Van's and Moose Buses

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So after finally organising my life and tying up all the loose ends it was time to say the goodbye and leave Montreal for the last time. It has been a great 8 months but I was now sitting on a place winging my way across Canada to Vancouver, British Columbia for the next stage of my year away; 3 months backpacking.

Vancouver
I got to the hostel ($10 a night!) and just went for a walk around the city. I went down through Gastown which is kind of the arty part of town with cobbled streets and expensive art and clothes stores. There was an old steam clock which played a little tune every hour and half-hour which was pretty cool and apart from that I just wandered around and had a beer and watched a Canucks hockey game vs the Anaheim Ducks. I was pretty shattered so I just went to bad after that.

My first impressions of the city were two fold. One; Van is an incredibly beautiful city surrounded by beautiful green mountains, lovely blue water, snow covered peaks and is a really interesting city to be in. But on the other hand I found that the bad areas of town were really bad. There were loads of homeless people, druggies, dealers and prostitutes and to me it seemed like most needed a good meal, some medical treatment and possible psychiatric evaluation. The bad area was one of the few places I have been where I felt genuinely uncomfortable.

The next day I went on what turned out to be a massive walk around Stanley Park, a huge park sitting on a spur of land between downtown and North Vancouver. Unfortunately it was raining and my supposedly water-proof jacket turned out to be not so water-proof after all so I got a little wet. The Park itself is really peaceful and relaxing just to walk around and I spent an hour or two wandering up towards Lion's Gate Bridge past a little lake called Beaver Lake which was covered in lilies. There is a viewing platform called Prospect Point which offers some really stunning views of the mountains to the north, out to sea and of the bridge so I spent a bit of time up there. As my walk continued around to the west I saw a path that was closed off due to storm damage and being that I am "bad-to-the-bone" I waited for the few cars to pass and immediately jumped the barrier and continued. Mistake. It was closed for a reason as there were massive trees fallen across the path and it was right next to a cliff so it probably wasn't too stable! It was completly quiet though and I was on my own but it took me ages to walk it and I got incredibly sweaty in the humid conditions but it was worth it just to get away from the crowds=)

The day after I decided to get the bus out to the UBC campus and have a look at the Museum of Anthropology. The campus itself is huge, way bigger than either Mcgill or UWA and is situated about a 40 min bus ride from downtown amidst a sea of green trees and deep blue water. It is really beautiful but a bit far from the city. It was the first sunny day though so I was just enjoying soaking up the sun and getting some much needed vitamin D. After wandering around the campus I set out to explore the museum which houses the largest collection of Pacific Northwest Coast First Nation Art and it is pretty damn cool in my opinion. One of the most striking things that I learnt was how close the entire culture came to being completely lost, there were only a few people left who knew the ancient arts when the bans which decimated the culture in the first place were lifted, and it was only due to these individuals selflessly sharing their knowledge which prevented it from dying. The art itself is unlike anything I have ever seen with the highlight for me definitely being the Totem Poles. Each pole is unique and contains various representations of different animals and creatures with some brightly painted and others just left as the natural wood. They were all pretty cool and back before the original settlers came symbolised the wealth and importance of the households they were attached to. Also there was a huge yellow cedar wood sculpture by Bill Reid called The Raven and the First Men which shows the Haida tribes belief of how Man came to be. Later I got a haircut.

The next day I met up with Matt a friend from Perth and his girlfriend Marissa and their friend Lauren (Loz) and we went for a drink before our tour started the next day. The tour company was called Moose Travel Network and is probably the easiest way to see things without renting a car. We jumped on the bus and set out with a few other travellers from Van on our first day. The tour takes a minimum of 7 days but it is possible to jump on and off and spend some nights at any of the stops along the way which we would do later.

Van - Shuswap Lake
Our first stop was a little place called Bridal Veil Falls (I have since seen about another 5 or 6 falls with the same name) where we all got to know each other a bit better. My most vivid memory of our first day was the mountains and the sudden change in climate. We started down in Van in temperate rainforest with bright green and then suddenly from one mountain to the next we were in completely arid terrain with sparse trees and no undergrowth. It was quite amazing really and shortly after the terrain smoothed out a little and we drove through rolling dry hills that reminded me of the veld in South Africa. We spent the night at a wonderful little place near Shuswap Lake where we watched the De La Hoya vs Mayweather fight over a pint and a burger.

Shuswap Lake - Banff
If the scenery yesterday was good then today was something else, the mountains were stunning and majestic with soaring peaks, jutting rocky outcrops and beautiful snow covered peaks, and they just seemed to go on and on with no end in sight either behind or in front. It made me wonder how anyone had ever found and devised a route across them.

The first stop of the day was to go go-karting which was great fun especially as I haven't driven since England so it was good to put pedal to the metal again =) Next was Rogers Pass which is where they finally found a route to allow the Trans-Canada Railway through and thus persuade BC to join fledgling Canada. The pass is incredibly dangerous and is prone to avalanches during winter, the road and railway both have snow sheds over large portions to allow the snow to pass over and allow them to stay open. Even in early May there was still 2 or 3 metres of snow left on the ground.

Later in the day we saw a Grizzly Bear which is apparently quite rare, today we also saw a Black Bear, Elk, deer and Big Horned Sheep. Pretty cool. Then it was on to Banff after a very long day where we met up with Jason, one of Marissa's friends who was joining us for the next few days.

Banff - Jasper
Our first stop of the day was at the famous Lake Louise, which unfortunately was still fozen which meant we couldn't see the deep blue colour which is the main reason that it is famous! It was still pretty amazing though as there was a small glacier above the far end of the lake high up near the mountain peak and the world famous hotel standing peerlessly over the water.

Later we stopped at the Columbia Icefields near the Athabasca Glacier. Unfortunately the weather was awful, it was raining and was freezing cold so we had a look at the visitors centre and then went for a short walk. We didn't get anywhere near the glacier though due to the weather, we couldn't even see the peak at that point so we retreated to the bus and then made our way onwards to Jasper. This is where we jumped off the bus and picked up our rental car to do our own thing for a few days but I will thankfully leave that till next time.

Next time Edmonton and some more of the Moose Tour.

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Photos

Art
Near Stanley Park

Storms
Taken from the closed path looking out to sea.

Vancouver View
Honestly the people of this city are spoilt=)

Steam Clock
It pays a little tune on the hour and half hour. Its not that great!

Lake Louise
Me, Marissa, Matt, Loz and Jason

The Man-wich
Delicious

Comments

[deleted_15735]

"Nice" hair cut.... loser
Pity about those contrasting bright and dark sides of Vancouver, i thought it would all be just "bright". So much for the "best city in the world". Woo for Perth! Well done for jumping the barrier to check out the storm damage too, i would have done the same thing. Screw the establishment!

[ziggy]

im getting pretty hungry looking at that roll with filling

[Rodney]

Nice one
Interesting stuff Dan. Looks bloody cold still. I've passed on the sanger deepthroat shot to the appropriate parties.