Experience #41

Theme: Air: Sleeping in the spheres

Thanks Celeste for suggesting this experience. The Free Spirit spheres are located in Qualicum Beach area. Tom Chudleigh built them of local woods using sailboat technologies. His concept was to harness the healing qualities of the old growth forest and create a habitat that is in harmony with it's surroundings without causing harm to it. The spheres are hung from a series of cables and no nails go into their support trees. You enter the floating orbs by a spiral stair case which wraps around a tree. The Erin sphere has a double bed, a dinette, kitchenette, and a loft single bed. The morning light streams into the round windows, the breeze gently rocks the orb. It is truly a relaxing and healing experience.
Our host Tom showed us the facilities: the 3 orbs, the compost toilet and shared shower facility. All very clean and well maintained. His partner, Rosey, had prepared a basket of goodies and champagne for us to enjoy. Their story is worth noting. Rosey came to stay, in 2009, for 2 months to recover from an illness. They fell in love and she ended up staying. Very romantic...
We arrived Friday night and stayed Saturday. The feeling of being cradled in this suspended tree house was magical. The suspension rocked away the stresses of the last few weeks. It was a week-end just for the two of us. Let's just say that the orb got 'a rockin'...

Experience #42

Theme: Earth: Spelunking

Horn Lake caves offers 3, 4, and 5 hour tours. Our guide was a young man named Myles. He explained that the caves were created many millions of years ago through the erosion process of glaciation. Limestone dissolves under the action of water charged with carbonic acid. The dissolution process produces a distinctive landforms known as karst, characterised by sinkholes, and underground drainage. Limestone caves are often adorned with calcium carbonate formations produced through slow precipitation. These include flowstones, stalactites, stalagmites, helictites, soda straws and columns. These secondary mineral deposits in caves are called speleothems.
Our tour took us through narrow tunnels where we had to crawl on our hands and knees and sometimes on our bellies. We down climbed into the deeper caves where we saw some of the largest flowstones and stalactites. One of these resembled the Buddha sitting by the water, others resembled animals such as elephants, crocodiles and wolves. It was a very exciting day of discovery. We both ended up very dirty-great fun!