Day 8 - Whistler - Lake Louise, Canada

Day 8 – 16th June 2005 Total Distance Travelled 5351 Miles

Hit the road at 7:40am and drove through the rocky mountains for 12 hours covering 785km whilst heading to Lake Louise, stopped at Lillooet a small village on route for breakfast and took a small detour at Revelstoke to photograph the hydroelectric dam. We passed a grizzly bear at the side of the road before taking a short break at Rogers Pass. We crossed the time zone into Mountain Standard Time and also the border between British Columbia and Alberta before arriving in Lake Louise at 7:30pm. Found a local bar for food and beer.

Lillooet Lake 

Revelstoke Hydroelectric Dam 

The Rockies 

The Rockies 

Day 7 - Whistler, Canada

Day 7 – 15th June 2005 -8:00 GMT Total Distance Travelled 4863 Miles

Reece and I decided to go for a long walk along the valley trail, we walked from whistler village to the meadow park and then up around green lake and up to the lost lake, the scenery is amazing, the walk ended up being 12km and we had not taken any water with us so were quite dehydrated, so stopped off in the village for a burger and a beer before heading back to the hotel. In the evening we had a beer and a game of pool before going to see Mr and Mrs Smith at the cinema.

Whistler 

Green Lake

The Lost Lake

Jill and I

Day 6 - Vancouver - Whistler, British Columbia, Canada

Day 6 – 14th June 2005 -8:00 GMT Total Distance Travelled 4856 Miles

Checked out of the hostel and headed over to Avis car hire and received our free upgrade as promised a few days before, We got a bright red 3.8 litre Chevrolet Impala, So we set off up the coast and stopped of at Squamish a small village 40 miles north of Vancouver, Not much here apart from a few shops, so had a quick shop and carried on up the coast to whistler, checked in to our hotel, rooms are large and the hotel has a gym, heated pool and sauna. Explored the village and had some lunch while watching the mountain bikers zooming down the Whistler Mountain, explored the village and then had a work out, swim and Sauna before crashing out for the night.

The Chevrolet Impala

If anyone is interested you can have a look at Jill's Blog at the following address

http://theblastoff.blogspot.com

Day 5 - Vancouver, British Columbia,Canada

Day 5 – 13th June 2005 -8:00 GMT

Spent the morning window shopping, visited the pacific mall and explored Robson Street, Decided to look around the art gallery, unfortunately the first floor was the same display we had seen in the Tokyo Gallery in Paris. (In paris it was free and here it is $15 entry). I was not very impressed there was very little for your money but contemporary art is always fascinating. At night we headed out for a meal with a couple of Australian girls and by the time we left the pub we had grown into a large group of Australians, Canadians and British.

In The Pub

Day 4 - Vancouver, British Columbia,Canada

Day 4 – 12th June 2005 -8:00 GMT

Walked downtown and caught the seabus over to North Vancouver, where we caught a bus to Capilano Bridge, this is Vancouver’s first tourist attraction, the first suspension bridge was built here in 1889, The ropes on the bridge were luckily replaced in the mid 1950’s with high tension steel cables, but it still will scare the life out of you spanning 450 feet at a height of 230 feet. Here they also have treetops adventure a network of bridges and platforms high up in the trees it’s like being in the Ewok village. Next we headed up to Grouse Mountain, we got the cable car to the landing area and then proceeded to walk to the peak of the mountain a total height of 4100 feet, From here you get spectacular views of Vancouver and the surrounding area’s. There is lots of wildlife on the mountain we came across Grizzly Bears, Wolves and Deer. We stopped and watched a short film about the grizzly bears and how they have a program to release Grizzly cubs back into the wild on Grouse Mountain, also watched an amusing lumberjack show, before being invited for beer and food by two friendly Canadians we meet whist climbing to the peak, they even drove us back to the hostel.

Totem Poles 

Red Indians 

Home Sweet Home 

Jill and I at Capilano Suspension Bridge 

Capilano Suspension Bridge 

Wild Wolves 

Wild Grizzly Bears 

Grouse Mountain 

Day 3 - Vancouver, British Columbia,Canada

Day 3 – 11th June 2005 -8:00 GMT

Headed downtown to an area called Gastown, The first thing you see is the famous steam clock and just around the corner is a statue of Gassy Jack, Gassy Jack was an English adventurer from Hull who landed his boat here around 1880 and built a house and formed Gastown, his house was burnt down in 1886 in the great fire of Vancouver and he was killed. Then I headed into Chinatown and visited Dr Sun Yat’s Chinese Garden. On leaving the gardens I saw part of the local field hockey game and then we headed through Chinatown to science world where we caught an aquabus to Granville Island, The Aquabus driver gave the passengers water bombs and told us to attack the pirates ? 10 minutes later all was revealed as we approached Granville Island there weere pirate boats everywhere all equipped with water canons and water bombs, after a few hits with water bombs we docked at Granville Island. We walked around Granville Island which is full of market stalls and then settled at a restaurant on the water front, where we watched all the pirate boats whilst eating. We then walked up to Avis Car Rentals which was a couple of miles away to check our reservation for the rental car, the guy behind the counter was like the friendliest person you would ever encounter, he said I will give you a free car upgrade don’t worry I’ll get you the best vehicle we have in when you get here on Tuesday, and it will have to be the newest as you doing so many miles. He even them drove us back to the hostel, Customer services award of the year.
Got back to the hostel and Jill crashed out for the night. I heard lots of horns outside the window so looked out on a naked bike ride through downtown Vancouver, 150 or so naked cyclist thought they would go for a nice bike ride ? Reece and I then went out for a beer and pizza, the Tyson fight was just starting on TV in the bar so watched Tyson get defeated, then headed to Edgewater casino and ended up a little in profit, then crashed out for the night

View of Downtown Vancouver from Granville Island 

An Aquabus 

One of the Pirate Boats 

Dr Sun Yat�s Chinese Garden 

Gassy Jack 

Gastown Steam Clock 

Day 2 - Vancouver, British Columbia,Canada

Day 2 – 10th June 2005 -8:00 GMT

Hardly slept, woke up several times due to jetlag and finally gave up on sleep at 5:30am. Headed along Granville street the main road of downtown Vancouver until we got to the waterfront, headed along the shoreline and around the marina until we got to Stanley Park, Stanley Park was Canada’s first national park. It is a 6 miles circle park containing lakes and wildlife including racoons and coyotes, we visited the Aquarium there and saw the usual displays of whales, dolphins and some otters (see photo below) as well as the usual tropical fish. The Weather is great at around 23 C.

First Canadian Otter