Newman Family Christmas 2006

What a damn fine lookin' family, eh?..... 

Play Me a Song Mr. Piano Man

Whether alone, or playing a duet with Auntie Laura or Cousin Caleb, Tate was the primary musician of the evening on Christmas Day. 

Chloe's First Christmas

Chloe was excited to receive her first doll from her Mom & Dad.


She was also pretty happy with her present from U.T. And, of course, brother Caleb had to ensure she knew what she was doing while unwrapping all her presents. 

Toys for Tate

Tate was excited to open his new CAT bulldozer from U.T. And U.T. was a little sad to part with it... 

Caleb tries out his new tunnel from U.T.

 

Grandma's Sleigh

Grandpa made a very nice sleigh for Grandma so she could pull her little ones around the farm. 

The plan was to cut back on presents this year...

 

Christmas Morning Crystals

From the big bathroom window upstairs at my parents' farm... 

Beauty and the Beast

Beauty is on the right... 

Medieval Day at Lakie

On a Friday morn, we held Medieval Day for the Grade 8's at the school, including a roasted pig in the foyer. Here I pose with my teaching partner, Maid Brenda. 

Sweatin' to the Oldies

This is a group of our staff leading students in 80's Fitness Day at the school for Friday Morning entertainment.

WARNING: This may be frightening!

For Halloween a group of us teachers dressed as zombies to perform a Thriller dance for the students. It was choreographed by an intern at our school who teaches dance. What a hoot! Click here to watch the video!

Maybe it's just the dancing that's toxic.....

We have a great time at my middle school. In this video, the rest of the Grade Eight team teachers and myself do an airband to Toxic, by Britney Spears, as part of the Friday morning entertainment for our student population. Good times.... good times.

Shenanigans at Lakie School

So what happens when two new teachers with a big spool of string are let loose in the principal's office late on a Tuesday evening? (OK, we had to ask a custodian to let us into his office, so technically we weren't "let loose" per se...)

Day Seven Videos

Check out my Final Report on the WCT, as well as Bryan's closing remarks.

Day Seven Highlights

The trailhead at Gordon River. Here, I am probably in the best shape of my life.


Kilometre 75.... We had reached the end. All that remained now was a boat ride across the Gordon River.... And a night of uncomfortable camping on a reserve.... And a shower in Port Renfrew, five kilometres away... And an encounter with a black bear while walking around Port Renfrew.... And supper with friends we met on the trail at the Lighthouse Pub.... And a bus ride through hell the next day as we returned to my car at the other trailhead... And meeting the authors of the most popular guidebook, Blisters and Bliss, who happened to be taking the bus the same day to begin the trek at the north end, where we had ventured out a week before....


Near the highest point of the trail is this donkey engine. In days of old, this huge piece of machinery was somehow brought up here and used to winch a cable to logs in the process of hauling them down to the bay.




The climb up from Thrasher Cove was a brutal one, all the way up to the highest point on the trail. Essentially, two kilometres of steady climbing.






"Last day on the WCT and I'm not in a rush." We never were.... Well, maybe Bryan usually tried to be in the morning, but Daron and I always held him up... And this morning even he wasn't in a rush. It was a beautiful, relaxing start to our last day on the trail, and we had the beach to ourselves.... Um... Well, mostly.... Except for the naked German couple on the far end of the beach... by the drinking water.....


This is the campsite of the four Germans where we hung out around their campfire the night before and watched the high tide come in while eating bannock, raspberry jam, Nutella and dark chocolate, and passing around a bottle of re-imported Canadian whisky which one of the German men had purchased in Canada during a visit here a few years ago. He brought it back in a Pepsi bottle in his suitcase to drink on the WCT. At high tide, the waves were literally licking at our feet as they came over the protective log on the right side of the photo to where the campfire was.


A big highlight at Thrasher Cove was simply that our tent didn't get swamped by the sea. In this picture, it is visible how high the tide came during the night. Actually, we stayed up until the high tide at 10:30 p.m. the night before, so we knew we were safe. Some folks on the other end of the beach weren't so lucky, as they had waves lapping at the edge of their tent come high tide.

Day Six Video

Click to watch my Video Summary of Day Six.

Day Six Highlights

Our last evening on the trail was spent at Thrasher Cove. As you can see, we had become much more relaxed by this point.... Bryan is sitting reading a novel, and we haven't even set up the tent yet!
















After Owen Point, the rest of the day's hike was spent negotiating our way up, over and around massive boulders on the beach.... Two kilometres of boulders.... It was a blast.... (Is this where people break bones and are evacuated? They say out of 100 hikers, 99 will finish the West Coast Trail and one will be evacuated.)




Here, we could finally see what we had crossed over. As it turns out, we probably could've hopped off the shelf on the other side and hiked through, only getting wet up to our knees or so.


Island in the distance, taken from Owen Point.




When we reached Owen Point, there were still about two hours until the tides would be low enough to safely enter the cave. As we didn't know what to expect and didn't want to wait around, we opted to go up and over the point instead using ropes. This required bush-whacking through thick foliage. The was a bit of a trail, but we couldn't see to either side and didn't realize what the land-bridge we were crossing looked like until we reached the other side and could see it from behind.




Hiking on another planet?


Surge channels can present a challenge during beach hiking. These form naturally and are quite dangerous, as the power of the ocean is increased when the energy from waves enters these channels. We couldn't feel the bottom of this one with our poles. They can be crossed in numerous ways. Some are narrow enough to hop over, others may have a plank laying across, and others may be too wide and require heading to the trees.


Many different colours of fungi were spotted during our trek. This picture must've actually been taken the day before I think, when we were up in the trees.




On Day Six, we woke up to morning fog shining through the trees. This day, we had the choice of taking either the beach route or the forest route. This wasn't the first time we had this choice, but this time the choice was particularly difficult because of the obstacles the beach route presented. Although we were eager to try it, we knew that the tides weren't going to be great that day, and this stretch of the hike required lower tides than any other..... especially to get around Owen Point. The high tides could also make the two-kilometres of scrambling around and over boulders at the end of the day's trek more difficult, as there would be less options. Nonetheless, we wanted to have the best experience possible, and having already spent a day in the trees on Day Five, we decided to give the beach route a go. The first section was relatively easy, with sandstone shelf for the most part.