Iron(men) and Wine

Penticton's own little Hollywood sign (or perhaps Hollywood has a Penticton sign...?)


This is going to be a little un-chronological for a bit, simply because i haven't finished my planting posts, haven't even started a post about Victoria, but have finished a Penticton post. Bear with me.

So, I spent the last two weeks in Penticton, with Neil, who I met tree planting. Penticton is another Okanagan holiday town, besides Kelowna, which we previously visited on our Rockies trip. In fact, it's just the other end of the same lake. The filling in a lake sandwich, if you will, between Okanagan Lake to the North and Skaha Lake, South.

I had a wonderful couple of weeks there, enjoying tasty food and wine, lovely people and the hospitality of Neil's family, who i stayed with. A proper little holiday.

That said, true to the 'working-holiday' mantra in my visa, I mixed up my time there with some actual productivity too. The last week of August is Penticton's busiest week in the year as it plays host to Ironman Canada. Just in case you're not aware of what that involves, it's a 2.4 mile swim, 112 mile bike ride and then a marathon to top it off. This is either completely amazing, or utter insanity - i'm still not quite sure which... Perhaps I should refer you to this video; firmly on one side of that argument, but sums it up rather extensively.

Psychologies aside, this year Ironman brought with it 3000 nervous atheletes along with all their families and supporters (rather a lot of people in a town of 30,000). Since Neil's family co-own the largest bike shop in the town , it goes without saying that they get rather busy. And so it was, that for my first week in Penticton they let me help out there, pointing people in (hopefully) the right general direction and trying to sound like I might know something about bikes or triathalons... it was lovely of them to have me :)



It would be remiss of me not to mention that prior to jumping in to all of this - in fact, within an hour of arriving - i was swept off (by bike of course) by Neil, with his brother, Geoff, and Geoff's girlfriend, Shelby, to make the most of landing in the middle of wine country, on a whistlestop tasting tour. All the while, the weather down South was busy redeeming itself for such a late summer up North; crystal clear blue skies and nearly 30*c outside, and staying there for the next 2 weeks with only one day's exception. All rather idyllic, if you ask me.


As busy times do, the first week flew by in a whirlwind of nervous-looking triatheletes and a few really nice large dinners, with family and friends that were around helping out for the week.
Come Ironman day itself (Sunday) the shop provides techincal/mechanical/new-bike-altogether assistance to competitors who are down on their luck (or perhaps, sometimes, just ill-prepared). However, neither Neil nor I were really techincal enough to be particularly helpful and spent the day chilling at the house, instead preparing dinner for the walking-weary as they returned (their day started at 4.30am!).



As an ultra endurance race, the benefit to the potential spectator is that even though we skipped on the whole day, we could still go down to the waterfront and finish their maratons at 9pm (and could have stayed for another 3 hours for the midnight cut off (had we been somewhat more enthusiatic)). 10 minutes was really quite enough, but it was still awesome to go down and experience the carnival atmosphere that the finishg brings with it.

Anywayz, after 1 more day mopping up the final bike-related woos (mainly signing them in to be dismantled for flights) and taking down the enormous stack of energy products found only in locations that are accompanied by large numbers of crazy people, we were free to chill out away from the hussle.



And so, the remainder of the week passed in a haze of lake swimming, sitting on the beach, eating nice food and vegging out in front of movies that apparently it is a travesty I have never seen. Towards the end of the week we also headed out on a wine and gourmet pizza twitter tasting event thing, and enjoyed stunning views of the twon at dusk, topped only by returning to Neil's scrumptious chocolate cheese cake ("here's one i made earlier" stylee) chased with good port.



I couldn't leave with without trying my hand at mountain biking, so it's extremely convenient that there's a trail going right into their back yard. 'tis the life! I didn't even fall off - triumph of the week - I mean, it would really suck to last an entire ski season and then hurt myself 2 weeks before I leave the country!)



Suffice to say that Penticton is a lovely little town (so long as you're not adverse to the outdoors or allergic wine) and I was sad to leave; although it goes without saying, that I'm also excited for a bit of an adventure.

Thanks to Neil and all his family, as well as all the bike peeps at the shop, for making me so welcome! :)