Days 63 to 69 - Vancouver

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Well it’s raining in Toronto so I guess I’ve got time to add another update. Okay let’s see … Seattle was my last city in the US for the month of August with September 1st marking the start of the Canadian leg of my overseas road trip.

Before leaving town I was able to chat with Paul who was in San Francisco. He actually texted me sometime in the early morning but I was getting my beauty sleep of course. Poor guy had a stretch of bad luck with his QANTAS flight back to Sydney. Seems there was a “contained explosion” in one of the engines which forced the pilot(s) to dump some fuel and return back to San Francisco.

After hearing his story I was hoping that all of my future flights would be incident free. You can imagine what I was thinking when I saw the small aircraft that I needed to board for my flight up to Vancouver. While the flight was a little rough we touched down safely without any issues. The best way to sum up the flight experience would be to strap two running blenders to the side of your head and sporadically jiggle your body up and down.

Once I cleared customs, which could have gone smoother in my opinion, it was another quick and cheap light rail ride into downtown. After finding my room, which faced the main entertainment drag (Granville Street) I went for a quick walk to get my bearings and stretch my legs. I ended up finding a small park where there was a large contingent of sunbathers. As they say “When in Rome”, plus I needed to maintain my George Hamilton tan.

I woke up pretty early on Day Two and decided to take a stroll along the Stanley Park seawall. The seawall walk is about 9 kilometres long and circles the park. I spotted a number of swimming spots along the walk. After feeling the breeze, and seeing the aftereffects on one budgie-smuggling individual, I decided that I didn’t really need to have a dip. I spent the remainder of Day Two’s afternoon doing laundry before meeting up in the hostel bar for the trivia night. My team didn’t finish last or first so no prizes or discount jugs of beer for me. I’m still waiting for a trivia night to feature some professional wrestling questions.

Day Three ended up being my rest day. While I did walk through the Gastown and Chinatown districts, I did my best to save up as much energy as possible for my planned hike up Grouse Mountain. I did return to the park for another round of sunbathing. Who knows, I may be solar powered?

Day Four was when all the fun and pain occurred. The hostel had organised a hike up Grouse Mountain. Dubbed the “Grouse Grind” by locals, the hike takes you up an extremely steep trail that climbs 853 metres over a distance of 3 kilometres. The average grade is around 16.4 degrees with short sections of up to 30 degrees. Some people call it "Mother Nature's Stairmaster" but I think “Satan’s Staircase” sounds better. Some hikers reach the top in approximately 90 minutes. The fastest ascent to date is under 24 minutes. I imagine the holder of this record to be half human and half mountain goat.

I think the hardest part for me was the first quarter. Half of it was mental pain especially after seeing a photo marking the spot where someone had died from a heart attack. The other half was the constant feeling that my calves and thighs were on the verge of exploding. Things improved (slightly) after getting past the halfway mark. The remainder of the trail featured small signs with messages from kids and charities. Using that as inspiration I kept telling myself “Keep going KP. You’re doing this for the kids.” I must be honest in saying that I forgot about the kids after getting stuck behind a group of attractive female hikers. Once up the top, I grabbed a cup of hot coffee and took in some of the local attractions before riding the gondola back down.

I spent Day Six walking around Lynn Canyon Park. Even though the weather wasn’t great it was nice to walk around in the rain.

Next stop Calgary and Banff.

More pics from Vancouver can be found on my Flickr account.

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Photos

My Plane out of Seattle
I'm not sure who's older. The plane or the gent in the green jacket.

The Samesun Hostel
My hostel on Granville Street. It's pretty tough to get to sleep since the hostel is located on the main entertainment drag, plus the hostel has a bar on the ground floor. The trick is to always go to bed drunk.

Stanley Park
Part of the seawall walk around Stanley Park.

The Lion's Gate Bridge
Looks similar to the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco but green. Not entirely sure who copied who.

Stanley Park
Part of the seawall walk around Stanley Park.

Grouse Mountain
One of the orphaned grizzly bears at the top of Grouse Mountain. I thought this fella was eating fruit until I looked closer and noticed it was a bone. Now I know what they do with the hikers that don't make it to the top.

Grouse Mountain
The lumberjack show up the top of Grouse Mountain. It's pretty cheesy but it's good for a laugh.

Lynn Canyon Park
The suspension bridge at Lynn Canyon Park. Even though I tried, I still couldn't stop myself from intentionally bouncing on the bridge.