Anyway, back to Vancouver, we got there early afternoon, had some dinner and I promptly fell asleep, whilst this was much needed, it turned out to be a bit annoying, as that day was pretty much the only full sunny nice weather day we had in Vancouver. We spent the evening in the campsites hot tub and swimming pool, which was great for the aching muscles we’d picked up in Whistler!
We made a list of things we really wanted to see in Vancouver and set off on Sunday for the aquarium. Based in Stanley Park, the aquarium is in a truly beautiful setting. On the advice of the campsite we got an all day travel pass which allowed us on the sky train, buses and water taxi and decided to get the sky train to the waterfront and walk around to the park… it was a lot longer than indicated on the map, but a very cool walk. We walked all along the waterfront admiring the predictable Gin Palaces and expensive apartments in and around the marinas, but we did find some cool house boats:
Should you visit Vancouver I’d recommend the aquarium. It’s one of the best I’ve seen with interesting exhibits which are especially good for Canada’s coast line. We saw the Beluga Whale’s which were AMAZING, them usually living in the Artic Waters means our chances of ever seeing them are slim, so it was great to see them there. It was also great to see a HUGE sea lion and some dolphins as well as the usual aquarium fare. What I especially liked was that you got to see the research projects going on and explanations as to why they are important, which, in my opinion, was pretty cool.
Beluga Whales:
One of my old favourites:
By the time we left he aquarium the day was already getting short. We walked back down the main shopping streets passing some little organic markets and the Rocky Mountain Chocolate Shop… ok, we didn’t PASS the Rocky Mountain chocolate shop… We made the most of being in Canada and stopped at a pub (probably our last until England now!) for dinner and a couple of beers before wandering back to the campsite.
After realising that Vancouver is actually quite massive we decided to take the bikes into town on Monday as we wanted to investigate Stanley Park. We also managed to re-use our travel passes as we didn’t realise you were meant to validate them in a machine with the date on, so that was a bit of a bargain! Stanley Park is an indication of what Vancouver was like before the building started and although it has been quite badly damaged from a storm a few years ago, is pretty cool. We cycled around the sea wall taking in the tourist favourites of the totem poles:
And the HUGE trees, they reckoned this was 800 years old (we didn’t count the rings so can’t confirm!):
We also spotted an owl asleep in one of the large trees, I’m sure there was a more peaceful place to sleep, but he seemed content to sit there and watch the world go by:
Before getting to the beach for lunch and watching the bit tankers avoiding the little private boats:
On our way out Stanley Park we checked out Gastown, the oldest part of Vancouver and followed that with China Town. Although there was some beautiful parts, including a steam powered clock in Gastown, it’s best to say you should only visit this part of town in the daylight. Still, nothing we had to worry about and Dan got very excited as there were lots of little alleyways ‘like you see in the movies where a dustcart always pulls out during the car chase!’
We then headed back to the skytrain to drop the bikes off back near the campsite as… well, tonight… WAS HOCKEY NIGHT! WAHOOOOOOOOO! I was fulfilling one of my ambitions and after watching the Sheffield Steelers for 3 years (until I moved), I was going to a Canadian Ice Hockey Game! Needless to say, much excitement ensued. Although it was only pre-season (season doesn’t start proper until October) the atmosphere was great. Vancouver Canucks vs. Anaheim Ducks. We got in early to watch the warm up and buy the necessary hats, t-shirts and foam hands (hehe), the stadium was big and filled up quickly as face-off loomed and needless to say the match was very fast and truly excellent There was only 2 fights (still, they were proper fights!) and Vancouver ended up loosing 2-3, but they did take it to sudden death overtime which was excellent. Again, I’d highly recommend going to a game… it’s somewhat different to Basingstoke Bison’s… bless ‘em*.
We awoke to more rain on Tuesday, which put pay to our plans to go to Capilano Suspension Bridge, we didn’t think it’d be much fun in the rain. As the forecast didn’t look to be getting any better over the next few days we decided to head to Land Rover to see if they could change Charlie’s oil again… but they had a 3 week waiting list and lots of Bentleys, Jag’s and Astons in the car park! Lol! So we did some shopping and started heading south. We stopped the night just north of Seattle on I5, it felt only right that we should visit a KOA. As I’m sure we’ve mentioned before there is something reassuring about KOA campsites, and this one had a decent sized pool and a couple of hot tubs to boot.
After having a dip in the pool we had a burst of efficiency and decided to work out where we were gonna go from here. We want to make sure we fit in as much as possible now that we are on the return journey, and we have several weeks already accounted for as Jen wants to spend a week with Mickey Mouse in Florida (well, at the Keys, Miami, sea world etc. ), we both want to do as much biking and off roading as possible in Moab, and there is probably enough stuff to keep us busy in LA alone for the rest of the trip. So the rest of the month was planned as follows:
19th – Mt St Helens
20th-21st – Florence – Sand Dune Driving!
22nd – Crater Lake National Park
23rd – Lavabeds
24th – 25th – Redwoods
26th – Nevada City
27th – 28th Lake Tahoe/Yosemite
29th – 30th Yosemite
And we are already a day late!
* note: Basingstoke Bison games are still fun, if you haven’t been to Ice Hockey – make sure you go!!
No comments:
Post a Comment