HARRISON HOT SPRINGS

We have left the cold and snow of Ontario far behind us as we flew back to British Columbia early on Monday morning. There was a large crowd at Toronto airport and we were thankful that we had stayed at the airport the night before our flight.


My concerns about my bag being overweight were proved correct when the lady at the check in counter said that the bag was 10lbs overweight and would cost a baggage excess of $52. I knew exactly where that extra weight had come from as Tammie had loaded my bag down with four bottles of good wine.


So it was an easy decision for me to hand the bottles over to the check in lady who was happy to receive them and who then immediately declared that my bag was underweight. Funny that.


Our flight to Vancouver was packed with supporters of the Canadian Winter Olympic team. Many passengers were wearing Team Canada hockey shirts and Go Canada shirts and jackets and were off to the games.


There was a buzz around Vancouver airport and many Canadians were glued to big screen TV’s around the airport as Canadian television interviewed Canada’s first gold medal winner. As an Australian watching the Canadian Olympic broadcast the constant Go Canada and blatant parochialism is a little hard to handle. But when I think it through it is no different than the jingoistic Australian coverage.


After a two hour stopover in Vancouver we boarded a flight to Kelowna, a bare 34 minutes away. We had no sooner taken off when we landed.


We were no sooner home before we were in the car again, this time heading off through the snow and mist covered Rocky Mountains for Harrison Hot Springs our Olympic base for the next six days.


The resort has a number of thermal hot springs which look inviting and the lake where the resort is located looked beautiful even on a rainy day.


Our first Olympic event is on Thursday so Wednesday day will be a ‘chill’ day around the resort.