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Well it was about time I wrote another blog entry after Liz has been shouldering the author duties for the last couple of issues.
Well San Francisco, would have to be probably the best city we have visited so far. It basically had everything, the sights, the atmosphere and the random happenings that make a visit enjoyable.
On our first day in San Fran as we were walking through the streets, Liz made a observation that San Fran is probably not a good place to be a single female. Not necessarily for reasons of safety but more to the fact that it really lives up to its description as the city of brotherly love. She had not seen that many effeminate guys since well.....never.
We did the main touristy things whilst in San Fran including a trip to Alcatraz and visiting the Fisherman’s Wharf area where all the sea lions hang out. On the way back to our hostel we caught a bus that went through Chinatown which got full to the extent that old Chinese ladies started to hit each other with their walking sticks as well as slapping each other in an attempt to get on
Lombard Street
The street you see in all the movies the bus. For some reason it only resulted in the bus driver threatening to kick them all off. Some of the passengers seemed a bit put off by the ruckus but we just declared the pensioner deathmatch as great entertainment.
We decided one night to attend San Francisco’s equivalent of an off Broadway show, titled “Sweeney Tanya; the demon barista of Valencia street”. I am sure you will be able to pick what the parody was of. The show was actually quite funny even though the performers outnumbered the patrons. Getting to and from the theatre was interesting as we managed to witness 2 drug deals, were accosted by the local homeless and nearly saw several fights started. Lets just say we left the area quite quickly afterwards.
On our last day we decided to hire some bikes and ride across the Golden Gate Bridge to a small town called Sausalito, which is across the bay in Marin county. We managed to pick a day where half the ride was into a rather evil headwind. After walking about 15km a day for a last week combined with the ride we took the easy way out and caught the
ferry back to the city. This was when Liz decided to go on an law breaking spree which included me getting looked at by the cops for Liz running a red light on the bike and best of all Lizzy getting accused by a troop of girl guides of stealing two postcards from a shop. We got the last laugh by jumping ahead of them in the line for the cable car. Yes, crime does pay!!!!!!
Unfortunately we had to leave San Fran and headed back to Canada…..
The first night in Vancouver was great, we spent the night catching up with Aunty Din, Trudy and Grace. The night went on for a while with a few drinks over swapping stories, both from our travels, and what’s going on back in Bris Vegas.
Vancouver and, well BC as a whole is a bit on the expensive side with the touristy stuff. We did manage to go to the top of Grouse Mountain for the view as well as to see the bears (though in the last few days we have seen more bears near the roads than we could have imagined). We had a good time at
San Fran
Sea Lions at Fishermans wharf the Granville island markets spending a bit too much money on gourmet foods. So expensive but so tasty!
Our final two days in Vancouver were dominated by one thing…..rain. That is basically all it did so we were happy to leave for Vancouver Island and some warm and dry weather. Victoria itself is quite a beautiful city and we spent a couple of days looking at the sights such as Parliament House, Craigdarroch castle and the Royal BC Museum.
We then set out for Ucleulet and Tofino for a couple of days of R&R in some nice accommodation for Lizzy’s birthday. It was nice and warm and the shorts and t-shirts were out for the first time since Mexico. The area kind of reminded us of the beach towns on the NSW South Coast though the beaches were nowhere near as good. Being Australian we are rather spoiled when it comes to the beach.
Unfortunately our plans did not really work out - the night before Lizzy’s birthday we got a message on our phone from BC Ferries saying that our service to Prince Rupert had been canned. Apparently the ferry had been brought out of winter
maintenance too late. Not sure how you forget about 10,000 tonne ferry, they are rather hard to miss.
So, we spent Lizzy’s birthday in the car on the first leg of a 2000km road trip to get to Prince Rupert. But no fear we still had time to have birthday cake, as there is always time for cake. Thanks everyone for the birthday calls and emails, it was kind of weird being so far away.
Three days later we are here in Prince Rupert at the hostel looking forward to getting up early in the morning, we have to be at the ferry at 5.30am to go through Customs. It may be cold but it definitely will not be dark as we are now up to about 19 hours of sunlight (it’s a novel thought that as you go to bed at 11pm the sun is still up)!
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Jess
non-member comment
Oh no! I can't believe the ferry got cancelled?! Good thing you had time to make it to Prince Rupert before the next leg. Hope you had a happy birthday Liz, even if it was spent in the car!I'm getting VERY excited. Three more sleeps and we'll be Prince Rupert bound also! 19 hours of daylight - woohoo. I'm not anticipating too much warmth either - the only pair of shorts I'll be packing is a pair of zip-off/convertible pants. Have fun in Alaska guys, we're not far behind you!