8-11 June
Vancouver
We disembarked the Queen Elizabeth, with rucksacks on our backs at 9am. We were so speedy that we found ourselves on the street, outside the port terminal, before we’d got our bearings. When we arrived at the Skytrain, we hadn’t had a chance to research how to use it, so found ourselves asking for help to buy tickets, despite everything being in English!
The ride on the metro was easy, but the walk, uphill to our hotel, a bit punishing. Surely the clothes we’d bought for the ship couldn’t have added that much weight, or had we got weaker with our sedentary lifestyle aboard the ship?
We were too early to check in at the hotel, so we ensconced ourselves in a nearby Starbucks to catch up with news, emails and, of course, our blog. The weather was glorious; it was soothing to feel the sunshine again.
Peter set off to find a SIM card, a few blocks away. The area was not as well looked after and wealthy as most, with many shopfronts empty and shuttered up. He was disturbed seeing many sleeping rough under cover along the side of the pavement. Many of these in seriously drugged states, presumably heroin. Meanwhile, Lynne had a manicure with a girl from Korea who was delighted to meet someone who had just been there.
We then set off for a wander to lift Peter’s spirits, and found that the water bus to Granville Island was only just down the road. It was the cutest little boat imaginable! We hopped on and enjoyed a stroll round the food market and craft shops. We returned Downtown and enjoyed an early dinner of burger or chicken salad.
Small… …smaller
Next morning saw us stumble upon a trendy traditional diner for breakfast. Established in 1934, it still housed a jukebox with selection (not working) at each table and a soda stream from the 1950s, with the decor true to the original. There was soon a queue waiting to get a table, so we were lucky.
The weather had turned cooler, so we fetched our rain jackets before setting off to walk along the shore past English Beach to Stanley Park, a large deeply forested peninsula. We loved walking along the shore line, seeing eleven cargo ships at anchor and snow-peaked mountains in the background. We headed to one of the trails, through the tall pine forest to Prospect Point, where we enjoyed a welcome coffee. Wow – Boris Johnson had resigned while we were enjoying the peace of the park!
It had started to rain and the visibility at the Point was poor. We got drenched as we walked back the 5.5km to our hotel. Our spirits weren’t dampened but we probably overstretched ourselves (and Lynne had an hour’s on-line gym with Jon earlier!).
We went to a bar for dinner where we enjoyed some Canadian wine with excellent non-garlic tapas. We were served by a convivial Frenchman who was grateful for the opportunity to speak to us in French. Although we had found some fine dining restaurants in Vancouver (including a Japanese and a Korean), we were more content to stick with the casual, after all the formal dining on the ship.
We were finding it difficult to sleep; not because of all the sounds of traffic and a city, but because the bed didn’t rock and roll all night!
The weather was even colder on Saturday. We headed off by bus to the Pacific Central Station to pick up our train tickets for Monday’s train to the Rockies. A grand station, but so quiet!
Historic terminal The Canadian
We wandered around the nearby Olympic Village, grabbing brunch before taking another water bus back, via Granville Island to Hornby Street. It was pleasant following False Creek, past the fabulous, extraordinary architecture of Vancouver, its noticeably young population (after the ship) and the activities on the water. From the sublime to the ridiculous – our water bus held twelve passengers, and the windows are removed in the summer!
Peter had booked Brix & Mortar for dinner, which was set among lots of trendy eateries. The food was great, as was the local Pinot Blanc. Lynne’s starter was small but her dessert huge, so we determined to climb Grouse Mountain in the morning to shed some surplus calories.
The restaurant hostess recommended the BCMC trail, which is less pressurised than the Grind trail, where young guns compete in speeding up the 2,830 steps. We were really grateful for that advice as the BCMC is slightly longer, but much more peaceful and less structured. It’s still not a walk-in the park, with 853m height gain over 3km.
We left our hotel early to avoid the queues, but had breakfast at the bottom, before starting our ascent.
We used the excellent public transportation system, the SkyTrain and two buses to get to the bottom of the trail and gondola, although it can be difficult to find the requisite bus stops. The weather was misty and cool as we climbed through the trees, but unbroken sunshine when we reached the top.
A good work-out, before returning by the same route, stopping off for a well-earned smoothie on a park bench in the sunshine.
