After a long 30 hour transit (lots of waiting around airports) we finally arrived in the very lovely Vancouver. We had a fantastic location in the city within walking distance of most things and with a variety of bus routes running by our door. The above photo is taken from our unit on the 21st floor. We could see the water and mountains in 2 different directions from our dining room which was a treat.
We spent the greater part of one day visiting
Granville Island, seen above. It was within walking distance of our unit and we took this as we walked over the bridge. The markets here were our point for visiting and we were both in raptures. Me over the fresh produce - huge punnets of berries, stalls of gorgeous vegetables and herbs, the brightest coloured salmon you've ever seen, fresh meats and I could go on. All I wanted to do was shop up and go home and cook up a meal worthy of the produce. My sweet, darling husband however nearly went into a state of paralytic indecision when he came upon this counter (which goes on around the corner for much the same distance). His not-to-be-denied sweet tooth almost went into meltdown at all the sugary goodness awaiting it. We are so very different!
We shared a table and a huge punnet of cherries with the sweetest Chilean lady who lives in Sydney with her daughter. She was off on a cruise to Alaska as were nearly all the other Aussies and Kiwis that we met.
Another day we spent wandering down to
Gas Town which really emphasised the European feel of Vancouver with wrought iron lamps and fixtures, cobbles, cafes and the like. We took an obligatory look at the
steam clock which was a novel experience. It appealed to Jeff's mechanical engineering background, where as I was rather more taken by how it blew steam and tooted like a train to signal the hour. Oh my sophisticated views. Upon reflection it was lucky we took these early in the morning before the crowds set in and swallowed it in a sea of people. We found that shops opened later than at home so we beat the crowds by chance rather than good planning.
I shall post more on Vancouver and our trip tomorrow. Sorry it's taken so long, I didn't have blog access whilst on the road and have hit the ground running since I arrived home.
Hello! Here we are looking particularly windswept on the trolley bus. The trolley is a tourist hop-on-hop-off service which we rode for 2 days. In typical fashion the drivers point out areas of interest, tell stories, provide history of the area as they drive you around. There are many stops throughout the city and you jump off wherever you want to explore and hop back on when you are ready to head to another venue. We often walked between bus stops and then jumped back on to rest out feet. Another bonus was that it stopped one street over from our unit so it got us close to home at the end of a long day.
We ventured out to Stanley Park both days that we rode the trolley and were very pleased to have done so. The Park is Vancouver's oldest park and covers 1000 acres. It's situated quite close to the city centre yet seems quite separate as it is on a little piece of land that juts out into the harbour. There are many beautiful gardens (I've contained myself to one photo, knowing others are not quite as taken with gardens), as well as areas wooded with hemlock, cedar and fir. There were many walking trails throughout the park that meandered in and out as well as a long walk around the seawall that edged the park. All were quite well used at all hours of the day. On our first visit we were most surprised to see a cricket match taking place. Don't really think about Canada being a cricket playing country. It was lovely to see the boys out in their whites.
Just near the kids aquatic play area we found this little beauty (photo above). It is a drier! You push the button on the right and stand inside and air gets blown all over you to dry you. How cool and funny is that! Obviously you don't dry in 2 seconds flat in the sun like we do here so technology was introduced.
Walking along the sea wall we were very fortunate to see a whale! We saw it twice in three days actually so lady luck was definitely shining on us. It was about 20m off shore so very close. Evidently whales are not frequent visitors to the harbour so this was special.
