Lydia & Julz Go Large: August 2011

Week Update 33
We're sifting through the 'must does' of Whistler in our last couple of weeks here, well the free highlights at that. We went to Lunafliks: Whistler's fresh air films which is an outdoor cinema with a blow-up screen at Lost Lake. In true Lydia&Julz style, we were late to the film, and got stuck slammed against the bike racks watching 'Limitless' under the stars with the wandering bears, if it weren't for the peddles imprinted in our backs, it would have been oh so romantic. A desperate ploy for the Whistler community to counteract the imbalance of alcohol-focused nightlife with some good old fashioned alcohol-free alternatives, an easier option than deporting all the Australians....yes...yes a little ambitious in one of the world's most renowned party towns.

We can also check off rafting down the river of golden dreams in our inflatable boat. We were a little ambitious taking on some of the rapids in our little blow-up dingy and found ourselves caught in the bushes that flank the river of nightmares, a number of times, we even have the war wounds to prove it where the tree branches went to town on us, slashing all our arms, the result of poor navigating on our part. Julia took one for the team and got into the ice cold glacial water to push off our boat to get us started on our two hour raft, ironically in front of the sign "PULL OUT AREA!" with a stick man getting his boat OUT of the water. With our "I'm sure it will be fine" attitudes, the rapids quickly swept our boat down the river when Julia had only half a leg in. We were flying down the first 500m of the river with no control, our oars completely failed us, although we should have really prepared a plan of attack as to what motion we were going to maneuver the oars, as there was a whole lot of yelling in the boat and waving the oars in all directions, "A bit more on your part!" "I feel like a one man team out there!" "Watch out for the ducks!" "Again a bit more on your part!" "Turn, turn, I said turn!" "Put the camera down and start paddling"

Shortly after taking out some suicidal ducks and getting grip of our tantrums, we found our rhythm. Everyone else around us in their inflatable boats, were sailing through effortlessly. We can't recall too many moments where we were able to relax and take in the scenery, as we were too engrossed in dodging the obstacles of rocks, bushes, ducks and the list goes on....to quote Julia, "No-one else seems to have to try this hard!" We were on edge as friends of ours that went rafting down the river of golden dreams, got a hole in their boat and had to swim through the glacial fed water and climb through trees to get out. It was naturally ticking over our minds that this would likely happen to us, as the scenery was all too familiar from the Anaconda movie.

We made friends with a couple of Australian girls along the way after apologising profusely for continuously slamming their boats into the banks, much like dodgem cars. They asked us where we were getting off the river, as right down the bottom was a three hour raft to Green Lake (the lake reported to be so cold that you would die after 7 mins of being in it) and also no buses to get back home. We really hadn't thought passed the point of putting in our boat at Rainbow Park and drowning ourselves in insect repellent. Despite being a Collingwood supporter, she generously offered to drive us home, after letting us share her picnic of sandwiches and beer, you've got to love the generosity of fellow travellers.