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There's a near intangible sense of a kindred spirit between Canada and Australia. It's not that we didn't see eye to eye with the folks down south and in fact the overwhelming majority were inviting and jovial, but across that northern border there's a covert sentiment that the locals look upon us as Canadian sons of beaches from a hemisphere far, far away. On the contrary, I prefer to view our Canadian cousins as alpine Antipodeans but i guess that's a mute point. Listening to the accents in Whistler and you'd swear we were back home anywhere. Literally half the workforce are "fair dinkum Dingo Dundees".
Now for a riddle.
What do you call a cold, wet, windy winters day in Sydney?
Summer in Vancouver.
Over a couple of visits now to this town and we've racked up about 5 full days and are yet to see the sun poke his warmth giving head through the clouds. For the most part this has gone hand in hand with rain. Great for the trees, not so inspiring for tourists.
There's enough indoorsy type activities to occupy a weather beaten visitor for a time in Vancouver, but like
Lions Gate Bridge
Lucky there is a cycling laneSydney, this place is more about getting out and about rather than in from the din.
Our final day provided enough respite, at least the rain held off, for us to feel sufficiently emboldened to unfurl the bikes and dive into Vancouver al fresco.
This city is regularly touted as the world's most liveable (I assume weather isn't a criteria) and a primo way to explore it is on 2 wheels.
It's not white mans magic that places Vancouver on such a lofty public pedestal. The raw materials of Vancouver's sheer geographical location give her a pretty decent head start in the popularity race.The waterways are appealing enough but the snow capped mountains overseeing the whole show aren't a bad trump to have up your sleeve either. A healthy ratio of green space, eclectic architecture, a smattering of groovy and edgy enclaves, an easy going, polite populace and you can see how the good judges of the world's most liveable city came up with their decisions.
Do I think Vancouver deserves its head honcho status? That's an arbitrary point but sure it needs to be thrown into the mix and it beats Guatemala City hands down
Stanley Park
One very tame Racoon, would make a great hat. to the post.
Vancouverites enjoy a quality of life, or at least have the potential to do so, in a locale that is a colder mirrored image of our own city on the opposite side of the world. I did say potential to enjoy. We spent one morning in Gastown, a genuinely charismatic looking area downtown. However, without stretching the facts, half the overt populace were folks "down on their luck". We even managed to stumble across one chap preparing his next hit in full view of the passing trade. Meanwhile, standing in front of me in the queue at the pharmacy, Bill, on a first name basis with Robert the pharmacist, was polishing off his methadone dose for the day. If you are partial to an enigma or two, place Gastown in your bucket list.
Naturally, and I do mean nature ally, BC boasts plenty more than its urban flagship. For lovers of all things alpine, BC's interior ticks most of the boxes.
A whistle stop in Whistler for a touch of reminiscence was a neat little kickstart to the inland foray. It was quite the quirky juxtaposition seeing Whistler minus the majority of its snow,
the slopes having transformed into mountain bike central. Buy yourself a yearly lift pass then ski half the year and careen downhill on 2 wheels the rest. Sounds like a reasonable recipe for a life worth aspiring to.
Whistler was the aperitif for the main course further east in the Rockies. This led to a dilemma on which route to follow. Being creme de la creme procrastinators, there were around 67 plan changes before at the last moment we found the WHOW pointing toward Jasper with a pitstop in the Wells Gray Provincial Park. Fate can be awfully kind every now and then.
National Park status must be a tough earned badge in Canada if Wells Gray is lingering in Provincial lame street. It's a jaw dropping traffic stopper minus tourist masses. Water and gravity combine all over the place to create countless waterfalls and rapids. Where gravity doesn't figure in the equation, lakes are shoehorned amongst the lushest of pine forests. Cycling from one hike to the next in this park is one sweet, if enduring, way to pass a day. Molson Beer may not be the Rolls Royce of lagers but it sure tasted like it,
Vancouver
sea plane on arrival melted into a deck chair at the rear of the WHOW overlooking a raging rapid after one of those days.
The Rockies may be the top billing in attracting tourists in summertime Canada but they've got some stiff competition in the BC interior. Alberta receives the majority of the hype but will they walk the walk? Stay tuned.
Yeatesy
Another week, another destination, another country. We are in Canada, stopping firstly for a few nights in Vancouver.
We arrived to rain and the temperature was single digits by day, not too dissimilar to when we last visited 2 and a half years ago. Fortunately Huey gave us some respite on our last day, just long enough to cycle around Vancouver and touch up on a few places we didn't manage last visit. I think we covered about 50 Klm's all up on the cycle paths which are really well laid out throughout the city.
From Vancouver our next stop was Whistler, also old stomping ground. This time our visit to Whistler was not for the fun of skiing, but rather an opportunity to get Gaz's medication top up and stocked up for the next six
Vancouver
Canada Place months and to check the town out in their spring.
The RV / camping ground in Whistler was pretty well located just a kIlometre or so from the village and it also links up to a number of hiking and bike trails that follow the lakes and into the village. While the Vancouver rains had abated, it was still damn cold. Rugged up in everything warm we own, we managed a few hikes. There were not too many people on the trails, I wonder why? However we did manage to come across our second encounter with a black bear, this one much larger than our first in Yosemite, and this time much to our suprise he was smack bang on our walking trail. Unfortunately we didn't have the camera. How were we to know black bears also use the walking trails! Fortunately for us he was very content eating the grass and dandelions to even notice us.
I thought after that encounter I had better brush up on my bear etiquette. There is usually a blurb that comes with the park information covering this topic. They say something along the lines of " if you see a bear,
stop to the side or move away quickly and noisily to avoid habituating the bears to human presence." There is no information about how to capture your brief encounter on film, and therefore to date we have only managed to take a few very blurry photos of the black bears. Hopefully by the time we see the grizzly bears we might have better luck.
From Whistler we camped for two nights in Wells Gray Provincial Park. A last minute decision after reading the description of the park on the shorter route which described the area as having 4 out of every 3 days completely rained out. Why would we want to spend 2-3 nights there other than it was a slightly quicker route to the Rockies than the one we chose.
Wells Gray Provincial Park turned out to be a great destination. As I am typing this I am looking out at a rapid ,the sun is still setting at9.30pm. We are experiencing really long twilights which are just beautiful and in the background I can hear a woodpecker tapping on a tree. We can open our skylight and look up at the few stars appearing amongst the
Mount Robson
Car dwarfed by the Rockies highest peak. large pine trees that surround our campsite. The noise of the rapid is quite loud, which fortunately, if your'e inclined to need to reach the bathroom at the sound of running water our bathroom on board is close by. We have had a day of hiking and riding to some amazing waterfalls. It all makes the challenging ride home on the bike ( lots and lots of ups) all worthwhile.
Penny
Anybody interested in buying a Canadian National Parks Pass for half price valid until end May 2013, send us a message.
More images at:
www.colvinyeates.zenfolio.com
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Synnott
Nicolas Synnott
love this picture.
I was part of the game in 2010 and we were sleeping in Burnaby. On the sky train every morning we were passing what we use to call the ball. Anyway, I love your picture it remain me of how much I love this city.