Vancouver

Easy enough to navigate Vancouver, which is a proper city but with a compact centre. Water in every direction in the downtown area and some striking landmarks. This feels more like a city that is getting on with whatever it does, but that visitors are welcome to take a look around.

We tried a jazzy bar the first evening, and then today, Sunday, have been wandering the waterfront which is easily accessible from downtown.

Despite significant reconstruction in progress, there's an attractive walk from more or less one end of the northern shoreline to the other and then cut through the West End with its smaller shops and cafes, which seemed attuned to the local lifestyle more than overt tourism. We'll be checking out Stanley Park and a few of the other attractions later, but it already feels right as a city.

goodbye vancouver island

...and hello to Vancouver.

quintessential identity crisis

Before leaving Vancouver Island, we spent some time in Victoria, which is cited in guide books as being quintessentially English with Victorian undertones.

We stayed at the rather posh Empress hotel which overlooks the waterfront and it became apparent that the once pristine Ford was now looking rather weatherbeaten compared to the other shiny sedans and coupes being valet parked.

I'd had a similar experience about seven days earlier when we'd pulled up next to a truck like ours in a car park and I'd wondered what the couple driving it had been doing to make it look so messy outside. Now this was us with the small peephole at the back where the wiper cleared away the mud.

The valets had seen it all before of course and were unphased by this or the collection of backpacks and carrier bags in the back.

I then set out on a brief solitary expedition to find some coffee and/or ice cream, which seemed to be needed at this point. My immediate impression of this part of Victoria was more of London's Oxford Street area, with a pedestrian street rather loaded with souvenir shops and full on tourists. So, whilst one could talk of an evocation of England, it wasn't quite what I had in mind.

There was also San Fransisco trolley buses plying sightseeing routes and Vienna-like horse and buggies to take people on more extravagant viewings. My guess is that Victoria is trying to re-invent itself and we've seen it in the midst of its angst.

Later, we hit the Veranda bar for some cocktails and sunset, and I guess this view of the harbour was one of the strong points of Victoria, but if I'm honest I didn't really warm to this city the way I have to the rest of the Canada we've been travelling.

trouble at 'mill

Crossing the island towards Victoria (a circa 300km trip for us) we decided to take a break somewhere and headed for the small town of Chemainus.

An interesting story where the local lumber mill closed and many townsfolk were then unemployed. They decided turn the town into a cultural centre and invited artists to create wall murals depicting the town's long term history and to generally pump up the volume on ways to attract people to this small location.

Somehow it all worked and there's now a thriving tourism as well as even the repoening of the sawmill under new ownership. The town describes itself as 'the little town that did (tm)' and indeed the small shops and cafes did have an endearing quality, whilst providing a welcome coffee stop.

rainforests and whales

Looking around it became clear that the area of coastline included a rain forest and some consequently stunning scenery. Some of the appearance was reminiscent of progressive rock music covers from the vinyl years.

A great excuse to hop aboard a speedy boat and meander amongst the islands, looking out for wildlife.

As well as nesting bald headed eagles, sea otters and rather large sea lions, the prize spotting was a selection of grey whales, on their summer visit to the cold Northern waters to replenish their food supplies, before they head back across the Pacific towards Hawaii.

I was close enough to get the first hand impression of whale breath as well as their breathtaking sight. The whale in my snapshot probably weighs between 30 and 40 tons and will replenish 20 tons of that weight during the north pacific stopover.

pacific

Started the day by seeing a bear wandering along the far shoreline close to where we were staying and a couple of bald headed eagles circling the water.

We ate breakfast and then headed for the beach in any case, determined to get wet toes from Pacific waters. Luckily, the sun decided to shine upon us, so as we approached a twelve mile stretch of sand, there was blue skies and blue seas. This piece of the Pacific was ours, for the morning.

pacific rim

The sweeping roads from Whistler towards the West are a sharp contrast to the roads of a couple of days earlier. Even with the extensive reconstruction ready for the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympics, the roads are easy to travel. Our objective initially, has been Horseshoe Bay, to catch a ferry across to Vancouver Island, which in the distant mist hints at further mountain ranges and oceanic shoreline.

We landed on the island in Departure Bay and then started to traverse the 200 kilometers to our destination on the western side. The initial landscape was the closest to a United States style scenery that we'd seen in Canada. Miles of multi-lane highway with retail parks on both sides of the road, Dodge dealerships, Wal-Marts and Taco Bells. We eventually reached the city limits and all of the development stopped suddently, like something from Sim City and we again found ourselves on well surfaced sweeping roads across the middle of the large island, through rocky river valleys and eventually on decreasing width roads to the far coastal resort of Ucluelet, close to Tofino.

Another pleasant surprise as we arrived in early evening to find we were staying in a wooden sided West Coast style house with a view to the water, boarded balcony with jacuzzi and even a log fire to take the edge off of the evening's 10 degree temperature. I sense a relaxing day tomorrow.

Whistler

We've moved back more onto the beaten track now, targeting to spend a night in Whistler. The first part of today's trip was quite a journey along more twisty dirt tracks eventually stopping for a blueberry muffin and a mighty fine cup of coffee at Reynolds in Lillooet.

Finally arriving at Whistler this afternoon, there is a dramatic contrast to the last few days in the wilds, with manicured shopping malls featuring Gap and Starbucks and courtesy shuttle buses in all directions. I commented that Disney's Imagineers could have designed part of the central area and our hotel ticks all the boxes.
Even the complementary chocolates that arrived in the room were stylishly presented with frosted bear's paw motifs. Let's just say the spa is already being visited taking full advantage of the President Club membership.

I'm also taking advantage of real broadband to upload a few pictures and write today's blog entry at a more normal pace without the line failing every few minutes. The 'all mod cons' technology is something of a contrast with the nature of this morning when we were watching a house martin line its three young birds in a row along a ledge to make it easy to feed them whilst an occasional hummingbird flitted into view.

We're only in this spot for one evening before we head further west through the lakelands, so we've already said goodbye to the wilder areas of the mountains.

But I'll be thinking of them.

dirt

I mentioned we'd had to drive the last 100 kilometres to this place on dirt roads; I should have said they were on the edge of sheer drops of maybe 300 metres for most of the route, dappled with minor avalanches of rock. The only picture I have is from the next day on the way to the gas station.

The gas station guy explained that he regularly gets people stop by who think they are on the Alaska road, but have made a wrong turning back at the last place. He says there are people in tears when he tells them they need to go back the same 100 kilometres and take the other turning. I read a road trip book a few years ago and one of the pieces of advice from the author that stuck with me is to study signs carefully in remote places and make sure before taking the next road. Good advice in this area.

The town where I got the gas has a population of 43 and was an old mining town, but now mainly logging.

I also visited the next town over the mountains which had a similarly low pop, as well as a gas station opened Thurs-Sat, a bar (closed) and a museum about mining(closed). And great scenery in all directions. Canada has scenery police who re-arrange anything that doesn't look good enough.

Later, the lure of a mountain bike, which I took out on a trail, but this London dweller found the 'flat rides' in this part of the world a trifle daunting, with loose rocks, 60 degree gradients and twisty paths that gave numerous possibilities for falling into the lake. As it was around 30 Centigrade, I decided a shorter route would probably be sufficient to get enough of an impression without leaving one somewhere on the rocks.

moose

I was right that there wouldn't be any phone or internet access where we've been for the last couple of days. Further into the wilds where the moose roam free and one keeps a bell on the backpack to alert adjacent bears that we are in the area.

Back home I normally escort bugs from the premises if I consider them ill-placed but here its difficult to know the best option.

But as if the initially isolated was not far enough from civilization, we've then cut across to the old gold rush trail across the desert towards Eldorado. There's still some dusty looking towns in the mid 35 Celcius early evening heat. And that was before traversing a 100 kilometer dirt track to the current base camp which is by another lake, outlooking to some further mountains and definitely 'away from it all'. Today is for chillin' before heading towards Whistler.

wilderness

next section is unlikely to have wifi or internet

glacial

Off to the Columbia Icefield yesterday. This is a high area where the weather remains cold throughout the year and there's enough ice to feed eight major glaciers. The ice is replenished by snow throughout the year (including whilst we were there) and the eventual river water flows into three different continents.

The thickest part of the ice is around 350 metres and the area around the Athabasca glacier where I took the pictures is around 100 metres thick. Moving across the ice is slow and there's many crevices covered with snow but mightily deep. I don't think survival chances are very high if one were to fall in. The vehicle of choice for this section looks like something from Thunderbirds but seems to do the trick.

Naturally we were above the tree line, but approaching through the last trees, they have a 'half tree' shape, like a flag. That's because of the cold continuous convected wind (katabatic) which blows from the glacier and freezes the sap on the tree's glacier side.

I filled a water bottle with the glacier water. The formula is something like that it takes 150 years to turn from snow into ice and then back into water and if I did'nt catch the water it would take another 40 years to flow out to the Arctic Circle.

Only one bottle but I'm drinking it like a fine wine.