Vancouver

We are on a roll here on the western side of Canada visiting people we met in Baja.  In Vancouver itself, we stayed with Tom and Patty.  Patty is Alison's sister and they too were at Playa Coyote - the friendliest beach in Mexico.  Apart from an opportunity to explore the city on foot, Tom took us out on his boat.  Seeing this lovely city from the water gives you an entirely different perspective.

Waterfront apartment blocks.  I was intrigued by the design of this twisted building.

These are floating houses in a harbour inlet.

Kneeling workers painted on cement silos.  A couple of Brazilian artists have been commissioned to do the artwork.

A great deal of the harbour/river banks are full of wooden logs which have been brought down the coast from the northern forests to be processed at the Vancouver sawmills.  Until the sawmills are ready for them, they are stored on the water in huge bundles.  Seals who like to bask in the sun, usually on rocks, treat the logs in a similar way.

Rich men's toys - large boats with their own helicopter.

Small ferries carry passengers across the various inlets up and down the harbour.

Interesting murals in Chinatown - snapshots of history, depicting Chinese progress over time.

Tom and Patty's dining table brings back vivid memories of Baja with all the shells displayed from the beaches down there.  Patty is a dedicated shell collector and connoisseur.

Visit to Maple Ridge

We next visited Bob and Linda at Maple Ridge, some 30 kms out of Vancouver.  We had met them on the same beach, Playa Coyote, in Baja, as Alison and Tom.  We had also spent a few extra days with Bob and Linda at Playa Tekalote and now they gave us a wonderful time in their home - squeezing us in between camping/fishing trips :-)

Two photos taken on their deck.  The first one shows the lovely Golden Ears peaks in the background which do not show up on the second one with Bob, Andrew and Linda.





We went touring with them to both Whistler and to Stanley Park in Vancouver and we saw many interesting things on the way.  The first was something called Wild Play Element Park in a provincial park.  This is a serious adventure obstacle course with climbing, nets and flying foxes.

Canadians are very sporty.  The photos below are of the mountain bike trails at Whistler which are part of the ski run in winter.

On the road to Whistler - more wonderful snow-capped mountains.

Street in Whistler village.

Below are a pair of naughty racoons that were raiding the rubbish in Stanley Park.  If you just look at the one on the left you think it is a cat but just look at the face of the one on the right.  Cute or what?

Our first glimpse of Vancouver from Cypress lookout.

Things we did in Kelowna

We visited Tom and Alison, whom we had met at the Baja last December.  Tom took us out on their steamboat to sail around Lake Okanaga.  Here is the boat, funnel and all.

The furnace which needs to be fed plenty of wood to heat up the pipe and produce the steam to propel the boat.  Tom likes to toot the horn as we go past other boats - it was fun.

Tom and Andrew enjoying the ride.

OgoPogo the sea monster in front of the boat club.







The next day we went cycling along the Myra Canyon Trestles enjoying the views over the Okanagan Valley.  We and many others rode over the 18 trestle bridges and two tunnels, originally built at the turn of the century, and rebuilt again (near exact replica) between 2003 and 2008 when the Okanagan Mountain Park Fire claimed 12 of the trestle tables.  To ride in the Myra is to glimpse history – how a steam train would have made its way through this steep-walled canyon along a railroad no more than a 2% rail grade – to accommodate the steam train technology of the day and how workers would have toiled to construct the original railway through some pretty uncompromising terrain.

Here we are setting off on our ride.

The trestle bridges.

A Dutch sculptor created these large bronze ladies that lie on the waterfront in Kelowna.  Oh, how much I would like to take one home with me!  They would go so well with my other bronze nudes.

BC Wildlife Park

While we have seen many animals in the wild, we felt the lack of a really close shot of a bear, a grizzly and and maybe a cougar?  So, we made a visit to the BC Wildlife Park just out of Kamloops.  The greatest buzz were the pair of grizzlies who are siblings and get on very well - they were bathing in their swimming pool. They were incredibly cute and playful.

I think this one is the male.

The black bear.

It was their feeding time. Here he is getting his food from a post.

Bald eagle.

And another bald eagle but he has lost one wing. The animals at this park are generally ones that have been rescued and can't live in the wild due to some injury.

A pair of wise looking owls.

Racoon.  Sadly the bars do not allow really good photography.

We have not been able to get a shot of a moose with nice big antlers.  This female is the best we could do.

Finally, the mighty cougar.  This one is the female. The male was bigger but he he was more elusive.

British Columbia - and more amazing waterfalls

In between the Cariboo Mountains, about halfway between Jasper and Kamloops and off the Yellowhead Highway (hwy 5), lies the enormous wilderness park of Wells Gray Provincial Park.  Here are three seldom visited incredible waterfalls.  The most impressive is Helmcken Falls the 4^th tallest of Canada’s waterfalls.  Here the Murtle River plunges 141m into a misty abyss.  Dawson Falls are wider rather than tall and they are lovely too. 

Spahats Falls.  These falls are in an incredibly deep canyon.

Dawson Falls.

The most spectacular of the three falls, Helmcken Falls - 141m (462ft) high and 23m (75ft) wide.

Below are the Rearguard Falls.  This is the upper limit of the 800 mile migration of salmon from the Pacific Ocean to jump and spawn.  Only a few Chinook, the largest and strongest of the salmon, get this far.  It is really interesting to see them jumping, but almost impossible to capture on camera.

More wonders of the Rockies

Banff and Jasper national parks are in the heart of the Canadian Rockies and home to some of the most spectacular scenery on the continent.  The Icefields Parkway links the two.  Jasper NP is larger, wilder and less explored than Banff NP – but there were still plenty of people there.

    

The Icefield Parkway is the highest road in North America and about as close as one can get to the Rockies’ craggy summits in one’s vehicles.  Numerous roadside stops allow one to take in the Parkway’s brilliantly colourful glacial lakes, waterfalls and viewpoints.  

Another natural bridge.  This used to be a waterfall until the force of the water gradually wore the rocks down and it is now a bridge - until who knows when?

Athabasca Glacier, below, is a tongue of the vast Columbia Icefield.  The Icefield contains about 30 glaciers and is up to 350m thick.  It is the largest icefield in the Rockies and feeds five different rivers with its melt-waters.  The Athabasca Glacier runs almost down to the road and can be visited on foot – Andrew of course did it.

The rock formation known as the Castle on the way from Banff to Lake Louise.  It was renamed the Eisenhower Mountain but due to general outcry it was changed back to the Castle.