Canada 08/09 – Vancouver – Day 3

Day 3 followed the patterns of earlier days with the crew not being fully awake until 10am. It seems like a few late nights might have messed up our sleep patterns good and proper.

While we had originally planned to spend some of the day at the Capilano Suspension Bridge, getting there by SkyTrain, Sea Bus and public busses, Ed discovered that a free shuttle ran twice a day – with a pick up, just round the corner at the Hyatt hotel.

While this discovery was certainly going to save us time, money and effort, it wasn’t perfect as we had already missed the 10am bus, leaving only one more for the day at 12pm. By the time we realised this, it was already 10:30am – the pressure was on to get ready and eat breakfast in about an hour, which often was a stretch to say the least. Pip was feeling worse today than the day before, and so the idea of rushing around and being out in the cold wasn’t particularly appealing.

Luckily we did make the bus, after walking around the Hyatt for a minute or two trying to find where the bus would arrive. We didn’t have to wait for long before the converted trolley bus arrived to take us to the Capilano Bridge. It was good to hide out of the elements a little, as it was cool and drizzling quite considerably outside. Before we left, the driver attempted to sell everyone tickets, but he struggled with us – apparently he could only sell adult tickets so felt we would be best served by buying them at the attraction where we might be able to get cheaper rates (for being children I guess…).

The drive took only 10 minutes or so, cutting through the middle of Stanley Park and across the Lionsgate Bridge into North Vancouver. From here it was only a short drive up the start of the Grouse Mountain road to the Capilano Suspension Bridge.

Unfortunately, due to the wild weather, most of the walking trails through the forest were closed due to the massive amounts of snow and ice. They were charging only 60% of the regular entry fee, which Ed managed to get all of us in for $36. That was a mighty fine effort considering adult tickets were $28 each. I was admitted as a student and Pip as a child (up to 12 years). A child ticket was incredible, seeing as a more likely ticket should have been a Youth (12 – 17).

We quickly had a look around to see what was open, and what we might be able to get for lunch. From here we ventured across the bridge, a good span across the deep canyon as I’m sure the photos don’t do justice. Oh well – you might just have to check it out one day for yourself I guess!

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We had a walk around the small lake on the far side of the bridge and quickly ended up back where we started – a much shorter walk than we had expected. Although we had originally thought the rain might be better here amongst the trees, unfortunately the water was gathering on the leaves and falling more regularly and in larger drops than it was before. It appeared that there was clearing going on, on some of the other trails – but the word was it was going to take 45 minutes to finish.

Being after 1pm, we decided that it was probably time to grab some lunch and so headed back across the bridge to the opposite side where the facilities were located. Of course it wasn’t possible to avoid the gift store so we hit this first before we tackled food. This took a good 20 minutes or so to explore, and so by this time we were quite famished.

Lunch was nice, but didn’t provide a huge range to choose from – Pip had a sausage roll (which was a nice change from other days), while Ed and I had a hot dog just to continue the tradition of ‘healthy holiday eating’. We managed to find a dry spot under a heater to eat, as everywhere else was covered in a foot of snow.

Following lunch, we decided to try our luck on the additional trails – again requiring a crossing of the suspension bridge. The views were always impressive, but Pip still didn’t like the heights involved. The trails (well, trail) was indeed open, and we ventured around this walking across the ‘treetop trail’ – a set of suspension bridges build between the tree tops.

After finishing here, we left the bridge and walked out to the main road at the front of the attraction – all except myself who had to visit the washroom. While I wouldn’t normally make a point of telling you this, it plays a role in the next part of what happened. We were looking to catch a bus up the remainder of this road, to the base of Grouse Mountain – but it was a public bus that came at an unknown frequency. Once I had finished in the washroom, and dried my hands using the handdryer twice (it didn’t work well enough the first time), and walked to the front of the park, the bus was just pulling up at the stop – 50m up the road. Unfortunately, the lights to cross the road weren’t working in our favour, and so we missed the bus by less than a minute.

While both Pip and Ed were unimpressed that I chose to warm my hands instead of just using paper towel, they would later be more thankful as it panned out well anyhow. The next bus came past 15 minutes later, albeit slightly late, and we were at the base of the hill 10 minutes after that. As we stepped off of the bus, we bumped into the Taylor family, who were waiting to board the bus. Of all the busses and times that we could have been arriving on, the small world syndrome played itself out again and this chance event occurred. We caught up briefly, but didn’t chat for long – only to discover not to expect too much at the top of the mountain.

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As we moved to buy tickets for the Sky Ride, Ed decided to try a similar trick to the one that played out at the Capilano Bridge – buying 1 adult, and 2 youth tickets. No questions were asked and we were soon ascending quickly into the sky on the tram. While again, the pictures likely to not do justice to this slope, this ride is incredibly steep. Something you really have to experience to believe.

Arriving at the top of the mountain, we moved quickly to the day lodge – it was mildly colder up here at -4C. We looked around to see what we could find, and were largely impressed by the sweeping views and great depths of snow around the lodge – 2.5m to be precise – one metre more than Whistler’s current holding. In our exploring, we entered into the Theatre in the Sky – a purpose-built movie theatre which was showing a film we knew nothing about, and felt like we knew nothing extra once we left. It seemed to be a random number of images of BC strung together by a repetitive shot of a flying eagle… weird. Oh well, it was free – and now we’ve done it.

From here we found a great lookout which provided us with a fantastic view over the valley, North Vancouver and Vancouver. The photo below should do justice to this one, hopefully.

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After this we briefly looked through the gift shop, finding nothing of interest, and moved back outside the day lodge. We decided to take a journey on the sleigh ride, which was a carriage pulled along behind a cat groomer. While it wasn’t quite as romantic as a horse-drawn carriage, it let us get an idea of the layout of the village and surrounds.

Following the sleigh ride, Pip wasn’t feeling great again so we returned indoors where we found a place to sit and relax a little. Ed and I decided that some snowshoeing was in order, and while Pip decided to give it a miss, we proceeded back outside – where it was certainly getting dark, at just past 5pm – and hired some snowshoes. We headed off into the ‘Snowshoe Park’, which unfortunately wasn’t lit at night like the rest of the mountain. After wandering along a pre-walked trail for 10 minutes or so, we came across a small hut which was lit up, next to a lake. Unfortunately the path we were following headed downhill, while we really wanted to head uphill, back to the activity in the village.

We decided to make some tracks of our own, and after stumbling around for a while, managed to walk across the several foot deep powder and made our way to the top of the slope. Returning to where everything was happening, we circled some of the lifts, and had a good look around, before returning to the skating lake, returning the snowshoes and meeting back up with Pip.

By this time, there was an enormous line up for the downhill ride on the tram – unfortunately, the only way to get back down to the base of the hill. Because of this, we decided to eat at the top – at the Altitudes Bistro. We secured a great table with a fantastic view over the city, and we enjoyed the nice meals that were on offer.

Because it was a public holiday, the busses weren’t running as regularly as they normally would, and so we had to time our decent well to avoid an hour-long wait at the base for a bus. Luckily, we did this perfectly, and had to wait only minutes before the appropriate bus arrived. We caught this right to the Lonsdale Quay, where we boarded an awaiting Sea Bus. Minutes later, we were afloat at cross the body of water separating North Vancouver and Vancouver itself. In less than 15 minutes, we were back in the city, just near Canada Place.

Rather than catching the Sky Train one stop, we decided to walk home in case we could stop and get Pip some cold and flue medicine – unfortunately, we were 3 hours too late for that one. By the time we had returned to the apartment, it was after 9pm and everyone was completely exhausted. We repacked our bags in preparation for tomorrow’s trip to Whistler, and settled down on the couch to enjoy an episode or two of CSI:Miami.

We’ve really done lots of tourist things the past few days in Vancouver, but we’ve seen some great stuff and had many great experiences. Tomorrow we move from here to Whistler where the internet access may not be so consistent (and generous – free here!), but hopefully we should be able to keep you updated as regularly as we can.

Hope you’re all enjoying yourselves back down under – we certainly are up here, as cold and tiring as it is! Keep reading the blog as long as you can put up with the essay-style posts – I assume someone is reading it… More photos are uploaded too, and can be viewed here.

All the best – and pray for some more snow for us, because there is never enough! Let’s just hope they open the Symphony chair some time really soon! See you from the mountains.

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