Off To Canada (Again)

Holidays in Canada

Tag Archives: vacation


by Leave a comment

Bears….finally but not in the wild.

Yesterday we visited Grouse Mountain for the first time, Amanda was not impressed by the SkyRide cable car or the chair lift. The cable car was so full you could hardly move and each time it went over the pylons the whole car swung back and fourth, not good when you don’t like the things in the first place. We reached the top in one piece, just, then we saw a sign for a bear trail. They have two rescued Grizzly’s in a woodland area and we managed to see both of them, Coola rescued from Bella Coola as a cub weighing just 5 Kg’s and Grinder from B.C also weighing just 5 Kg’s. They were hiding in the  trees cwtched up trying to sleep. We were very happy to finally see bears but also a little sad that they weren’t wild, it’s a dilemma with wild animals but at least they are safe.

Whilst up the mountain we also decided to take in the lumber jack tourist show, we don’t usually do that sort of thing but Amanda needed to rest and this gave us the opportunity to do that. I have to say I would recommend it, the show was a bit cheesy in parts but those guys were amazing at climbing the 60ft tree trunk. Then it was time to take the chair lift up to the highest part of the mountain, a task Amanda couldn’t  hide her enthusiasm for. They kindly stopped the chair for us to get on and then the journey began. I wasn’t allowed to move a muscle but did manage to sneak a few pictures in, I’ll post them when we get home as I’ve packed all the camera kit away. To say Amanda didn’t enjoy it would be an under statement but she did it there and back which I am impressed at, she even managed to look out on the way down.

The views from the top were spectacular you can see all over Vancouver, there was one blight on the afternoon though bloody little midges, they were everywhere and we both got bit.

We did make a little miscalculation on our timing coming back from Grouse Mountain and we experienced proper rush hour traffic coming back into the city. It seemed to take ages to cross the Lions Gate Bridge, something I guess Vancouver dwellers have to do all the time

Rather than eat in the hotel again we went across the road on the waters edge to the Cactus Club Cafe. People were queuing outside when we arrived so we knew it was going to be decent food. We had about a 30 min wait before we were seated and had a local beer (for me) and watermelon margarita (for Amanda) while we chose our food. We had szechuan chicken lettuce wraps to start and we were both glad we chose to share as it was pretty big but delicious. Chicken in a sweet and spicy szechuan glaze, peanuts, wontons, korean chili sauce and spicy yogurt all wrapped in crispy iceberg lettuce leaves. For main course I had szechuan salmon, which was steelhead salmon, miso mustard, broccoli, edamame, red peppers, snap peas, daikon and pea shoot salad with sticky rice. Amanda went for thai red curry pacific lingcod – seared pacific lingcod in a thai red curry sauce, coconut almond rice, crispy wontons and micro coriander. All delicious and worth the wait and a perfect way to finish off our stay.

Now we’re heading home. Sad but happy that we had a great time and can’t wait to come back again.

 


by Leave a comment

Au revoir Whistler, Bonjour Vancouver

The main route between Vancouver and Whistler is called the Sea to Sky Highway and it’s easy to see why. After a short drive you can see the water while at the same time huge mountains surround you. We made several stops and as Amanda was driving I was quite demanding. “Stop”… “Quick, pullover” and she was quite obliging which I’ll probably pay for at some point.

It seemed really strange to suddenly be in amongst heavy traffic as we came into Vancouver. We’d gotten so used to driving on almost empty roads over the past week, sometimes not seeing another vehicle for almost two hours, the difference  was incredible. We had a delay crossing the Lions Gate Bridge but that just gave us chance to enjoy the view of the city and the crossing into Stanley Park. It was a bit difficult for the tourists navigating through the city traffic but we got there and first impressions of the Fairmont Pacific Rim was very good. Very new, modern and ‘trendy’ without seeming unfriendly. The electronic keys are just touched to the readers to open the doors and inside everything can be controlled by the iPad in the room. Curtains, temperature, lights all touch controlled, not to mention being able to place reservations for dinner, call your car from the valet parking, order a newspaper, just about everything. Tech lovers dream. Oh oh oh…and the tv has a great sound bar giving excellent surround sound to go with the 42″ screen, oh and the bathroom has a magic mirror that has a tv built into it. OMG I could seriously live in this room. Nespresso machine, a desk with multiple chargers built in so charge my MacBook, iPhone, iPad etc, even the lights have mood settings so you can set it for ‘welcome’ when you come back in the evening, or ‘relax’. Brilliant.

Once we’d checked in and Amanda prised me away from all the electronic toys in the room, we went for a stroll along the harbour. I know some people already know this about me, and I’m sorry that the majority of people feel differently but I really hate the hot weather. HATE IT. I want to stay indoors with air conditioning and shade. I don’t want to sweat it out with all the other sweaty people pretending to enjoy it while saying ‘wow it’s hot today’ and taking all the shady spots which SHOULD BE MINE. If you love the summer, sod off and sit in the sun and leave the shady places for pale skinned, ex gingers who detest the scorching cancer causing radiation. There, rant over. I took some nice photos though and the city looks stunning from this viewpoint.

The digital Orca Pano of the harbour front Coal HarbourWe also saw a really cute mother and baby harbour seal swimming. The pup seemed to be just enjoying itself and the mum just keeping a close eye on her baby.

Mum & baby seal

 

I also lost my glasses….. I thought I gave them to Amanda but when we got back to the hotel they weren’t in her bag and all I had were my sunglasses. Thankfully I had a spare pair which I put on and raced back to where we’d been walking, just hoping….

Thankfully, someone had found them, opened the case (hoping to find expensive sunglasses I assume) and realising that they were prescription glasses for some blind man put them on the wall where I retrieved them, happily.

Tonight we’re eating in the hotel (reservation booked on the iPad, yay).

 


by Leave a comment >

I should say we bought two enormous apples (the size of a baby’s head); two hats – one for me and one for Amanda (to replace her dreadful cowboy hat – she loves it though); a new waterproof jacket for me (I decided to leave mine home and bring my Arsenal rain jacket – not my best idea) although now I have a new one the weather’s gorgeous; and beers for the stay on Williams Lake that are still in the car (hope they haven’t exploded in the heat).


by Leave a comment

Last day in Whistler

Today has been a truly lazy, relaxing holiday day. We woke late, had a late breakfast, went for a short stroll, Amanda went for a swim while I watched Arsenal (win 3-0 against Fenerbahce). I had a quick shower then we went out with the wheelchair for a walk/push to the Lost Lake nearby. No idea why it’s the Lost Lake it was packed with people so it’s definitely found now. Actually it’s a gorgeous lake with a beach area and floating platforms and paved trails leading there. My only gripe is that it was too hot for a pale skinned ex-redhead but that really is searching for problems isn’t it?

Now we’re sat in the bar and we’ve had delicious Grapefruit Ale by the Whistler Brewing Company, a huge mountain of nachos with chilli beef, olives, 3 cheeses, jalapeños,  tomato salsa, sour cream and guacamole; breath and currently I’m sipping a JD and coke. Amanda’s now on sparkling water as she’s driving tomorrow, yay lucky me!

Oh, we saw a hummingbird, our first, flitting between the bushes and flower gardens.

We also were approached by someone from Club Intrawest hoping that we’d sign our lives away to get a time share (sort of) in Whistler. I checked into them afterwards and they don’t have a great reputation. You pay a huge amount of money for ‘points’ which you use to pay for your holiday in one of 8 destinations and from what I’ve seen so far it’s not always the best value for money. I’m sure they have a some happy customers but it’s not for us.

Tomorrow we leave for Vancouver for our last stop. We’re already a little sad about leaving but looking forward to seeing Vancouver again. We’ve absolutely loved the Four Seasons in Whistler and will definitely be coming back. We’d absolutely love to stay for longer next time. The rooms, the staff, the food and the location … all excellent.. highly highly recommended.

Pictures to follow as we haven’t moved from the bar to download them.


by Leave a comment

Peak-2-Peak…..it’s high (understatement alert)

So we had a our first whole day in Whistler and the one thing I wanted to do while we were here was go on the Peak-2-Peak cable car. We weren’t sure how accessible it was so after asking the concierge we decided to use the hotel car which would take us to the lower village, get the tickets and use the gondola to get up to the top of Whistler Mountain and then get the Peak-2-Peak over to Blackcomb Mountain and then get the chairlifts down the other side. When we saw the massive queues we asked at the information kiosk if there was somewhere Amanda could sit and he told us that if we could pick up the tickets then we could bypass the queue and zip to the front (aka the ‘spazz pass’). I queued for the tickets and Amanda waited inside in the shade (lucky her, it was scorchio). Once I had those (CAD$102 for 2 day passes) we walked past all those hateful stares and went to the front of the queue. We were in a small gondola with another couple and the reason I’m giving this information is simply that Amanda hates heights and was doing this under sufferance. She had the look of someone being taken to the gallows and sat there while everyone else looked around and enjoyed the views. I heard in whispered venomous tones that ‘You’re making it move every time you stand up’ so obviously being the caring person I am I moved around a bit more. Once at the top the views were amazing and we had to put on fleece tops as there was a 10C difference between the bottom of the mountain and where we were now.

View from the top of Whistler MountainAfter we took a look around it was time to jump on the Peak-2-Peak which is an incredible feat of engineering, all pretty much lost on Amanda as she contemplated certain death by travelling on it. I loved it and once on the other side the views again were amazing.

Canada 2013-0036 Canada 2013-0033 Canada 2013-0024 Peak-2-Peak

From the other side

 

Of course, once you’re over the other side you have to go down the mountain. However once Amanda saw the chairlift we had a dilemma. I could see there was no way she was going to get on that and she seemed none too impressed at the prospect of getting back on the Peak-2-Peak either. I reminded her that she had to choose one or the other and after quite a bit of thought ‘we’ decided to go back on the Peak-2-Peak and down the same way we came.  I would have loved to do the chairlifts but I was quite glad to go back over that huge expanse of nothingness again.

Two points to mention….

 

  1. Amanda would only get into gondolas with children so she had to be brave.
  2. A kind gentleman pointed out once we were in the middle that we were currently 1427ft off the ground. I think I heard a small whimper.

Once we eventually got back on solid ground we had a walk around Whistler Village, had a drink and then called the car to take us back to the hotel and we went straight to the bar. Honey lager was the order of then day and before it was too later I booked a table at the steak restaurant in the hotel.

We had just enough time to scoot upstairs get changed, teeth brushed, water splashed on faces and were downstairs again going into the restaurant. The food was extremely good, as was the wine (Made by the Kettle Winery and NOT served in kettles as has been suggested a few times) and we went to bed tired, full and slightly drunk.

 


by Leave a comment

A very long drive

So we (Amanda) decided that we should drive straight to Whistler after my disastrous decision to stop at Nimpo Lake instead of driving straight to Williams Lake. Well it wasn’t exactly disastrous it was just a bit too quiet at Nimpo to spend  a sunday afternoon when everything except the shop was shut, even the phone box was shut to cash transactions. I won’t lie it wasn’t the easiest of days but man what a drive it was.

Amanda drove the first 5 and a bit hours, the countryside was spectacular we saw loads of cattle alongside the road which we found a bit strange until we happened upon a real cowboy with chaps and all at which Amanda was a little too excited. We also saw two coyotes, black-tail deer, eagles, wild horses,  loons and really cute dogs. Amanda didn’t slow down soon enough to scoop the one puppy into the car, I even had a name ready for him (Patch). We started listening to country music, it was that country, well Nashville series soundtrack anyway. The terrain then changed pretty quick and Amanda found herself driving on really steep mountain roads with runaway lanes dotted every 500 meters. This was to allow lorries with failed brakes to exit the road hopefully safely.

Nearly at the bottom

 

We hardly passed any other vehicles on this section of the drive, so when we hit Williams Lake it felt like driving in London  when in reality it was more like driving in a small town. That’s where the weather decided to change and provide us with natures car wash to clean our very dirty Jeep.

Car before the rain gave it a washThe rain was really heavy and the sky turned really black; we even had lightning it was pretty spectacular to watch, as a passenger, but I did feel a bit for Amanda (only a little bit though). Once the rain slowed to a spit we pulled over to have a car picnic, well we are british you know. I then took over the driving and I have to say I did a much better job as I’m so awesome at driving (tongue  planted firmly in cheek). Joking aside it was just as well we shared the driving that way around as the roads began to get very hairy, steep and mountainous. It actually felt in some points as high as The Hill but it did provide some truly awesome sights. We really felt quite insignificant, mother nature is a clever woman. Pictures to follow.

The final section before we arrived at Whistler was some of the most awe-inspiring scenery we have seen since arriving in Canada (this time) and we are so glad we (I) decided to drive this route.

We finally arrived at Whistler at 19:30 after leaving at 08:10, a long days drive by any normal person”s standards. I must confess that the Four Seasons was a very welcome bit of luxury after ‘slumming’ it since Ucluelet.  Amanda has decided she’s definitely not cut out for anything less than five-star accommodation, I agree. Amanda spent what seemed like an hour in the shower getting ready for dinner, I think she was scraping 5 days of slumming it out of her hair.

 


by Leave a comment

The Hill

One of the main reasons to come on this holiday or at least one of the things that got me working out the route we’d take was ‘The Hill’. I’ve mentioned it in previous posts but basically it’s a long stretch of Highway 20 going through the Tweedsmuir Provincial Park that is unpaved (packed gravel) and was the steepest in Canada (not sure what is now because this baby is STEEP) with sections at 18% gradient. You have two choices, go up or come down, depending on whether you’re going to Bella Coola or leaving Bella Coola. When I organised the trip I decided that I’d rather go up than come down, mainly after seeing some videos on YouTube. I’m going to say here and now that it was a good decision because after the amount of rain we’ve been having I really wouldn’t want to come down it. 

It starts off quite nicely and then things turn nasty quite quickly. Really sharp hairpin bends with a sheer drop on one side, or narrow sections that seem insanely steep and you hope that you don’t meet an 18 wheeler coming down as you’re going up. And yes, big trucks do go up and down, we met a driver at the lodge yesterday morning. He told us it’s much better now they expanded sections to one and a half lanes wide rather than one lane !!!! At this point I’d normally put some nice photos in to illustrate the road in question but as I was driving and Amanda spent most of the time saying “I can’t look” or “OH MY GOD” or ‘Please move away from the edge”, we don’t seem to have many photos. She did manage to point my iPhone vaguely in the direction of the car window so I’ll check those later and perhaps post a couple. I did stop the car at one point when I felt it was safe and as I turned back to the car to get back in I saw the mess that the road had made of what was a shiny new Jeep Cherokee. Then I noticed that the back of my jeans had the same mud caked to it which I’d gotten as I slid down from my seat. Afterwards I also noticed that the inside of the car was filthy too, my shoes were caked in that same brown stuff. I think I’ll have to get this cleaned when we get to Whistler more to protect our clothes than anything else. We were passed several times by what I can only assume were locals as they were driving at crazy speeds (over 10 mph). I was happy to let them on their way. I’m not sure but a might have been overtaken by a snail at one point.

I just viewed Amanda’s attempts at taking photos on my iPhone while I was driving. She took what we thought was a video clip of us going up a particularly steep hairpin bend. I’ll post the resulting 4 second masterpiece later. It consists of the dashboard and her asking how to turn it off.  The photos are almost as bad but I’ll put those up too. I warned her that we’d have to return and do it again so we can get some good photos. She’s still not woken up.

Once over the worst part, we stopped alongside a river where another couple had the same idea. They were German and were going in teh opposite direction ie down the hill. I warned them how steep it was but that Germanic stare soon established that I was merely an inefficient British person and that Teutonic driving skills would prevail. I’m sure they did fine.

After we left the nice German couple we thought we’d done the worst part and it was surely going to be a nice tarmac road from that point on. We were so very wrong. There was still hills, though not so steep, sheer drops and no sight of beautiful flat black tarmac roads for what seemed like a long long time. When we did reach civilised road surfaces it felt like you were driving on cushions, it was lovely. Never say a bad thing about British roads again. We saw a herd of wild(ish) horses on the road and some black tailed deer and some cows and some dogs. These don’t make up for not seeing bears however.

Finally we arrived at Nimpo Lake. The ‘resort’ is really an RV park with six motel rooms and a few cabins. I wish I’d booked a cabin as they look really nice, but the motel room is clean if basic, but it’s real selling point is the location. It sits right on the shore of the lake itself. We’re looking forward to sitting outside later and hopefully seeing a lot of stars as there’s nothing else around us. Of course that means that it’ll be cloudy and we’ll also hear that there was a lot of bears in Bella Coola just after we left.

Tomorrow, we were supposed to drive to Williams Lake and stay overnight. Amanda decided that we would be better off having a marathon driving day and go straight to Whistler and have an extra day there instead. So we made the relevant phonecalls using Skype (no working payphone and no mobile service) and tomorrow we embark on a 10 hour drive to Whistler. On a side note, when Amanda called the Four Seasons in Whistler we were told that the room rate had gone down since we booked and would we like to upgrade and keep the same price or have our room cheaper? As we’re staying an extra night we picked the cheaper option, but it was great to be asked. We’re not convinced that the Celtic Manor (other hotels are available) would even lower their prices let alone let you that they did of you booked in advance.

Right, where are those stars?

 


by Leave a comment

Big secret revealed…there are NO bears

We rumbled the BC tourist boards little scam they’ve been running for years. They show pictures of bears, you see YouTube videos of bears but I’m quite sure that Peter Jackson is behind it all with some mo-cap magic just like he did when he created Gollum in Lord of the Rings. We spent a perfectly lovely morning drifting down the Anartko River looking for bears and saw precisely none. Not one. Zilch. Nada. Dim. Apparently there are lots of black bears that come out at night…yeah of course, when we’re asleep. The grizzlies will be here in numbers very soon, any day now in fact…just not today (or yesterday for a couple that went on the trip yesterday too).

Fraser, our guide, getting our boat readyThe other boat on the Anartko River

To be fair (and I was joking, honest) the bears are wild animals and are naturally wary of people. We saw a lot of (large) paw prints in the sand on the banks of the river and we also took a calculated risk in coming when we did as it’s right at the beginning of the bear season and the associated salmon run, but there you go. We did see bald eagles which I was happy about but that’s about it.

Bald eagle

Afterwards we grabbed a sandwich and headed out with some recommendations on what to do for the afternoon. The salmon spawning season is underway in the lower part of the river and we went to see. Actually you can smell it as you get out of the car. Hundreds of large fish rotting in the water as seagulls pick at them and alongside those, males fighting between themselves over who gets to fertilise the eggs just laid by the female. After that job is done they too change colour and die. All circle of life stuff but sad and interesting at the same time. It really really does stink though.

Next we went to see a waterfall that Amanda was told about and she was quite interested as there was very little walking involved.  It was pretty impressive and just across the road was the main part of the river and the sun came out as we reached it. This is a very beautiful part of the world and any photographs really don’t do it justice.

Clayton Falls Bella Coola river

Lastly before heading back, we went to see some old growth cedar in a place called Walker Island park. These are examples of the trees that covered the entire area before the European settlers arrived at the end of the 19th century. Huge things. Really huge and magnificent. It’s good that they’re protected in many places now but sad that most are gone.

Old growth cedar

Tomorrow we leave Bella Coola and drive to Nimpo Lake. It’s time for THAT drive up THAT hill. Looking forward to it. We have a great excuse to come back one day (later in the season) so we can finally get to see some Grizzly bears.

 

PS Amanda dropped her iPad on her toe. It was very funny (to me) and painful (for her).

PPS Jungle Formula 10hr protection against insect bites…… yeah right.

 


by Leave a comment

Bear country…finally

Yesterday seemed to last about 34 hours rather than the normal 24. When we went to sleep it was raining quite hard but by the morning the sky was fairly clear and it looked like the rain had gone away for a while, yay. It came back, boooo. By the time we left Port Hardy it had started to rain lightly and for the whole trip we had rain showers, sometimes torrential, sometimes light and occasionally it actually was a bit sunny. To be fair the ferry journey was really good. It was one of the sections of the holiday that we were concerned about. Thirteen hours on a smallish boat could have been a bit of a nightmare but it really wasn’t. The seats were comfortable regardless of what Amanda says (hers was broken but we didn’t notice for a while, and me being the gentleman that I am refused to switch because I had the window seat), the food was nice and the scenery was incredible. The captain pointed out when whales were visible and everyone (almost) ran to be able to catch a glimpse in the distance of humpback whales breaching or diving or just cruising past. We also saw dolphins….lots of dolphins. They started off just surfing alongside the ferry and then we noticed a huge pod ahead of us fishing. We got to stay with them quite a while although they’re really hard to photograph, they’re just too damned quick.

Dolphins

At 11pm we reached Bella Coola and when we got off the boat a line of traffic travelled along the (only) road  and we thought ‘wouldn’t it be strange if someone we saw on the ferry was staying at the same place as us’. It turned out that they were…5 cars turned off into the carpark and by the time we parked up we had to join a queue to check in. The BC Mountain Lodge is in an incredible location, but only found that out this morning when it was light. Last night it was raining so hard and it was so late that all we wanted to do was get inside our room and get to sleep. I’ll admit that I have become accustomed to nicer hotels and there’s something to be said for 5 star accommodation but it’s clean, I slept really well and breakfast is included. Not too bad. 

Raining much? NOT our room View from our room

 

This morning it had stopped raining (for about 15 mins) and we saw how beautiful the Bella Coola valley is. Surrounded on both sides by impossibly high mountains and shrouded in mist. It wouldn’t look out of place in Lord of the Rings although I can’t see Amanda dressing as a hobbit, as her feet aren’t hairy enough.

After breakfast we drove into town via the tourist information office and a small park where there is a beaver pond. Make all the jokes you want but we were on a beaver hunt, but sadly we saw none. It was a beaver-free zone. Perhaps it was too wet for them. On the way we also stopped at the shop. I say ‘the’ shop as it sold everything and I mean everything. It sold cat litter, shovels, crossbow bolts, flights for darts, fishing rods, ammunition, apples, 8 inch nails, sausages and lots more. I could have spent a long time just looking at all the shelves but we had to go. We had lunch in town at a local restaurant where, while we were sat there, one guy past the window that was chatting to us on the ferry the night before, two motorcyclists that caught the ferry were on another table and then the woman from tourist info came in for her lunch too. Sensible people. Lunch was really nice (Philly beef bun for me with dipping gravy and fries and salmon salad sandwich and chicken noodle soup for Amanda). Even the Sheriff sat with his family behind us so I made sure Amanda behaved herself.

After we ate, we drove down to the marina where all the fishing boats are tied up. The water is a beautiful opaque green/blue and reminds you of an opal. The rain was back with a vengeance by now so we didn’t stop long.

Bella Coola Marina

 

Before heading back to the lodge, we took a drive further up the road and saw three deer. One bounced off across the road and the other two warily kept an eye on us as we crept closer to try and take a pic. The one I photographed squeezed under a fence and stared at us just in case we fancied venison tonight.

Oh deer

 

Tonight we’re eating at the lodge and we have an early start tomorrow for our bear watching trip. Breakfast is at 7am and we leave at 7:45am on the dot. Hopefully I’ll have bear pics tomorrow or you’ll be reading about two British tourists eaten by very very hungry Grizzly bears.