Our Stay in Vancouver...

I had forgotten just how much I love Vancouver.

After making our way from the airport into the city to grab our supplies from MEC, we headed to Kip and Tree's place in Kitsilano. They live in an appartment on the 9th floor looking north across Vancouver Harbour to the Mountains.

Tree had to go to work and Kip was out playing golf so Cam and I took the opportunity to catch up on some much needed sleep.....

4 hours later and slightly refreshed we heading to Carlos n' buds to catch up with some of my old friends. Seeing everyone again was awesome! You know you have great friends when after four years apart you can just pick up where you left off. It was like I had never left.... Cam and I also caught up with Anna and Catherine. They had recently moved to Vancouver (from Melbourne) for 12 months on a working holiday visa. After dinner we headed to a Blues/Jazz bar to listen to Tree's favorite band - Brickhouse. I think we finally headed home to bed at around 1.30am. Very tired....

On Sunday Cam and I took Anna and Catherine to North Vancouver and showed them around the Capilano Park. We decied not to go to the Capilano Suspension Bridge as you have to pay to get in. Instead, we were going to take them to the Lynn Canyon Suspension Bridge which is free and much nicer. We were also planning to go to the top of Grouse Mountain.

We met the girls downtown at around lunchtime and caught the sea bus over to North Vancouver. The sea bus is basically a commuter ferry that crosses the harbour. By the time we got to the other side it was raining quite heavily and so we decided to grab some lunch and see if the rain stopped. The decision was made that we would continue on despite the rain - after all it is Vancouver and if you waited for the rain to stop you would never go anywhere.

We caught a bus to Capilano Park and then wandered around some great nature trails - we eventually arrived at the Salmon Hatchery and Cleveland Dam. By this stage it was getting late and the rain was starting to fall heavier. We decided that we wouldn't go up Grouse Mountain as we would not be able to see anything through the clouds. The girls will go up some other time.

We caught the bus back to the sea bus terminal and then headed back into the city. We said goodbye to the girls and headed back to Kip and Tree's place for dinner.

On Monday morning we got up early - well okay so it was around 9ish and headed back across the harbour to Lynn Canyon. It was so beautiful. The bridge is around 40 metres high and about 60 metres long (maybe it was the otherway round...) anyways it was beautiful. The bridge crosses a narrow valley with a torrent of water dropping through a series of waterfalls and ponds. We wondered around the trails for a while before heading back into Vancouver. At this stage we were both pretty damn and starting to get cold.

Once back at Kip and Tree's place we packed our bags and headed to Karl and Lisa's place in Abbotsford. I lived with Karl for about 6 months at the end of my stay in Canada. We caught the West Coast Express - it is a commuter train that only runs during peak hour.

Karl and Lisa own 2 Bullmastiff dogs. I didn't realise a dogs head could be so BIG! Thank god they are friendly otherwise they could easliy bit off an arm or leg.

Well the first part of our trip is drawing to a close. We are leaving Vancouver and heading to Kaslo tomorrow for the wedding.

Kaslo is a small fishing village on Kootenay Lake about an hour north of Nelson. Kaslo is the town I lived in while I was an exchange student in 1991.

Click on this link to see the pics from Vancouver.