21st January – 25th January – Vancouver, Canada

We awoke to another perfect day with no wind today. Yah, because we had booked ourselves skiing and snowboarding lessons at Grouse Mountain. We caught the sea bus over the bay and caught a bus to the base of the mountain. We visited Grouse back in June in summer and already it looked so different with the trees up the side of the mountain covered in snow. However, as far as conditions went, it was going to be a perfect sunny -6 degrees.
We crammed into the Gondola – we didn’t actually think that you could get that many people into a Gondola and we were off – eight minutes to the top. Although no snow had fallen the previous night it was fresh and thick all around us. We hopped off at the top and marveled at the difference. Many of the things that we had seen in summer were buried under the snow which sat at 401cm thick. The path that we had walked on was now a skating rink and other than that, snow was everywhere. The view to Vancouver was amazing too. Being a clear day you could look down at the city with the sun shining on it.
We went to the ski rental area and picked up our boots, ski’s and snowboard. After some help we kitted up and went outside to meet our instructors. At this point the less said about how crappy I was at skiing, the better. Over to Dan to talk about his snowboarding.
I’ve never snow boarded before but with years of skateboarding under my belt I thought I’d go okay. I didn’t know how to put the boots on. Not a good start! While I was waiting for the lesson, I strapped myself into the bindings and promptly fell over three times on flat ground. (It’s harder than it looks).
We had five in our two lessons, and from not knowing anything, I was able to do turns and going up the rope tow (lift). Needless to say I fell over a lot but it didn’t matter as it was awesome fun. Once the lesson finished, I went back and grabbed Tan and we warmed up with hot chocolate.

I went back on the slopes for a few more hours of snowboarding and was able to make it down the cut without falling over. Not bad for first time snowboarding. I called it a day watching the most amazing sunset over Vancouver and the snow lit up pink too. Snowboarding is awesome!!

We caught the seabus home taking in the views of the Vancouver skyline.

20th January – Vancouver, Canada

We awoke to a beautiful blue day in Vancouver. Days like these are very few and far between so we decided to get out and walk around the city and enjoy the sunshine. We could look down the end of the street and see the snow clearly on the mountains. We headed up to Vancouver Lookout which is quite high and provides 360 degree views of Vancouver. The ticket let us up in the day and also let us come back in the evening to see the city lit up at night. The lookout was also interesting because it provided history on many of the buildings and areas around Vancouver, which is relatively young. Photo’s of Canada by the day looking out towards the mountains (Grouse, Cypress and Seymour).

Photo’s of the city.
In the evening we headed back up around 8.30pm not realizing that the tower was closing at 9.00pm. After a quick call to upstairs (they had already closed the lift) we got in and made it up for a quick wander around the tower.

Shots of the city at night.


The little bit of white towards the top of this photo is Grouse Mountain lit up for night skiing.
We still think of all the cities we have been to, Vancouver is one of the most beautiful, although we're not sure the day photo's really do it any justice.

25th & 26th June - Vancouver, Grouse Mountain

26th June
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!!