Having said goodbye to Chris we loaded up a taxi with all of our luggage, (although the crab net and BBQ coals had to be left behind!) and headed off to the station to catch the train to Vancouver, Canada. Luckily for us there were luggage trolleys at the station and as it was an international train you could even check your luggage in – phew! The 4.5hr train ride was very scenic as the railway line ran all along the coast, and we saw seals and various birds. As we got closer to Vancouver we realized we needed to eat any fresh food we had as we wouldn’t be allowed to take it over the border, which meant eating a heap of fruit and our very expensive smoked salmon at 10am!
We were going to be staying with Jason while in Vancouver, a lovely guy we met in Honduras a few months before. He met us at the station and helped to carry some of our luggage to the Skytrain which would take us to the airport to pick up yet another hire car - irritatingly you can’t drive a US hire car into Canada. Even though Jason is studying Geography, I’m not convinced on his navigational skills and judgment of distances as we ended up walking about 20 blocks with all our luggage as he was convinced the station that would take us direct to the airport was just around the corner! We eventually made it to the right stop pretty hot and tired. Next glitch was the fact that we’d have to pay a fortune for an additional driver on the hire car so poor Le Roux got lumbered with doing all the driving, although as he doesn’t like my driving anyway, perhaps it was for the best!
Jason lives with his Uncle Dave in the north eastern suburbs of Vancouver and as Jason had classes that afternoon, we spent the time rushing around with Dave getting provisions for a nice dinner, as well as stopping in at his favourite café for a quick lunch of goat roti – delicious! – and picking up some maps and guides for British Columbia. The Asian supermarket we stopped at was huge and I got to see live abalone for the first time – very funny looking things stuck to the glass tank wall! For dinner we cooked up herb crusted rack of lamb on the BBQ with roasted veggies under direction from Dave. Le Roux and I both love lamb so we were expecting a treat, however, for some reason the Australian lamb we had was pretty tasteless despite being beautifully pink – lamb usually has a distinct flavour, but in a blind tasting I would not have been able to identify it as lamb – so disappointing as it wasn’t cheap. I won’t be buying Aussie lamb again. The roasted veggies were lovely and Le Roux has even been convinced that brussel sprouts can taste good when cooked in the right way!
Next day we spent our time in downtown Vancouver ticking off some of the sights. We wandered around Gas Town and took photos of the steam clock and gassy Jack, before stopping for lunch and yet more beer tasting for Le Roux. It was a lovely sunny day so we actually got to eat outside for a change. Next stop was a stroll around Stanley Park with its totem poles and lovely views of the city. There is also a funny little statue called “the girl in a wetsuit” which looks like it might be a piss take of the mermaid on a rock in Copenhagen.
While in town we had hoped to go to a hockey game, but the tickets were a little out of our price range as for the first time in a long time the Vancouver Canucks were doing well and were in the semi finals. Therefore we headed to the bar where Jason works to watch the 2nd of the 7 semi final matches. It was brutal! I’ve never seen an ice hockey game before and I was amazed at how violent it was, especially when part way through there was a full on punch up on the ice with helmets being pulled off and everything. After a few minutes the umpires stepped in and broke it up, sending the two players off for only 5 minutes in the sin bin. Football (or should I say soccer) players would have been given a multiple match ban if that happened in a game! The Canucks won that night and the atmosphere in Vancouver city centre was hyper with people all over the streets celebrating the win.
Le Roux and I love the massive outdoor stores that the US and Canada has – they have everything you could possibly need all in one place – so we stopped in at MEC, the Canadian equivalent of REI in the US, for a few essential items. We then headed with Jason to Granville Island to wander around the market and stop for a beer overlooking the water. However, it took us a while to get there as we totally missed our bus stop as Jason got confused again with directions! The food market had so many lovely things in it, but it was like torture as we couldn’t buy anything as it would spoil dinner. We’d been recommended Vij’s Indian Restaurant by a couple of people and so as Jason and his friend had never been they came along with us. The food was delicious and I have now ordered the cookbook so I can try out some of the lovely dishes when I get home. After dinner we headed home for beers and cards as we’d played so much in Honduras and there were some scores to settle! Unfortunately though Jason won Yarniff again!
We bid farewell to Jason and Dave and drove off to catch the ferry to Victoria on Vancouver Island. We took the coastal road down from the ferry port to Victoria city centre, stopping at some lovely beaches and viewpoints along the way. For some reason I was really craving an English afternoon tea of scones, jam and cream so we found a tea shop and got it to go. The scones were different flavours – one was cranberry and almond and the other was apricot, ginger and walnut – delicious. We ate them on this lovely peninsula looking out to sea. Next stop was the IMAX in town for a great wildlife documentary called Born to be Wild on orphaned elephants in Kenya and orangutans in Borneo. Victoria is a really expensive place so we had found ourselves a couchsurfer to stay with.
The next day was my birthday so Le Roux cooked up eggs benedict with smoked salmon for brekkie which was delicious. It did take him quite a few attempts to cook a decent poached egg as he’d never cooked one before – we had to have egg mayo sandwiches for lunch to use up all the trial ones! Le Roux had bought me a lovely Mayan bracelet which I’d chosen in Mexico, along with a penguin bookmark and some choccies. The day had begun well! Having had our leisurely breakfast we drove on to Nanaimo further up the east coast of the island to stay with a south African friend of Le Roux’s sister, Melissa. Even though Melissa, her husband Alex and their little girl Ella were all about to relocate to Ontario, they made us feel very welcome in their sparse apartment. That night Le Roux took us all out for dinner to this really good Greek restaurant called Asteras he’d found out about on the internet. We had hummous and an aubergine dip with pita to start, followed by some really good calamari and delicious pan fried cheese. However, the highlight was yet to come – the falling apart slow roasted lamb shank – yummy! The portions were so big that we had a huge doggy bag to take home. As it was my birthday, I had to have a crème caramel for dessert which was lovely, even if the flaming sambucca shot that came with it was not so good!
After a nice fry up the next morning we said goodbye to Melissa, Alex and Ella and drove across the island to Uclelet on the west coast. On the way we stopped in at the tourist trap that is Coombs General Store which has goats grazing on its grass roof – tacky but fun. We bought an icecream each there as it looked so good but as usual the portions were ridiculously big and they’d labeled up the one I’d chosen wrongly and it didn’t taste of anything – so disappointing and yet again I threw away a lot of it. The drive across the island was beautiful – there were pretty much no settlements, only lush green trees and rushing rivers but no bears that day.
The west coast is renowned for its rainy weather and we ended up with a mixed bag. As the weather is so unpredictable we opted for a motel rather than a campsite – yes I know we’re getting a bit soft! Uclelet is a sleep fishing village and as it was a Sunday there wasn’t much going on. We did, however, come across some fishermen in the harbor that were feeding scraps to the seals much to the amusement of the tourists who were desperately trying to get a shot of a seal snapping up the fish before it headed under the water. Having browsed around a few of the gift shops and art galleries that were open, we headed back to our motel so I could cook up a shepherd’s pie with the remaining leftover lamb. NB. The doggy bag was huge as we’d already had lamb sandwiches for lunch and there was still enough for a good sized dinner!
As we were in a fishing village Le Roux was itching to get out his rod and go catch some fish, so we headed down to some rocks recommended by the fishing charter guy. We had hoped to catch some salmon, but that required a boat as the salmon were too far out and at over $500 we couldn’t justify it. We had some success on the rocks as Le Roux caught 2 bass and a ling cod which we cooked up for a couple of delicious dinners. He did, however, manage to lose 4 lures and got a wet shoe retrieving another as an unexpected wave hit the rock! Later on as the sun was shining we walked part of the Wild Pacific Trail which was beautiful – gorgeous coastal views and woodland.
After a couple of nights in Uclelet we drove up to Tofino, which everyone has raved about. It is a lovely place, but it is also really expensive and touristy, so has lost some of its charm. However, we enjoyed our time there. Having booked some kayaking for the next morning, we had a delicious lunch of smoked fish chowder and corn bread with a side of polenta fries at this organic café called SoBos, recommended by the girl in the kayaking shop. The afternoon was spent on Tonquin beach where Le Roux tried his luck at more fishing from the rocks, while I explored the rock pools. Le Roux caught 2 silver perch and a bull head, and I found a huge number of coloured sea stars, anemones and mussels of which I took a huge number of photos! That night after our 3rd consecutive dinner of fish (which we had to cook in the bathroom in order to avoid setting off the smoke alarm!), we watched the last semi final match which went to 2 lots of overtime before the Canucks finally won, resulting in them winning the series and reaching the final. Happy days for Canucks fans!
We were up early for the kayaking and the weather wasn’t the best, but kitted out in our waterproof gear it didn’t really matter, and in fact meant that there weren’t many people out on the water which was nice. We paddled around the tree covered little islands off the coast and stopped at Meares Island to see another massive tree, this time a cedar, as well as some other interesting plants and wildlife. In one little pool we found sacks of salamander eggs. Our guide Trevor was really friendly and we had a great morning.
Having worked up an appetite we stopped for lunch at another café where I had a really nice pulled pork sandwich with BBQ sauce and coleslaw – I’m definitely going to try making pulled pork when I get home as I’ve had it a few times now and it is so lovely. There was a chocolate and icecream shop right next to the café so after lunch I just had to pop in and see what lovely things it sold. I wasn’t disappointed – the icecream was so tasty and smooth and the chocolates different and delicious – one of the flavours was rooibos tiramisu! I am such a sucker for these type of shops – I blame my sweet tooth on my dad! Afterwards, as it was now raining buckets we decided to go back to the B&B and curl up in the warm for a lazy afternoon planning the east coast part of our trip and catching up on photos and blog.
We left early the next morning in order to drive to Nanaimo to catch the ferry back to the mainland. Having managed to catch an earlier ferry than planned we stopped in Vancouver so Le Roux could attend an interview for a volunteer position at a fishing lodge in BC for the summer. Our destination that evening was Mission, about an hour out of Vancouver where Craig, who we met in Belize, lives with his wife Rochelle. We had a lovely evening with them and they very generously treated us to dinner at their favourite local eatery. It was great to see Craig again and to reminisce about our week in paradise.
Next on our itinerary was Osoyoos in the Okanagan wine valley, as we were going to stay with one of Le Roux’s Dad’s friends there. We were met with a very warm South African welcome – wine, beer, snacks and the prospect of a steak braai a little later! It turned out that Schalk’s son-in-law, Bertus, who lives on the same property was in fact the wine maker at one of the largest wineries in town, Burrowing Owl. This meant that we got a behind the scenes tour which included the lab and the cellar and he told us heaps of interesting things about wine making that I didn’t know. Our personal tour ended with a lengthy tasting of some lovely wines. As Bertus is currently planting his own vines on his property we will have to go back in 5 years time to sample wine from his own grapes! We also stopped at a couple of other wineries while in the area - Gehringer Bros, a German owned winery had some fantastic wines, including a red ice wine which was really good and some great different white wines. The Okanagan Valley is known for having the best weather in Canada and normally in May the temperature is in the high 20s or even into the 30s. For us however, it was in the mid teens and we had to don jumpers and coats to be outside for the braai – humph!
We left the wine region behind and headed north to Kamloops to visit Larry who we’d met in Honduras. I’ve been to Kamloops before about 15 years ago with my parents when we travelled across the Rockies by train from Banff to Vancouver. We stopped there for the night in a hole of a motel with only fast food joints around us and I have to say our impression of the place was pretty bad. Therefore I was surprised on my return to note that the scenery and setting were pretty nice as there is a river running alongside the road and Larry lives just by the river outside of the town. Larry had promised us a steak dinner with his famous peppercorn sauce so we’d brought along a couple of bottles of red to accompany it from the wineries we’d visited earlier in the day. We had a great dinner with Larry and his daughters, catching up and remembering our time in Honduras. The next day Larry took us to a local lake where Le Roux borrowed his belly boat and flippered his way out into the lake for some trout fishing. He did manage to hook a trout but it escaped on its 2nd jump much to Le Roux’s dismay. We didn’t see anyone else catch anything so Le Roux wasn’t too disappointed. Meanwhile Larry and I hopped into his two kayaks and enjoyed a paddle around the beautiful tree lined lake. I even managed to spot a marmot on the bank, but couldn’t get the camera out of its waterproof bag quick enough to capture it unfortunately. We had a great morning out on the water and were sad that we had to say goodbye and get back on the road again.
Next stop was Lake Louise. On the spectacular drive there we spotted four bears which was great as we hadn’t seen any in Canada yet. Having been to Lake Louise before I had talked about how pretty the lake was with its turquoise water so Le Roux had high expectations. You should have seen how cross he was when we got up to the lake to find that it was still frozen and there was no turquoise to be seen, only snow and ice! He was absolutely fuming and there was no pacifying him. Only the sighting of a porcupine as I dragged him for a short walk around the lake temporarily made him smile. I thought the lake looked really pretty in the snow too, but then I’d already seen the turquoise! For the first night in ages we had to stay in a hostel rather than with friends.
We spent the next day in nearby Banff where we went on the gondola up Sulphur Mountain which provided fabulous, if cold, views across Banff town and the surrounding valley. We had hoped to do some hiking in the area, but most of the trails were still closed due to snow or avalanche risk, which was disappointing. Therefore after lunch we explored town and its numerous tacky gift shops, before heading off to our friend Lisa’s house which is about 30 minutes west of Calgary.
It was really nice to see Lisa again having met her on the Navimag ferry in Chile. We had spent quite a bit of time with her and Alex in South America as we did the W trek in Torres del Paine together, as well as meeting up again in Buenos Aires. We spent the afternoon at Lisa’s cooking and chatting which was lovely. Her parent’s house is very nice as they designed it themselves and had it built on a large piece of land. After our dinner of steak, homemade sweet potato gnocchi and salad, followed by pineapple upside down cake with icecream, we headed outside with Lisa’s parents for a walk around their property. We were really lucky and spotted 5 moose as well as some elk and deer – our first sighting of moose in fact. We didn’t see any bears though which are definitely around as Lisa has a great photo of 2 grizzlys on the patio just outside the house!
As Lisa had to work the next day we had a lazy morning before heading out for a walk nearby. The first half went to plan as we found the path that they’d described, but we just couldn’t find the 2nd half of it so we ended up walking back down the dirt road, which looked deceptively quiet as we ended up breathing a lot of dust as various cars and trucks passed us. I even managed to lose my lens cap as it got caught on some bushes but luckily I remembered where it had probably happened and headed back to collect it. By the time we got back to the car we were pretty tired and were looking forward to a relaxing evening with Alex at her place just south of Calgary.
Alex and her family made us feel very welcome when we finally arrived having got a bit lost – their house is not the easiest to find as it’s in the middle of nowhere! They had a drink in our hands within 5 minutes of us arriving and as the sun was finally shining we sat outside on the patio quaffing gin & tonics and nibbling on some appetisers. Everyone says it never rains in Calgary but they’d just had 2 weeks of solid rain and the fields all around had massive puddles of water in them! After another steak dinner we had a campfire complete with smores, which was great. Her grandparents came over to join us and I had to chuckle to myself as her grandpa is very much a cowboy with the hat, neck tie and boots, although he was 5ft nothing! Calgary is in fact the home of the Canadian cowboy and to the famous Calgary Stampede each July. We are absolutely gutted to be missing the big rodeo event as we’ve never been to one and it’s supposed to be such fun. I’ll have to come back another year to see it.
Alex had to work the next day, so we spent the morning with her mum and step-dad. They have a problem with gophers on their property so Le Roux was more than happy to help out by practicing his shooting. As he’s such a good shot he managed to get 12 in less than an hour – sorry gophers! As his reward Rob let him ride one of his motorbikes, a Harley Davidson, which made Le Roux a very happy boy. While they headed out on the bikes, I chilled out at home with Alex’s mum.
Our final stop on the west side of Canada was in central Calgary with my friends Cheryl and Mike who I’d met in Africa about four years ago. After so long it was lovely to see them again and they made us feel very welcome. Mike fired up the BBQ and cooked us and their friend Kevin who was also in town, beer can chicken – 4 days of steak, even if it was Alberta beef was enough for us! As Calgary weather was not what it should be, poor Mike ended up having to BBQ in the rain and hail! It was the first match of the hockey finals between the Canucks and the Boston Bruins so after dinner we sat down to watch the game, and luckily the Canucks won – sorry Bruins fans!
Mike very kindly ferried us around the next morning so we could get some chores done – I desperately needed a haircut and Le Roux had to buy some fishing tackle as he’s managed to secure a position at a remote fishing lodge in western BC for the summer. Mike even treated us to a lovely Vietnamese lunch while we were out and about. That evening we were flying out late to Halifax in Nova Scotia, but we had time for another lovely meal with Cheryl and Mike and Cheryl’s parents who were visiting for a few days. Mike loves his BBQ so he fired it up again and cooked some spicy chicken wings and sausages, but much to his dismay it rained again! It never rains in Calgary..? What rubbish! It was such a shame we couldn’t stay longer but the east coast was calling. After yet more goodbyes we set off for the airport.
No comments:
Post a Comment