Canada

Holiday Destinations?

/ australianperfumejunkiescom / 27 Comments

Hey there crew,

We are in South Korea and having a ball. Actually, by now we are flying home

Righto!
So I am running INCREDIBLY late with stuff for this holiday and my mind has turned to mush. Instead of writing a post I thought I could ask you all for your input:

Question_Mark_CloudPhoto Stolen WikiMedia

What destinations are on your holiday list? Where have you been that you’d like to return to or where would you LOVE to go? What do you prefer, an active, exciting holiday, lazy relaxing holiday? Is it shopping, sniffing, eating, scenery, friends or adventure?

Sleeping On The Plane Ian McKenzie FlickrPhoto Stolen Flickr

My answer: As you know I love to travel. What seems to happen is I either go to visit friends or go to check a new place and see as much of it as I can. When traveling with Jin that means being up at the crack of dawn and falling into the bed a couple of hours before the next dawn. We see Museums, walk the streets and get lost, find cafes. catch public transport and as Jin so eloquently puts it, “We act so local”.

One of things I like to have is a breakfast buffet, it’s so much better to tromp downstairs and grab food, that’s where I do my Post Card writing and Jin plans the days adventures. I prefer a 4* but will happily sleep No Star if the Breakfast is good.

Where do I like to go? Well, numerically I’ve spent the most visits to India, I think 15 or 16 trips now and every time India makes me want to go back again. When they wrote Incredible India they weren’t joking. Followed closely by the UK, I lived there for a couple of years in thew 1990s and have been back numerous times for all sorts of reasons from work to weddings.

Where have I not been that is on the list, I’ll give you my Top 5 Want To Destinations1. South America: Yes the whole damn continent. Recently Jin and I bought motorbikes to prepare for a trip following The Motorcycle Diaries by Che Guevara.
2. Madagascar: The lovely island off Africa that DreamWorks made into a MUST SEE on my list.
3. Canada: I know, you’d think I would have been there but as yet it hasn’t happened. I had my fingers crossed for this November but the gods saw other things in my lifeline. that’s cool, I’ll get there.
4. Russia: Sadly they are going through some madness there but one day I will get to Russia, with love. Imagine me in full drag tramping through the major cities of Russia. Yes, me too!
5. Israel: The center of so many of the world’s faiths, filled with the icons of my childhood religious upbringing. It would be interesting and informative to walk in the footsteps of Jesus.

Tell me about your travels or your “I Wish” list?
Portia xx

Waterton Lakes National Park: Perfume: Photo Essay

/ australianperfumejunkiescom / 16 Comments

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Post by Dionne

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My Favorite Place on Earth:

Waterton Lakes National Park and How It Relates to Perfume

Greetings, my fellow niche nerds!

This is a post of a different sort than my usual review; call it my “What I Did for Summer Holidays” assignment. Portia has mentioned to me that visiting Banff National Park is on her bucket list (just like seeing Australia is on mine), so I thought I’d let her and you in on one of Alberta’s best-kept secrets and a place very dear to my heart, Waterton Lakes National Park.

First of all, here are some maps to get you oriented:

Alberta north america Waterton ParkPhoto Stolen Waterton Park

Just to give you an idea of scale, Alberta’s about 1,125 km (760 miles) from top to bottom, bigger than California, smaller than Texas, and almost three times the size of the UK.

alberta pc.gc.caPhoto Stolen pc.gc.ca

You see that liiiitle green blob in the southwest corner of the map? That’s Waterton. It’s a lot smaller in size than Banff or Jasper, the two much larger green areas on the west edge of the map.

waterton-region-500 pc.gc.caPhoto Stolen pc.gc.ca

So here we are in the southwest corner of the province, about a 3 hour drive from Calgary. Waterton shares its southern border with Glacier National Park in the United States, and the two combined are a UNESCO World Heritage Site. http://whc.unesco.org/en/list/354

So with the technical stuff out of the way, it’s time to gush. As much as I love Jasper and Banff, Waterton is a truly special and unique place. As you’ll see from the pictures, the prairies come right to the feet of the mountains, so there is a sense of airiness and grandeur here I’ve never experienced anywhere else. Waterton has been called the “Anti-Banff” because it’s quaint and quiet, with very little development.

Both The Engineer and I had spent time here as kids, and I remember distinctly our first visit back as a young married couple. I said to him, “I feel like a dried-up sponge that’s been thrown back into water. There’s just something about this place.”

Since then, we’ve come back every year. One of the things that struck me on that first visit as an adult was how strong of a scent memory Waterton held. It’s mountain air and water and the prairies all mixed together. Portia asked me what perfumes I wore when we were camping there this year, and I told her I hadn’t worn any. I brought a passel of decants, and I typically enjoy working my way through a bunch of samples whenever I camp but….. I just couldn’t do it. Stepping out of our trailer that first morning and breathing in, I wanted nothing to get in the way of that smell.  I thought to myself, “What is that? Is that sage?  I wonder if there’s anything that smells like this in perfume form.” So that’s become one of my latest quests, finding a perfume that smells like sage and mountain air, something that reminds me of Waterton. Will I find it? Not sure, but it’s going to be fun trying.

So before I show you some of our family photos, here are a couple of questions for you: 1) Have you ever been somewhere so special you chose not to wear perfume? 2) Sage and mountain air, people. Any recommendations for my sampling quest?

Here’s hoping you all have places that touch your spirit and soothe your soul. Mwah!

Dionne

Waterton 1

The Engineer and Dragongirl hiked to the top of Bear’s Hump, a short but steep trail on the edge of the townsite that gives an amazing panoramic view of the area. This is facing south, and it also shows one of the reasons why the town has stayed small. Basically, there’s no room to get bigger.

Waterton 2-1

The same spot facing north. Waterton’s combination of prairie and mountain makes for an extremely diverse and unique biosphere.

Waterton 3

Mainstreet. Most of these stores haven’t changed since I was a kid.

Waterton 4

The Playground in town.

Waterton 5

A plaque at the playground

Waterton 6-1

Our site at Crandell, facing west.

Waterton 7

Same spot facing north.

Waterton 8

This fellow was in a neighbor’s site. There are deer EVERYWHERE here.

Waterton 9

It’s typically for bears to be around the Crandell campground as it’s away from the town, and we usually see one or two every year we come. For some reason, possibly the abundance of berries, we saw three or four *every single day* this year. It got to the point where I just left the camera with the zoom lens on my lap everywhere we drove.

Waterton 10

Because of the bears, we saw this sight all the time too, typically referred to as “Bear Jam.” This is on Red Rock Parkway on the way to our campground, there are mountains to the left and the right of this photo.