We started the day by going to Grouse Mountain. Grouse Mountain is on the northern side of Vancouver and overlooks downtown. Today was another clear day so we could see as far as the hills of Vancouver Island.
Yesterday we started our day at the Royal British Columbia Museum. The museum has many displays about British Columbia which could take days to peruse. Although these are interesting, this isn’t what we came to see. The museum has a special exhibition on the titanic. The museum has an entire themed section complete with boarding passes on entry. We started with a 45 minute IMAX movie about how the items were recovered along with the events leading up to the sinking. At the end of the exhibition we compare our boarding passes against the live and lost list. I was lost, Meg Lived. This was despite my first class ticket. There were quite a few themed actors going around the halls who had stories to accompany the exhibits.
Today we went to the Butchart gardens. These gardens are over a hundred years old and are the result of the Butchart family filling in a limestone quarry. It’s a slick operation and kind of like a Disneyland for flowers. My idea of gardening is making up a batch of Round-up, so this was pretty impressive. (more…)
We drove from Port Hardy at the northern end of Vancouver island to Victoria in the south. This was a 6 hour drive which meandered along the highway 19A coast road. We passed through many fishing towns before arriving in Victoria. (more…)
Not a lot to report again. We arrived in Port Hardy (on Vancouver Island) last night after 15 hours on the ferry. I didn’t even get seasick!
Not much to report since the last entry. It is currently 4:30 in the morning, and we are catching a ferry at 7:30 to Port Hardy on Vancouver Island. For some reason they want us to check in 2 hours before departure. I’m really not sure why, since we don’t have a car, it’s just us. But the ticket clearly says that if we haven’t checked in 90 minutes before departure they will cancel and re-sell our tickets. So another early morning for us. (more…)
On our last day in Jasper, Meg awoke early to go looking for elk. Near our bungalow Canada Parks has placed signs warning about elk activity in the area and that the elk are very protective of their calves. Unfortunately the elk had decided to sleep in on the very day Meg got up early, so only vocal squirrels to be seen and heard. (more…)
Firstly, congratulations to Rob and Kerry for the birth of their second son, Quinn Fredrick, 8 lb 6 oz, 51cm. Rob advises all are doing well.
This is going to be a long post as it will be two installments in one, so for those slacking off at work to read this, get your coffee now. For the geeks, the internet cafe has just shut so we’re sitting in the car outside the cafe “borrowing†their wifi internet, we’ll buy a coffee there tomorrow. We will, sure.
The weather today was much more favourable for site seeing. We started the day with a horse trial ride along the Spray river. The guides gave us instructions on how to direct our horses but I’m reasonably sure that the horses have done this route so many times before that if we fell off, the horse would keep going. We were both a little sore afterwards, not sure if this was the near zero temperature and horseback combination.
Thanks to our personal rocky mountain tour guides Kim and Michele, we had a running start to Banff this morning. After picking up our rental car from the most relaxed and laid back Canadians we have come across so far, we set off driving in the Rockies.