Vancouver – LettersToHome

The first point I’d like to note is that over our 4/5 days in Vancouver, according to our health app on our phone we have done over 50km of walking. Next stop- Olympics

Yesterday we decided to head north over the river to North Vancouver where the mountain ranges start. Kind of resembled Dandenong in Melbourne but more… Americanised with the towering pine trees, countless pickup trucks and cars driving the wrong way down the road 🙃 We caught a ferry across the river and then a bus all the way out to Lynn Canyon Valley. There was two options; Capilano suspension bridge which cost ~$18pp or Lynn Valley suspension bridge which was free. We had heard from multiple locals that the Lynn Valley one was better anyway so we decided to go for the free one. So we checked we knew our bear safety facts and headed into the woods.

My fav photo of the day taken with the 10 year old GoPro. Yes mum, it was high and Yes mum, it was wobbly.

We walked through the national park which was full of beautiful thick forestry. It sort of had an easy path to follow with occasional wooden steps as an aid.

We stopped at “30 foot pool” which was a crystal clear natural lake at the bottom of a mini waterfall. Water was too cold, we didn’t even consider dipping our toes in.

We saw a lady walking her Hungarian Vizsla puppy (which was striking) and bundled her up for a few questions (and pats). She was lovely and answered the many questions I had about training and energy and separation anxiety etc. End result was I now want a Vizsla even more!!

We trekked through the winding paths filled with tree roots and potholes and thought we were doing well to not roll an ankle before we saw a man with his 3 year old in this purpose built child carrying hiking backpack-we were impressed.

Eventually we made it to the suspension bridge. Katy confidently strode onto the bridge while I gathered the courage to follow. We did all the necessary pictures and it was a sight to behold once I got over the whole looking down thing.

We followed the “bear trail” home which sounds ominous. Contrary to the name there are no bears on the bear trail- luckily. There were also no beavers on the beaver trail so I’m guessing they’re not named for those reasons 😂

North Vancouver presented us with some markets with different shops and food stalls. We roamed around and all the food looked delicious but being the smart woman she is Katy had packed us a bagel lunch in the backpack. So we saved ourselves money by eating the packed lunch although that couldn’t stop us from sampling the finest blueberry nutty dark chocolate. Yummm

We boarded our ferry back to our side of town and set home (via the shops) for a midday kip as we were exhausted and had planned to meet my friend later in the afternoon.

Tommo had been fighting traffic and got into his BnB later than expected but it didn’t bother us because the sun was out and we were off walking around the beach eating an ice cream.

Eventually we met up with Tom and his parents for dinner and went to a Tiki bar afterwards for cocktails. I was friends with Tom in Mackay and he moved to Calgary a similar time I moved to the UK. We are staying with Tom and Trent in Calgary next week but just so happened to be in Vancouver at the same time because his parents are visiting so he is travelling around.

No photos from the second half of the day so I apologise for that. I’ll pick up my paparazzi game in the following days. It’s morning at the moment and our last full day in Vancouver. We are going to head out for breakfast and then just cruise around the city-nothing special planned. Will most probably not post again today so next time you hear from us we will be in Calgary- Yee Haw.

M 🤙🏻

We have had a very big day and I am currently writing this with the tops of my eyelids trying so desperately to rendezvous with their counterpart so please accept my apologies in advance for errors.

We both woke about 5:30am this morning with obvious jet lag so decided to make the most of it. We first of all went for a leisurely walk to get our bearings and “stumbled across” one of the many Tim Hortons franchises that’s happens to be on every corner of the city. Katy’s favourite, so we grabbed a coffee and headed back to lift some iron in the gym of our BnB. By the time we had been on our massive walk, busted out big upper body gym session and a devoured a healthy breaky in our apartment it was… 9am

Next plan was to a) find a good deal for SIM cards on our phone as we wandered through the shopping district and b) make our way towards Stanley Park where we planned on hiring a bicycle.

Fast forward a few hours and we’re on our bicycles, pedalling through/around a magnificent thick pine forest with a purpose built bike track around what they called the “sea wall”. We stopped at various tourist attractions such as the Totem Poles and took many many photos. Exhibit A

The weather couldn’t have been better, 22 degrees and fairly still. Perfect! We spent the next 4 hours cycling while stopping for a chill in the sun and even managed to make it to one of the beaches and grab some lunch. All the cycling we did was either on Stanley Island (all bike tracks) or along the coast so we didn’t have to set foot/tyre on any roads at all. This was an added bonus to Katy who was visibly apprehensive at the rental place of her own skills.

Sun kissed, sore and struggling to make sense of the bicycle paths we managed to navigate our dual wheeled chariots back to our rental in the allotted time and sit down for an ice cold beer (conveniently it was happy hour). Afterwards, we were feeling a bit sunburnt so thought we would check out another popular shopping street on the way back to our flat.

It was at this moment I finally caved to peer pressure (sorry mum). Katy has been bugging me to buy LuluLemon clothing for a long time with all the usual shopaholic excuses (ThEY laST a LoNG TImE) I had been looking for singlets and I found one I liked so I ignored the £42 ($80) price tag and listened to my girlfriend. However, it is lovely and is apparently a collaboration from the Marc Jacobs designer so its worth it right?

In other news, our swimming pool at our accommodation is freezing so I swam alone and Katy watched (surprising). By the time I’d showered and eaten some food in our apt for dinner it was time to write this blog. Time flies when your having fun on your bicycle on day 2 of your trip with burning legs and burning skin and a burning wallet doesn’t it!?!?

Side note: this city is absolutely lovely. It has everything; lots of greenery and pine trees everywhere, beaches, marinas, cbd, transport etc we’ve definitely started this trip in a wonderful city. The people of Canada are so FRIENDLY. I thought the Irish were friendly but the Canadians have them beat. I find myself chuckling at the extent of their friendship with even the most minor of interactions, I’ll no doubt touch more on this subject in future posts.

Might be Katy’s turn to write tomorrow so you can tell us who’s literacy is more entertaining. If Mr Wynn’s year 11 English class is anything to go by, my bets on Katy!

Time for a well earned sleep

ZZZZ

M 🙂