Doug and Kerry Hudson in Vancouver, British Columbia

We arrived in Vancouver after a bumpy flight from Toronto. During the flight we had caught tantalising glimpses of the Rocky Mountains through gaps in the cloud. Our first impression of Vancouver was that it was very clean and picturesque. The weather was beautiful when we arrived, sunny and blue skies but about 10 degrees cooler than Toronto.

We walked the earth during our first few days in Vancouver. For example, we walked the Sea Wall around Stanley Park, an awesome walk with huge pines on our right and the Pacific Ocean on our left. We went right under the Lions Gate suspension bridge. We also walked to Vancouver Aquarium, where we saw cute sea-otters and beluga whales, amongst about 6000 other things... And we walked to the Granville Island market, where delicious-looking food was being sold for extortionate prices. There were also a lot of art and craft shops.

One afternoon we did a tour of the harbour, a relaxing and educational tour where we learnt about how Vancouver grew from a port exporting timber into the largest port on the western coast of Canada. This seemed like an impressive statistic at the time, until we saw the competition!

The weather improved over the course of our stay and we had some sunny weather with clear blue skies. It was still a bit nippy though, so no we weren't ready to sunbathe just yet. When the clouds cleared we saw the mountains surrounding Vancouver for the first time, and we suddenly realised what the fuss was all about. The mountains were breathtaking. The word superb just didn't do it justice.

We settled into the hostel way of things and became familiar with how things work. The only problem was that our room was at the very end of the corridor and the ladies' bathrooms were the last room at the other end. Not a problem for Doug but a slight one for Kerry, especially when she needed a wee in the middle of the night. She quickly learned to go before bedtime.

Before we moved in to the hostel, we wondered how on earth we could spend the rest of our time in Vancouver. The wealth of information at the hostel meant there was still plenty to do, however. One day we took a bus through downtown to the waterfront station, where we took the sea-bus across to North Vancouver. We even saw sea-lions in the harbour. From Lonsdale Quay at the north shore, we travelled to Lynn Canyon. This was a rainforest with enormous Douglas firs and cedars. There were supposed to be cougars and black bears in the rainforest, but of course we didn't see a single one... There was a ropebridge across the canyon, and Kerry overcame her fear and crossed it. She described it as scary but thrilling!

After lunch at the Lonsdale Market, we travelled up to Grouse Mountain. During the winter months this is the closest ski resort to Vancouver. There was still snow there, but all skiing had stopped for the season. Doug took the cable car to the top. Kerry could't face the heights but afterwards wished she had gone too as the views proved to be staggering. Doug could see Vancouver, Vancouver Island, and even as far as Washington state.

While in Vancouver, we met a very nice South African couple from Cape Town, called Rod and Anne. They were also staying at the hostel. We spent most evenings chatting with them after dinner.

We had an interesting visit to the Vancouver Art Gallery. There was only one painting on the first three floors. The first floor exhibition was Cyborg related and the next two floors showed the Douglas Gordon exhibition. We found this very weird. Douglas Gordon won the Turner Prize for showing the film Psycho slowed down to take twenty four hours to show. The last floor showed Emily Carr paintings. Finally, something we could relate to! Overall, our visit was a fascinating experience and we learnt a lot about contemporary art.

Taking encouragement from our earlier success with the buses we took the bus south to the Van Dusen Botanical Gardens. This garden occupies fifty six acres of land that was formerly a golf course, until the owners could no longer afford the lease. Vancouver City Council decided to make it into gardens, and it took ten years to develop from scratch. We were shown around by a nice little lady, who told us more about the history of the garden, and also described what we were seeing. We were joined on the tour by the McCormacks, a couple from Seaside, Oregon (yes, it is a town by the sea). Mr McCormack very kindly took a photo of us in front of the Korean pagoda. The pagoda was donated to the garden by the city of Seoul after the Expo' 86 exhibition in Vancouver. There was also an Elizabethan Maze in the garden, where we got lost for good half an hour.

After Van Dusen we walked the two blocks east to the Queen Elizabeth Garden and Bloedel Conservatory, a dome-like structure housing exotic plants. The views of Vancouver downtown from here were excellent, as the skyscrapers were dwarved by the snow-topped mountains behind. The gardens here were pretty impressive too, much more manicured than Van Dusen. We lazed on a park bench for at least an hour, watching the hot-blooded male ducks chasing the feisty female ducks around the pond. Amusing and very relaxing.

Doug visited Vancouver Aquatic Centre. The pool was very clean, and divided into lanes for the serious swimmers. Naturally Doug decided to go in the fast lane, and it wasn't long before he was catching people up. However, he didn't catch everyone up, and in particular there were three blokes who were all in their fifties who gave him a run for his money. Doug would be very happy to be swimming like that at age 50! He tried doing some backstroke, but the ceiling had a pentagonal design that meant at one end he swam into the lane rope, and at the other end he swam into the path of the oncoming swimmers. He soon gave that up! Doug's overall impression was that this was a very clean pool with a very high standard of swimming. Best of all, the lane swimmers all understood lane discipline, which made it a pleasure.

We eventually moved on from Vancouver to Vancouver Island. We would initially be staying in Victoria, in the Hotel Douglas, on Douglas Street, no less!

Several weeks later, we returned to Vancouver after a series of adventures in British Columbia and Alberta. This time we stayed at the Jericho Beach hostel.

This hostel was in a very distinctive white building and located very near the beach in the pretty Kitsilano ("Kits") district of Vancouver. We don't recall much else about it, except that the kitchen stank of onion in the morning. Certain orientals were cooking a stir fry for breakfast. At 7am!

Doug dropped Kerry off at the bus stop for Seattle with the luggage and went to drop off the hire car. This turned out to be a nightmare, as the car was running low on petrol and he got stuck on a street that would take him across Lions Gate Bridge over to North Vancouver. However, a few nifty manouvres and using his knowledge of the downtown geography he managed to get off the road and back in the right direction. It was a relief to drop the car off in the end, although we were both to miss it.

We caught the Quick Shuttle bus to Seattle which left Vancouver at 09:30am. The bus driver was great and kept us informed on where we were and what we were seeing. Customs was another story. We all had to get off the bus and take everything with us into this hall. Even our luggage in the hold. We then had to fill out some forms and have our luggage X-rayed. We were surprised at the formality, we thought that the formalities would have been reserved for the airports. Anyway, back on the bus... A lot of the houses that we passed on the way had American flags flying outside. How absurd! Clearly we were no longer in Canada. We were now on the next leg of our adventure, in the United States of America!

World Trip >> Canada >> Vancouver

Last updated: Sunday August 27, 2006