After a couple of fantastic days in Whistler, which I forgot to mention is already a major construction zone getting ready for the 2010 Winter Olympics. we had a long day of driving on the bus to the interior city of Kamloops.

Aside from the scenery, which I am just fresh out of superlatives for now, it just keeps getting better and better, there were a few points of note along the way.

The first was we visited Lillouet, which the Canadians call a semi arid desert. Pah! Sure they have amazing mountains, lakes and waterfalls, but as a desert this was positively piss weak! They should come to Moomba if they want to see a desert.

We also saw a few of the pretty blue glacial lakes, and another waterfall.

Kamloops itself is a medium sized city, with logging and the railway as the big industries in town. We stayed in a pretty interesting hostel, which was in the old town courthouse. It was kind of fun eating breakfast in an old courtroom.

We spent a good few hours in the local Kamloops sports bar, drinking beer and watching the ice hockey world cup final. It ended up being a pretty good afternoon, since Canada won the cup over Finland in a close game. However, it was a bittersweet victory for Canadian hockey fans, since while they can celebrate the fact that they are again the world champs, they are facing a winter without a hockey league due to a player strike over the proposed introduction of a salary cap.

Following the bar we did the official moose activity, which was a visit to the local rock climbing gym. I was surprised to find that I actually didn't suck at it as much as I thought I would. It was bloody tiring though, lugging this enormous mass I have accumulated up and down walls.

All day long on the bus, our fearless leader Des had been promising a surprise with the rock climbing activity. Exciting....

So when we were all shagged from climbing, it was surprise time. The climbing instructor asked for a volunteer, and of course I was the one to foolishly oblige. My harness was then hooked up to two ropes from either corner of the building, and I was hoisted high up to the ceiling.

And then dropped!

It was pretty cool, swinging in my harness like a trapeze. Unfortunately I was a little too fat and slow to be able to execute the full flip at the end of each swing, but if you look at the photos you can see I gave it a red hot go!