Wednesday and Thursday

Wednesday

Bus to Banff day. They came to pick us up at 8:30am, and off we went J I scored the front seat to stave off bus-sickness. First stop was maybe Athabasca Falls? No. We stopped a couple of times to check out deer and elk on the side of the highway. THEN hit up Athabasca Falls, the Columbia Icefields and Bow Lake before arriving in Banff. Oh, we also stopped at Lake Louise, but I'll save that for a later blog :)

Athabasca Falls were pretty J And were still that weird aqua shade of blue that proves it’s glacial runoff. Apparently the glacier rubs off superfine dust from the rock as it passes over, and this dust is called rock flour. It gets in everywhere, and once it’s suspended in the glacial runoff, it absorbs sunlight, and re-emits in the blue wavelength. So that’s why the water is that shocking aqua.

At the Columbia Icefields, we took a trip up to the glacier. First was a 5 minute shuttle bus, and then we all loaded onto a … like a bus on 6 giant wheels for the trip onto the Athabasca Glacier. It was Laney’s first time seeing snow, and it was actually SNOWING when we arrived! So she was stoked, and so was this other Aussie chick on the bus with us – Mel (who hadn’t seen snow either - she's the one in the bus pic with the camera).

After that, we headed off on another brief field trip to the skywalk, where they had constructed a glass bottomed horseshoe walk out over the canyon over the Athabasca River. The snow and cloudy skies made it a bit hard to see the scenery, and it was pretty cold, but hey.

Bow Lake was nice – but we initially stopped at a place with public toilets about 10 minutes up the road. All the trees all around were pine/fir trees, and they all had snow on them, and when we stopped there was snow all on the ground too J So me and Laney had a field day getting awesome photos and throwing snow at each other (and random other people). It looked gorgeous. Kate had a headache, so only hopped out for a few minutes L Then we hit the lake proper before heading on to Banff.

Laney and I caught the bus downtown at like 8pm to find groceries, only to make the cheerful discovery that most of the shops were still open to 9 or 9:30pm for the tourists (in stark contrast to Jasper, where everything shut at 5pm, or was shut for the season). And the grocery store was open to 11pm, yay! Kate stayed behind to sleep off her headache.

Thursday

We slept in! And then headed off at around 10:15am to bum around Banff for the day being tourists. 

Shops galore, then the Whyte Museum. More touristing around, and then because we had free bus passes, we headed off to the end of the line, and found the Fairmont Banff Springs. Fancy schmancy! Apparently it’s haunted, and there’s currently a stamp commemorating this J

We then took the bus past our hostel to the OTHER end of the line. It was a campground, and there were about a BILLION ELK! Okay, maybe around 40, no exaggeration. It was too dark to get any good photos, but we listened for the male’s bugling, (and the responses) and just watched them walk around individually (from a safe distance). All of a sudden there was a massive stampede of the things across the road about 200 metres in front of us! Amazing!

Running out of holiday themed titles...

Saturday

Today we drove back to Vancouver. I didn’t get lost, and we didn’t miss the ferry, yay J

Sunday

UGH. Kate and our roommate of one night convinced me to do the stupid Grouse Grind. It's a walk/hike up Grouse Mountain, and is basically stairs or scrambling up rock piles the entire way. 

It took FOREVER to get to the quarter mark! I was gasping for air for about the first third, but then my breath was ok – my legs just kept getting reeeeealllly really tired :P So I stopped for lots and lots of breaks, and admired the scenery and a random squirrel that some people managed to hand feed at the half way mark. Kate gave up waiting for me, and just met me at the top, and Laney was smart enough to go shopping downtown instead while she waited for us. 

As we were on our way to Grouse Mountain, I texted someone in my phone wondering if it was still their phone number – he lives in Vancouver. And yes it was still his number lol. And he invited us to come to a Thanksgiving potluck they were having.

After that was some random looking in shops downtown, before thanksgiving dinner with Jon Evans and his family & friends. We bought Tim Tams as our potluck contribution, and Kate and Laney didn’t hate the pumpkin pie – even with my less than enthusiastic (non)endorsement. Our train to Jasper departed at 8:30pm. We checked our baggage before heading off to dinner, and walked to the train station afterwards – it was just a ten minute walk down the road. There was nearly no-one on the train, so we had our pick of seats – which reclined, and had footrests. Comfy-ness for sleeping!

Monday – Thanksgiving

Woke up on the train by a ten minute stop at Kamloops. The people behind us on the train TALKED SO LOUDLY for no reason. SHUTUP freaks! I’m trying to sleep! Kate also tried waking me up for breakfast – nope don’t care – sleeping. So I woke up later and ate my last bagel and the remainder of my Walmart grapes instead. And then dozed on and off for the next little while – until I’d been awake for a while and decided to write some more blogs to post when we next have internet. Tah dah!

Continuing with my blogging on Tuesday night, I recall arriving in Jasper, and booking our tour from Jasper to Banff, and then catching the last shuttle bus to go from Jasper out to the hostel for the season… lucky? Driver was awesome and gave us a celebratory last shuttle discount :) Later on we caught a cab into town, ate at a Greek place, and bought some groceries.

Tuesday

We started by catching yet another cab into town, and checked out the information centre, before hitting up some souvenir stores. Kate wanted a coffee, so we stopped at a place called “The other paw”. Our cab driver highly recommended their soups, so I gave it a shot. I picked the “Wicked Thai Chicken” instead of the “Creamy Cauliflower” soup option, and got an apple-crumbly slice to eat afterwards, in case it was super spicy. BEST. SOUP. EVER. Oh my gosh it was so GOOD! With mushrooms, and rice and chicken, in all the creamy Thai-ness and just a hint of spicyness…. WOW – SO GOOD!!!!! I can’t even show you a picture of it, because I only bothered to grab my camera after I was finished everything…

After our food, we headed along the walking trail up to the Old Fort Point. We had a minor detour at one point, but as it resulted in awesome photos, and we soon got back on track it wasn’t a problem. 

The lookout gave us great views, especially since the sun had decided to come out after a fairly cloudy night and morning. Yay, mountains!!!! 

OH, I forgot to mention – we saw an ELK right after we started our walk!!!

More Holidays 2014

My next blog writing takes place on the train from Vancouver to Jasper, lol.

Wednesday

This morning I went and picked up our rental car. We didn’t get out to the Capilano Suspension Bridge like we had planned for yesterday, so that is where we went first. We’ve noticed a pattern in Vancouver weather – it tends to be cloudy and foggy in the morning, and clear up a bit as the day goes on. Which was fine for today J After we took some amazing shots at the bridge, we headed up the mountain a bit and visited Cleveland Dam, and the Salmon Hatchery. Then we headed up the coast.

The Sea to Sky gondola is a new attraction, this year I think. It’s up near Squamish, and Laney found out about it somewhere. It was cool – once we got up the mountain, we were above the clouds and did a bunch of walks in the sunlight with great scenery. Afterwards we did a quick walk around Squamish. Their waterfront was a bit dingy, but had cool mountain views. Then we headed back to Vancouver over the Lion’s Gate bridge and through Stanley Park J

Thursday

Today was a driving day. We left the hostel at like, 6:50am, in order to be sure we got to the ferry on time. We did. The ferry was huge, and we were parked at the front of the boat J It took an hour an a half to get to Nanaimo, and so we had breakfast on the ferry, and checked out the gift shop. The wifi was crap. Once in Nanaimo, we checked out the city a bit, hit up a grocery store and Dollarama, and headed north. We stopped at Goats on the Roof, Little Qualicum Falls and (yay) Cathedral Grove! This time I finally got to have a decent look around.

I was waiting for a cheaper grocery store, so of course it took forever to find one – until we came to Port Alberni and found the Walmart there. Then it was a very windy highway to Tofino, with a bunch of cars who seemed to think tailgating me was an effective way of getting me to go faster. Unfortunately for them, I tend to slow down and go just under the speed limit when that happens J But I was kind, and kept right in the overtaking sections. Finally we go to Tofino, and settled into the hostel.

Friday

Sleep in! Yay! Today we had our boat trip to the hot springs. We walked over to the dock, and signed in. Because it was slightly rainy we were upgraded to the enclosed boat for free. We saw a variety of wildlife –seals, sea lions, and a bunch of grey whales spouting and feeding and occasionally lifting their tails up. They didn’t get too close though. Then we came across a sea otter, and then headed more directly up to the hot springs. We had lunch in the shelter there – big solid wooden beams made for a very solid shelter. Nice and dry – but way to brag about your timber industry! And then was the solid half hour walk through the temperate rainforest as it drizzled constantly! WET.

There were a few people just leaving as we arrived, so we basically had the place to ourselves. Plus some new arrivals – a dog pack from the native village across the water swims over to the springs to beg for food from tourists. They were big cuties, but definitely had some wolf blood in them. Looked a bit like a sled team.

The tide was high, but going out, and the water was HOT! Until another wave washed in from the sea, and cooled it off every half minute or so. Parboiled seaweed was piled everywhere looking like giant spaghetti. The rain stopped for a while there, including most of our walk back. The boat ride back was less choppy than the way out, as we went through the sheltered waters closer to the coast. We saw some more sea otters, a bald eagle and a sea lion or two before getting back to Tofino.  Then a nice warm shower at the hostel J We tried to find a place selling grilled/baked salmon for dinner, but no luck, so we had some great pizza from Tony’s Pizza, and ice cream from the supermarket across the street.

Holidays 2014!

Hey look guys, I’m blogging!

So this week I’ve been on holidays with Laney and Kate in beautiful British Columbia. I shall try to catch up on what we’ve done, and include pictures to illustrate J

Sunday – Day 1

Today I arrived in Vancouver, yay! I was meant to meet Kate and Laney at the hostel downtown at 5pm, but they missed their flight from LA, and so were an hour or so later than that. We went for a walk down by the beach, and they took me to the Boathouse restaurant for my birthday J I had steak – huge portion as you can see, but really good J Laney had fish and chips – I was slightly jealous.

Then we went down the street for Marble Slab icecream, mmmmmmmm.

Monday

Today started with a long bus ride to the University of British Columbia where we went to see the Museum of Anthropology. That campus is MASSIVE. A little town all on its own. 

Next we went to the Granville Markets for lunch, and after that we headed downtown to Gastown for souvenir shopping and to see the steam clock. 

We found a tourist map that pointed out a lookout – so we went up the lookout tower and could see all around Vancouver, which was pretty nice. On the level above the lookout there was a rotating restaurant, but we didn’t go to that – we can do that in Toronto J Finally we went on an adventure – searching for a Value Village store. I saw it on a map on East Hastings St, but didn’t know what intersection it was at. So we got on a bus downtown and just headed east on Hastings. We went through the dodgiest section of town, which was fun (…) and drove for AGES (30 mins?) until the bus just decided to pull over and sit there. For ten minutes. I guess he was ahead of schedule, but as it turned out, the very next stop was the Value Village we had been searching for. We could have just WALKED there, lol.

After that, we took the bus home, stopping for Macca’s for a VERY late dinner, but then the bus driver went right past our stop – and the next stop was ages away across a bridge. So at like, 11pm, we’re sitting on the other side of the road at the bus stop waiting for the bus going in the opposite direction to come and take us back over the bridge. LATE NIGHT!

Tuesday

Kate and Laney decided to go jogging at disgusting o’clock today, and then peer pressure me into going for a walk around Stanley Park. We ended up going all the way around, and then heading directly to the Aquarium. We ate food, saw an AWESOME dolphin training session and belugas and sea otters and jellyfish.

In the afternoon, we headed back to the hostel so Kate and Laney could shower and change, and then we caught the bus to Grouse Mountain, where we took the gondola up the mountain. We looked around up there, and had dinner in the restaurant watching the sun set over the city. Pretty J

Now I’m tired, so I’ll have to continue updating my blog later :P