October 24-27

Friday we settled into our downtown Vancouver (very close to it) RV camp around 2:30pm and by 3:30 we had had our lunch and were on the bikes climbing the Lions Gate suspension bridge which is about one mile long and links Vancouver with North and West Vancouver.

Going from our side of the bridge was the longer and steeper grade, so we biked it a bit but walk quite a bit until we reached the top, then we could coast down and where on the edge of Stanley Park. Over the next 2 ½ hours we toured around the out “sea wall” of the park which is a 9 km distance. We added some distance by sig sagging a bit once near downtown as we headed over to the convention center and Canada Place. It was getting quite dark on the way back, but we found our way. BC and Vancouver are both very cyclist friendly with bike lanes everywhere. The weather behaved that afternoon for us.

Saturday was a washout day, with a constant rainfall all day and at times heavy. This was OK, as it allowed time to catch up on laundry, combing Jazz and other domestic duties along with some future planning along our trip. Sunday was to be a dry day and it the weather man cooperated with mild temps of around 14 deg C and some sunshine. We began by taking a bus around 10:30 to the middle of downtown then waited a bit for a transfer to Granville Is. But we became impatient and decided it was a nice day, lets walk the rest of the way, which we did. At the gates of coming into Granville Is., was the brewery of the same name, first tour was at noon and its 10 minutes to, so let’s sign up. It was only is another young couple from Nanaimo. It was a short tour, as this location is only an R&D center and small batch specialty location. After sampling several specialty brands (ie: a raspberry beer and their Winter Ale – which had a strong hint of chocolate to name a couple) we headed over to the markets. The meats and vegetables where quite expensive, but displayed nicely. Other than a cinnamon record, we didn’t purchase anything else. The Is. has the Emily Carr College for design on it and several of the shops where galleries or arts related, so they didn’t really interest us.

After a short walk around we took a bus back into the down town district and getting off at Robson St. we headed over toward BC Place (BC Lions –CFL) and Rogers Arena (Canucks) then headed toward Chinatown. Maybe we found a few of the “lesser” streets in Chinatown but in general we were not impressed. We soldiered on to Gastown as we had to find the father of the city of Vancouver – “Gassy Jack”. We found his statue. His full name was Captain John Deighton and was given the name Gassy due to his trait of being very long winded. At this point we needed a pit stop and some lunch as it was 3:30pm. We found a pizza and a beer at Lamplighters Public House. From here we headed down to the north waterfront to check out Canada Place and more importantly the 2010 Winter Olympic Cauldron.

We were able to get back on a bus for home arriving shortly after 5pm. What pros on using the bus system we have become! Jazz was obviously happy to see us, but after her short walk of relief, we had to wander over to the hot tub to soak our weary bones. She wasn’t impressed, but we were only gone 20 minutes. We were hers for the rest of the night. Again the weatherman complied for our “sample tour” of Vancouver on Sunday.

Monday was more of an off day, but the travel today was comprised of a 20 minute drive to the Horseshoe Bay ferry terminal to head over to Vancouver Is.. We were there with lots of time to spare for a 10:30am sailing. The trip is 1 hour 40 minutes on a ferry that can handle 300 cars, 14 semi tractor trailers and almost 1,500 passengers. We pulled out of Nanaimo before 12:30 and arrive in Qualicum Bay Resort before 2. More rain …… We will likely stay here two nights as the remnants of hurricane Ana that went through Hawaii a week ago are bringing in some high wind gusts and rain, so we will wait until Wednesday to head over to Tofino. The locals call this time of year coming up “storm season” and apparently, many tourists and locals flock to the area to see the big storms, high waves and yes surfers!

Hope everyone else is staying dry.

Cheers!