Off To Canada (Again)

Holidays in Canada

Tag Archives: brentwood bay resort


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Some Canadian memories

I am often asked why we have been to Canada so many times and why we continue to visit. So here’s the short (ish) reason.

In September 1988 Amanda and I boarded a Wardair flight to Vancouver. This was only the third time I’d flown at this point and certainly the furthest. The flights were an early wedding present from Amanda’s mum. We were getting married the following year but had the chance to have an ‘early honeymoon’ in Canada and it turned out to be a very wise decision but that’s another story. We were going to spend the next 5 weeks staying with Amanda’s cousin and her husband in Vancouver and were really looking forward to this incredible opportunity and adventure.

Personally I was incredibly excited about flying with Wardair. This mythical company offered higher quality service at pretty much economy prices, one of the reasons it went out of operation the following year maybe? Fillet steak served on proper china with metal cutlery and wine in real glasses. After only flying on a package holiday charter to Tunisia perviously this felt like we were flying first class believe me.

On arriving at Vancouver airport, after a brief stop in Edmonton, we disembarked feeling like we hadn’t slept in 2 days….. it was more like 26 hours at this point. Honestly I don’t remember much about the journey to Surrey from the airport but I do remember arriving at the house and I remember our hosts. A more welcoming and lovely couple I don’t think I’ve ever met. They opened up their home to us, shared their friends with us and introduced us to the most amazing country. This is something we’ve never forgotten and why we have returned 9 times. We’ve visited Vancouver, Victoria, Halifax, Montreal, Quebec City, Ottawa and Toronto. We’ve taken a 13 hour ferry journey north up the BC coast and caught a train right across the country. I’ve been in a helicopter over Niagara Falls and driven roads so quiet that we didn’t see another car for over 3 hours. We’ve seen bald eagles, coyote, a BIG Grizzly bear, black bears, mountain sheep and elk, we’ve seen humpback whales and dolphins and orca and grey whales and sea otters. We’ve watched hockey in Vancouver, Toronto (Go Leafs Go), Montreal and Ottawa, Basketball and baseball in Toronto. We’ve stayed in lakeside lodges and five star hotels and historic chateau – like hotels and cheap motels. We’ve sweated in spring in Toronto and summer in Vancouver and frozen in Alberta in November. We’ve driven on highways and unpaved roads and frozen roads and through rain so hard you could barely SEE the road.

We are enchanted by Canada and hope that we will be able to continue to visit for many years to come. I still have ideas of trips I want to do and places I want to see. I want to visit the Northwest Territories and Yukon, I want to drive across country, coast to coast, I want to see more of Nova Scotia and visit, Newfoundland and New Brunswick, as well as explore Quebec and Ontario more, and we would still love to see polar bears in Churchill.

Canada and us still have unfinished business.

Brentwood Bay


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Yep, we’re off to Canada again…..not just yet though

Insomnia doesn’t strike me very often (thankfully) but at least when it does I do something useful….sort of….like write a blog post about something that’s almost 2 years away.

2017 is a big year for one member of this family…. and it’s not me or Elmo. Amanda will hit the big 50 and to celebrate I said we could go anywhere in the world for a big holiday. It’s no surprise that we’re going back to our favourite place and we’re hopeful that we can go for 3 weeks rather than 2. Things are bit up in the air at the moment as ideally we’d love our best friends to come with us. We’ve yet to discuss the practicalities of such a trip, such as the amount of time, the amount of money, whether they could stand being with us for 3 whole weeks anyway, but we’ll sort something out. It’d just be nice to share the places we love with the people we love.

So, in the interest of this not being just me writing, I wish, I wish, here is what I propose…..

  • We fly to Vancouver and collect the hire cars
  • Catch the ferry to Vancouver Island and stay in Brentwood Bay for 2 nights
  • Drive over to the West Coast and stay in the Tofino area for a few nights
  • Drive to Port Hardy in the North
  • Catch the ferry to Bella Coola
  • Go Grizzly watching
  • Drive to Williams Lake…..

I know, I know….this sounds a lot like our last trip doesn’t it? Well clever clogs, it’s so not…read on…..

  • Drive to Jasper and stay for a couple of nights
  • Drive to Lake Louise and stay for a couple of nights
  • Drive to Kamloops and stay for a night
  • Drive to Whistler and stay for a few nights
  • Finally onto to Vancouver for a few nights before flying home

How does that sound? Pretty nifty eh? Now this will probably change (a lot or slightly, who knows?) before the main event. After all it’s quite some distance away yet but things have to be planned so we can save up the money to go.

If (and we hope this is the case) they are coming with us and can only do 2 weeks then we can do a cut down version, but otherwise this is my ideal trip. I’ll do all the arranging and booking, all they have to do is agree and pay me some money along the way as things like flights, ferries and the like get paid in advance.

We’ve had some amazing holidays and this one could be the best of the lot.


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Day 2 – aka get over jet lag day

Our full day at Brentwood Bay was always meant to be a rest day. A day to get over the rigours and stresses of the journey. It turned out to be exactly that. Woke up at stupid o’clock (as expected), had coffee, wrote the blog, watched the rain, had more coffee, watched the rain, went to breakfast, watched the rain, Amanda went for a swim, watched the rain, then went out to find a supermarket. We wanted a few bits and bobs to have in the car for the longer drives ahead. Stuff like bottles of water, granola bars things like that. We ended up spending a bit more as we got sidetracked in there but nothing too horrendous ( although we’re brining back 100 mini ziploc bags which we can’t get at home).

When we got back to the hotel I took a little time trying to get to know the car and most importantly how to get decent music on it. It has satellite radio which is pretty cool but I have no idea how to get particular stations or indeed what stations are available. The good thing is that I found out how to plug in our iPhones so they can not only charge as we drive but we can play our music through the (excellent) sound system. It even shows the album artwork on the colour screen. Not sure want to give this car back.

We took a slow walk after the rain had stopped just outside the hotel and along the bay. It’s really beautiful here, a really lovely place to live or work or just visit. If you get the chance to come, you really should.

The Brentwood Bay Spa and Hotel

The Brentwood Bay Spa and Hotel

We had a bit of lunch around 3 in the pub (with a few locally brewed lagers) and then went back to the room to slouch (jet lag induced slumpage). Watched a show on NBC introducing US viewers (the channel is based in Seattle, which is pretty close) to the English Premier League. Thankfully it was being done by Brits and was quite entertaining. It’s strange to see something so familiar being explained to people completely unfamiliar to it. The premise was to get viewers who were interested in ‘soccer’ to choose a team in the Premier League to support and then, importantly, to stick by that team through thick and thin. This leads me to think that Americans, and I could be wrong, could possibly change allegiances depending on how that team is doing in the league. This notion fills me with shock and horror. You choose your team, or it chooses you, and then that’s it. As someone on the show said, ‘you can change your wife but you can’t change your team’.

Later on we went out for dinner in the Seagrille Restaurant in the hotel which was very nice. We both had salon and tuna sashimi to start, then I had slow braised pork belly with scallops and Amanda had Halibut with lentils. I chose to have a local BC Pinot Noir with the food. Not the best Pinot I’ve tasted but probably not the worst either. I like to try the local brews whether it’s beer or wine. Sometimes you’re nicely surprised…sometimes not so nice.

The Brentwood Bay Spa & Hotel.

The Brentwood Bay Spa & Hotel.

Today, we drive to Ucluelet., which is about 4 – 5 hours away. Another ferry (a little one this time) and then over to the other side of the island, the proper Pacific Ocean.


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Day 1 Recap – ‘And it almost went without a hitch’

I book things in advance, people know this. I do it to make sure I don’t forget things. Therefore when someone calls at my door with a car that’s really too small to accommodate 2 passengers, 2 (not huge) cases, 2 pieces of hand luggage and a wheelchair AFTER booking it well in advance, then I’m a little peeved.  He’s convinced he wasn’t told but I have the email (haha). Anyway we managed somehow to fit it all in and we got to Heathrow.

We sped through security, got duty-free (a bit too much by the look of things but we got away with that) and after a coffee we arrived at the gate and then we’re in the air and on the way. Lovely….hmmm. When we dropped our bags off the very nice gentleman put a tag on Amanda’s wheelchair and assured us that we could take it to the door of the aircraft where it would be taken from us, placed in hold number 5 and when we got to Vancouver it would be waiting for us at the aircraft door. What fantastic service. Well… when we arrived in Vancouver we were told, after waiting for about 20 mins and by now the only passengers on the aircraft, that the ground crew had given her wheelchair to another passenger because she’d asked for wheelchair assistance. Someone ran after her and after about 25 mins it appeared with the story that they never REALLY gave it away, no of course not, it was hidden in the hold and it was particularly difficult to remove. The plus point was the BA cabin crew who refused to disembark and made sure we stayed on the plane  which forced the ground crew to sort the mess as quickly as possible.

Two wheelchair dramas in one day, not bad eh?

We had problems finding the car rental desk, it’s not well signposted in the airport but were very happy when we finally saw our transport for the next two weeks.

Our Jeep

Our Jeep

 

Amanda drove the first leg as I’d never driven on the wrong side of the road (intentionally) before and did a great job. We had a minor issue with our sat nav but I got that fixed and we got to the ferry terminal in plenty of time to catch the 5pm sailing.

By now we were seriously flagging, both scared to calculate how long we’d been up, but once on Vancouver Island it was a 30 min drive to the hotel. Canadian traffic signals gave us a minor heart attack a few times. I made the mistake of assuming that traffic lights are the same wherever you go, a  universal method. Red=stop, amber=prepare to stop/prepare to go and green=put your foot down. Here we have flashing red, flashing amber and flashing green. Not flashing like ours meaning things are about to change, just flashing…continously. I had to look them up when we got to the hotel and hopefully we won’t kill someone/get booked/hold up the locals in the future.

The hotel was exactly as we remembered it, peaceful and lovely. I booked so far in advance that the price had come down so I got a $30 a night reduction and they were having problems with our fireplace (who needs a fire this time of year?) and the safe so offered us free breakfasts during our stay too. I reckon that’s about CAD$100 we saved on this stay…(happy face).

Our room at the Brentwood Bay

Our room at the Brentwood Bay

 

The dysfunctional fireplace that got us free breakfasts

The dysfunctional fireplace that got us free breakfasts

 

Our balcony view

Our balcony view

 

Today is a relax/get over jet lag/learn how to use the car/sort out luggage day. Amanda will probably go swimming and I will probably drink beer. Happy holidays

 


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Flights and stuff

Do you remember me saying that we’ll fly Air Canada again? You do? Oh. Well we’re flying with British Airways instead. Who said only women can change their minds? The real reason is to do with the fact that we’ll I’ll be driving as soon as we get there and so we thought it might be quite nice to travel in premium economy. That way we get a bit more room to stretch out and maybe get a bit of sleep. It also means that we’ll have nobody sharing the row near the window with us and so we won’t have to keep getting up and down all the time. Air Canada sadly don’t do premium economy, just economy and business class (way out of our price bracket) so we looked to British Airways instead. We get an increase in baggage allowance (2 x 23kg bags each instead of 1 each) and bigger seats with more leg room. Of course I realised that you can’t really go there with an increase in baggage allowance and come back with a smaller allowance so we’re going premium economy both ways. My only gripe is that once you pay a premium to get these ‘extras’ you are then asked to pay more to reserve your seat if you want a particular row. I seem to remember being able to do this free of charge with Air Canada when flying economy so it’s a bit rubbish having to pay £32 per seat per flight to do the same don’t you think? We complain about Ryanair hiding costs and ridiculing them when they say ‘you don’t have to pay if you don’t want, We’re not forcing you’ and then see BA doing the same thing. Anyway, the flights are sorted. We’re really going.

I then had a splurge on booking hotels, starting with the first place we’re staying, which is the Brentwood Bay Resort and Spa.

The view from our balcony

We stayed there previously when we did our West Coast trip in 2008 and Amanda in particular loved it. It’s in a great location right on the waterfront and has excellent food (and very good beer I seem to remember). I know that Amanda will be enjoying the spa as she loved it the last time we stayed. On that earlier trip it was our last but one stop but on this it will be our first stop. A chance to get over any jet lag and get ready for the big drive ahead. Of course we have to get there first and that should be interesting in itself.

Apart from a little bit of driving in Menorca quite a few years back, I’ve never driven on the wrong side of the road. Not even unintentionally. I’m not nervous yet, it’s quite a long way off, but I think I will be by the time I have to do it. Before you say anything, I know it’s probably easier than I think and I’m worrying over nothing but there you go. Fear of the unknown. After landing in Vancouver we have to collect the car and drive straight to the ferry terminal, get on the ferry and drive to the hotel once we get to the island. It’s not far actually, only about an hour and a quarter total driving with the ferry ride in between so it’ll be fine…won’t it?

Right by the side of the hotel is another (tiny) ferry which bills itself as Vancouver Island’s most beautiful shortcut. I haven’t decided whether we’ll take it yet but it cuts about 20 mins off the driving time to Ucluelet and it does look very pretty indeed.

Vancouver Island’s most beautiful shortcut.

The quicker way, no doubt

After that delightful rest we have a big drive to the west coast to look forward to. I checked on Google Maps and it reckons about 5 hours 16 mins but as we’re travelling on roads we’ve not seen before and going through places I KNOW I’ll want to stop and take photos of, I think it’s a full day. I admit, I’m looking forward to this. I’ll tell you more about it next time.