  It turns out there was a garden full of footpaths in there, and it was absolutely beautiful.  Judging by the state of it versus the state of everything else in LAX and LA in general, I’m the only person who’s ever been there. I highly recommend it, if you can find it.  I chilled in the gardens for a while, enjoying the sun.  I’d just come from mid-winter Calgary, and Denver wasn’t exactly balmy, so reading a book in the sun was a huge treat.  I had found a spot of grass in LAX while wandering around earlier, but it was about 10×10 feet and chock full of bored travellers and cigarette butts.  I had this garden all to myself.  Then I realized that in LA, that’s not a good thing, and I headed back to my terminal to wait.  I had another few hours to kill so I went shopping (of course) and bought a travel power adapter.  Then I watched “Three Amigos!” on my iPod, which ended right as the plane started boarding.  This had me a little worried, since I had an 18 hour flight ahead of me, and the movie had drained my iPod to 1/3 battery life.  Fortunately, I fell asleep during takeoff, and didn’t wake up until after we’d reached cruising altitude and the flight attendants were handing out dinner.  I started chatting with the woman sitting next to me, and it turned out she was flying to New Zealand to see her boyfriend.  After a few minutes of chatting I realized that was the one and only thing we had in common, and plugged in my headphones and started browsing the in-flight entertainment.  I’ll give Quantas props for their in-flight entertainment, because aside from having to watch a commercial promoting duty-free shopping between every program, I’ve never seen such a huge selection of movies and TV shows in my life.  There were dozens of classics, Oscar nominees, movies still in theatres, and movies that weren’t even released in North America yet.  I blame the over-the-top duty-free bludgeoning, then, as the reason I decided to watch The Mummy 3.  There’s not a single thing wrong with that title that changing it to Another Goddamn Brendan Frasier Movie wouldn’t have solved, because the movie had exactly zero mummies in it.  Other than that, it simply recycled set pieces from the previous Mummy movies, except with Asian monsters instead of Arabian ones.  I fell asleep 2/3 of the way through, and woke up 12 hours later, just in time for breakfast.  Then I fell asleep again, and woke up in Auckland.  I was sore as hell from being stationary in a cramped seat for 18 hours, but the fact that I was asleep for almost all of it made up for legs that felt like dead weights.

Arriving in Auckland, I immediately had my bottled water confiscated.  It turns out that this part of the world has had a few problems with the introduction of foreign animals and germs, and now does pretty much whatever they can to keep either out.  This included my water.  Where most airports have displays of important cultural items for tourists to look at, the Auckland airport contains display after display of confiscated items previous tourists have tried to bring into the country.  Thirsty, I set off looking for a good cup of coffee.  This lead to my first, horribly unsuccessful attempt at ordering Australian coffee.  Where I come from, coffee is coffee, and your options are cream or sugar (or chocolate, if you’re really fancy).  So when the server (barista?) asked me if I would like a flat white or a long dark, I instead mumbled something about not having any cash and ashamedly slinked off to wait for my next flight.  I took a few pictures out of the terminal window while waiting, and to date, this is all I have ever seen of New Zealand.  After a short wait we boarded, and I found myself sitting next to a woman from Calgary.  She was quite flirty, even with me repeatedly telling her I was on my way to see my girlfriend.  I eventually convinced her to watch Ghost Town, which bought me an hour and a half of silence.  After takeoff I was served my second breakfast in two hours, and finally got my much-needed coffee.   Then I fell asleep again.

Part 2 coming soon

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