Vancouver Trip - The Holiday: Arrival & Day One

After a long drive (mainly with the heavy traffic heading into Vancouver), we arrived at our apartment at around 6.30pm.  The apartment block didn't look much from the outside, but it was, in fact, very nice and we had the biggest balcony we had ever seen.

We were on the top floor in the penthouse suite, where Katharine Hepburn stayed on a number of occasions. The suite was 1,900 square feet, with a massive, wrap around deck, which included barbecue, heater and lots of seating. The apartment also had an office, dining area, kitchen and laundry.  It also had a wood burning fireplace but it was far too hot to even consider using it!

 

 

 

 

 

Feeling energised after a very nice Thai take-out and a good night's rest, we decided on an easy day in Stanley Park.

We started by taking in the wonderful view of the city.

Although we didn't try it on this occassion, horse and carriage is a nice way to get around the park.

The Lions Gate Bridge.

 

The Hollow Tree is the lower trunk of a 700+ year old Red Cedar. The tree is often considered Vancouver's first tourist attraction. After the storms of 2006, which devastated parts of the park, the tree was considered a hazard and approved to be removed. Thankfully, people lobbied to save the tree and it has now been reinforced, so hopefully it will be around for many more years to come.

We then took a stroll down to Beaver Lake, which is a lovely tranquil setting.

And of course you can't go to Stanley Park without taking at least 100 photos of these cute and entertaining Racoons!

For the whole of our stay, we were blessed with incredibly good weather, although it was a little too hot at times.  More to follow in the days ahead!

J&E

Vancouver Trip - The Start

Driving in Canada is generally such a nice experience, that we decided to drive the 600+ miles from Okotoks to Vancouver.

The journey time is around 12 hours so we thought it best to split the journey and picked Salmon Arm from the map as an approximately halfway point.

We were all starving by the time we arrived and by pure luck, we found a lovely restaurant which was just what was needed after a long drive. Table 24 is situated in the building that was Salmon Arm's first courthouse, built in 1929. Apparently, a portion of the kitchen, located in the basement, was used as an old jail cell.  We had to take this photo from their webstie, as, unusually for us, we didn't take a photo! - http://www.table24.ca/index.php

The food was out of this world, it was freshly prepared, and the steak was so tender, they didn’t even give you a steak knife!

After our meal, we decided to take a drive down to the harbour, which was really pretty.  Although there was a storm coming in, it was still warm, so we decided to take a stroll down the pier.

We saw lot of birds and on the way back we we spent a little while waching these Osprey, who seemed to have two chicks in their nest.

 

It was so calm and peaceful, it was hard to believe a storm was on its way.

We stood at the end of the pier listening to the thunder and watching the lightning in the distance.

 

We also saw this beaver, but it was getting quite dark at this point.

We just made it back to the car and back to the hotel before the heavens opened and we were treated to the most spectacular rain shower.

The next morning we took another stoll down the pier in the sunshine before we started on the second half of our journey.

J&E

Waterton Lakes National Park

We keep seeing photos from friends of ours who visit Waterton National Park.  We have been meaning to go ourselves for some time. Well, the other day, the sun was shining and it seemed the ideal day for a drive to see this little gem in the Rockies for ourselves.

Before we go any further, we saw a bear, we didn't manage to get a photo, but we saw a BEAR!  ONly our second ever bear!

Waterton is a sweet place.  The mountains seem to crash together with the foothills right infront of them, which makes for quite beautiful scenery.

 

The first thing we came across was the very appropriately named, Driftwood Beach.

Our first glimpse of the famous Prince of Wales Hotel atop the hill in the distance.

Outside the hotel were quite a number of Big Horn sheep.

Then, as we were driving down towards the high street, we saw this house with loads of deer outside, and not the plastic ones either!

This one was so sweet, lounging out, with face pointing up towards the sun!

We are not saying it is windy here much, but just look at the angle of all the trees.

And we came across some more deer.

And a woodpecker.

But we saw a bear too, honest!

J&E