The day dawned sunny and warm and we awoke early and headed up the Grouse Mountain - aptly named the peak of Vancouver. The mountain is around 1200 metres above sea level and not named after the great skiing and hiking but a diminutive little bird called a grouse..
We caught the gondola up which squeezed around 100 people in for the six minute picturesque ride up to the top of Grouse Mountain above tall fir trees. The top of the mountain gave spectacular views of the sea and the city. It is truly beautiful in Vancouver.
The area is really touristy to cater for the needs of those who like to travel in warmer Canadian climates (namely old Americans with white sneakers and the hikers who use Grouse as a base. The area has huge wooden carvings, mostly really tacky, with the odd nice one.
We sat down to a "real life" lumberjack show. A mountain crew guy walked on in cleaning rubbish and ended up falling in the log rolling water much to our amusement. The show consisted of two lumberjacks competing in various lumber sports such as the wood chop, log sawing and chainsaw carving. The highlight was a 15cm chair carved from a log and then they got a 3 month baby from the crowd to sit in it. (You sorta had to be there.)
The log rolling was entertaining and these guys were actually good. The aim of log rolling was to free up logs transported down the river that had become stuck. The show ended with the mountain crew guy scaling a 20m high pole and flying off it.
Looking to the peak of Grouse Mountain wasn't too far so we wandered up. Seeing drifts of snow to 2m thick was awesome and gave us a sneak preview of what was ahead of us in winter. Tan made the obligatory snow ball, some what better than the one Azza made a while back while Dan played in the snow. Skiing the peak at night under lights sounds very good. The climb wasn't too bad and when we got to the top we could see this kick arse mountain to the east covered in snow. (Tan lets go there tomorrow - a phrase Tan got sick of hearing!). Seeing snow amongst the fir trees and snow capped mountains in the distance is a sight to behold especially in summer.
Back down the hill and off to a bird display of hawks, falcons and owls. They were nothing compared to Grinder and Coola, the resident bears on the hill. From two different regions these two have been living together on the mountain after they were orphaned as cubs. They frolicked in the water and had some play fights.
After the bears quietened down we trekked our way down to a little lake. Most of the track was covered in snow so we used a bit of poetic licence and made our own tracks until we could see portions exposed out of the snow. The snow rimming the lake was magical. Tan panicked after seeing the sign "be careful for bears" and visions of been eaten alive. (She was carrying a banana skin which bears love (?)). The trek back up through the snow on our imaginary track lead us to behind a sign saying "No Pedestrian Access". Oh well.... it was a great little walk.
A quick bite to eat overlooking the gondolas leaving, the queue was too massive to even contemplate leaving the mountain, we decided to watch the "Grinder and Coola" story on there arrival to Grouse. An excellent story for these cubs which would've been shot if they weren't rescued.
Another quick walk checking out the ski lifts and runs and we were in the gondola down the mountain with no queue. A bus trip into North Vancouver and after a nice warming cup of coffee we check out the rather unexciting area with a few little parks.
The ferry across to Vancouver was fast. This thing is like the Perth - South Perth trip but faster and bigger. The sun glistening on the water and the buildings made a pleasant evening.
25th June
A rather unexciting day of just organising stuff. We realised that Tan's phone (the one that came off Noah's Ark - Tim!) wouldn't cut it as it didn't receive signal on international roaming. So after swapping out sim cards to Dan's phone we bit the dust and went off the the local phone supplier 'Rogers' to buy a new mobile ' or cell phone' as the Canadians would call it! We learnt all about Tri Band (which we apparantly needed) and took great delight in having some new technological thing called "Quad Band - no its quad!!' - not that we had any idea what so ever what that means, but were most excited that our phone now took photo's and had a groovy ring tone. Doesn't take much to impress us. So we now have a local Canadian phone. However over here, you had to pay extra to get basic stuff like caller ID and voicemail.. oh well, what can you do? The guy selling us the phone looked about as interested in us as watching paint dry and for some strange reason didn't get any of Dan's jokes - jeez can't understand that one :)
We also set up our Canadian bank account which again is quite strange. We had a sit down meeting with a representative from the bank who was most helpful. We left with new cards and his direct email for when we wish to have a Canadian credit card. Again a little strange, because as an Australian we can't have credit. We have to put down a deposit with the bank for how much credit we would like and then they give us a card to that value. We think for now we'll cope with our Australian credit cards. We've now got bank accounts coming out of our ears!!
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