I cant believe the things I'm seeing here.. I'm going to keep this thread updated and blow all your minds.. things I witness in canada..

- Car illegally U-turning OVER a road island directly behind a cop. The cop turns and ignores the driver.
- Car over takes me doing well over 130km/h in a 100 zone, past a cop. The cop ignores them.

Just tonight, I watched a Jeep run a red light, and it'd been red for a good 10 seconds... infront of TWO cop cars, which you guessed it, turned off and ignored him.

WTF ? Cat converters arent law here. No roadworthies. Hell, my CRX isnt even complied for Canada, just FOB and driven the last 2 years !
Just buy a radar detector in the audio shops.

More ot follow.

Steve, there is no such thing as gutters or median strips in Australia when you drive a Forester either. At least, when the cops AREN'T around that is

Salt on the roads due to the snow would be the reason for no road worthiness, salt would eat the cars up and no one would be able to drive nuggets on the road. Saying that, can you tell us if finance is still .1% at car yards when you drive past? All the times i've been there (Mrs is Canadian) we drove past many a car yard and finance was .1%, why would you ever own a car? hahahaha

Finance is mostly Prime + 1% now. They dont salt the roads here, they sand them instead.

I still dont understand the cops.. just ignoring some really obvious beeches on road rules

LOL I've seen cops ignoring minor stuff like someone getting a little tail happy, but that stuff is funny as. Maybe there is some special 'moose emergency clause' in their road rules

Which part you visiting Steve?

Red Deer Alberta

I looked at living in Edmonton AB Canada at one stage and I remember a mate who is from BC said that in canada they are all a little bit redneck in there driving.
He also commented that most people have a winter car and a summer car because they just slide into one another at the lights in winter - he reacons the roads are like an oversized demolition derby in winter. Got heaters under your car Steve?

And SPL you reacon in a forester theres no such thing as gutters or median strips. You should drive a patrol
Or go one better and drive a patrol wit 37" claws - theres pretty much nothing that can stop that (a mate has a tray back with 37" tyres - he litterally CAN drive over other cars - another mates paddock bomb has the scars and bent roof to prove it.

Steve I thought they used a combination of salt and sand?

Nah, its sand only in Red Deer.. and as Jas said, I'm in Red Deer Alberta.. halfway between Calgary and Edmonton. Work has offices in both and I run between them on a regular basis, hence seeing stupid crap on the roads ALL THE TIME.

PS. Jas, I'm having Jalapeno smokies and Schneiders bacon on leb break for dinner

How are the 'babes over there?

I've got mine and I have one for every Aussie mate who comes here

Do I count as a 'mate'?
Having never met / spoke to you before
That's how it works in this country, right?

I asked my wife and she said they use both sand and salt in Toronto, that I didn't know...

Take a trip up to Edmonton, I've heard they got a... BIG shopping centre

http://www.westedmall.com/home/default.asp

Can someone say BIG? http://maps.google.com.au/maps?f=q&hl=...038624&z=15

The lack of roadworthies in Canada and the US results in some interesting vehicles on the road.
Especially in the US in lower income areas, it's not uncommon to see bumpers or doors held on by rope or duct tape.

Duct tape repair jobs

Been there saw an old lady in a Civic almost side swipe another Civic to get into the place, so Civic 2 did the sensible thing, flipped her off and gunned it almost running her into the side of the pickup infront of me. Such friendly drivers here !
I have been assured the city of Red Deer doesnt use salt, just sand. Winter driving shall be fun.. I'm jacking the CRX up and running snow tires and super soft setting on my struts.

FYI, they're building a new mall outside of Calgary thats supposed to be even bigger than that one ! The indoor rollercoaster and "beach" still mess with my head.

I found this beauty in the supermarket car park. I hope to own such a fine automobile one day..

Click to view attachment


I was searching for a new front bar for my GF's friends Civic on the local forums and came across this..
Click to view attachment

I'd like to dedicate this song to him...
YouTube Video



You have in-directly bought me beer.. so yes

Been down to Banff yet? Dont remember in which direction its in, but I do remember it took us about 2hrs from Calgary.

I still got to see Edmonton mall for myself, next time I go back to see the outlaws

Correct - drawing that was the job i was offered to head over there (in hindsight i should have taken it) I had to pay my way over but then i was to be given rent free accomodation in a "middle class" area for 12 months, a vehicle and my cost for relocation repaid if i stuck with the job for 3 months.

One of the chicks i used to go on city booze cruises with at that stage was from Edmonton (she was in melbourne on a 12 month work contract) and I got her brother to check it all out for me (he was also a drafty) he ended up taking a job with them in the mechanical division of the firm and last i heard he was still with them 2 after 2 years (I havent heard from the chick in 12 months - i just checked my emails lol).

Oh well hindsights a wonderful thing. And if i had taken all the overseas travel/work opportunites i'd have seen a lot of the world dubai, uk, germany, canada and northern usa. Actually I've been offered a gig in Zimbabwe actually but its only a week long gig playing with a whole lotta PA gear but i dont think im gunna take that either - way too much politics involved and the logistics are a nightmare that i dont want to deal with

Any way - that Mall is supposed to be figgen awesome it was being drawn as a live model - thats what I was supposed to help with because I had experiance with one of the only companies who had experimented with live models in the world at that stage.

Well.. it seems August 30th I'm staying at the Fantasyland Hotel in the W/E Mall, so I can spend a weekend checking the place out properly.. see whats so damned special about it aside from the roller coaster . I'll get photo's and Facebook them.
October I'm heading to Banff for the weekend.. GF's b'day and I promised I'd take her there . Hope its twisty, I wanna give the Honda a good run. Its 2 hours South-West-ish of Calgary IIRC ? My geography here isnt so good just yet.

When you're here with the missus you can drop me a line if you like


Yeah hindsight is a wonderful thing.. right until winter I dont think I'll regret this move. Come winter, I will I guarantee . Well maybe not, I'll just invest into an extensive winter wardrobe.
1 week in Zimbabwe would be a bit of a time waster I think.. unless you took a 3 week break there, get your moneys worth out of the trip.. but once its said and done, you'd prolly waste half your profits on accomodations and travel alone.

Seems I'm spending all next week and the week after in Calgary.. fun fun !

PS. I saw on the news today... Alberta and British Columbia are running out of petrol at their servo's 'cos someone switched off a refinery in Edmonton and havent fixed whatever was wrong with it

Go for a walk around the Banff Springs Hotel, 700 room castle, few other things to do there but the castle is the main attraction. Watch out for stray elk too, its the 3rd largest national park (our Royal national park comes in at 2nd behind Yellow Stone in the USA) so wildlife is everywhere

$268 a night.. hrmmm.. might stay there when we go. Thats almost half the price of RimRock Resort Only $70 more than Caribou Lodge.. which is where I was planning to stay.

unless they have changed the rules, when we stayed at the castle it was minimum 2 nights, we did the week... cost me about $4600-$4700 just to put our heads down for the week in AUD not CAD...

Word of advice Steve, don't forget your camera's, you will kick yourself if you do... I got a Baby Elk on tape sleeping out front of our room

Oh try to ignore the hot water pipes in the night banging away and the generators going on/off/on/off/on... well you get what I mean

Or "the ghosts" as my girlie calls them.. she stayed there once already, so bugger it we'll stay in the Caribou Lodge and do a walking tour of the castle/hotel during the day .

Here's another piece of gross stupidity I witnessed today.. 8 police and 4 police cars funneling 16th Ave east bound in Calgary while they did a road-side safety on an obviously very new and not modified Audi.
This would be like the police blocking off all but ONE lane of the M4 into Homebush, or Parra Rd. during office hours.. They caused a traffic jam stretching back 6 blocks Idiots.

I been living in Whistler B.C since November and yeh the drivers are crazy round here,

we had a rock slide about 2 weeks ago and that shut the main road in and out of Squamish, Whistler and Pemberton the main petrol station here just about ran out fuel, was pretty hectik for those few days,

havent been to Alberta yet dont think i will make it this time but will try,

Meet you in Banff