Vancouver
Tuesday 17th July, 2018
Day 1: Grouse Mountain | Gastown | Catfe
Our accommodation
What a day! We started at the waterfront and headed to Grouse Mountain on the free shuttle.
Vancouver waterfront
Grouse Mountain
Grouse Mountain sits above greater Vancouver and is a great day out for tourists.We saw bears, a lumberjack show, rode a chairlift and had awesome views of the city below.
Grinder and Coola
“Grinder was found in 2001 in Invermere, BC. He was wandering alone on a logging road, dehydrated, thin, weak and weighing only 4.5 kg. His mother was never found so we’ll probably never know why he was alone. Grinder is outgoing and high-spirited. He has established himself as the dominant bear despite his smaller size. If you see Grinder and Coola play fighting, you can bet he started it.
In 2001, Coola was found orphaned on a highway near Bella Coola, BC. His mother had been killed by a truck and, of her three cubs, Coola was the only one to survive. Coola is an easygoing bear who’s content to let Grinder take the lead in new discoveries. He can usually be found submerged up to his neck in the large pond, carefully feeling around for his underwater ‘bath toys’ – a log, large bone and favourite rock.”
Getting home was going to be by public transport but we went a block too far and ended up in the ‘Twilight Zone’ amongst hundreds of homeless peeps.
We witnessed the arrest of a woman (she was actually asking to be arrested) who was put in the paddy wagon and we then explained to the undercover cops we were a little out of our depth in this neighbourhood. They asked Dispatch to call us a cab but after waiting 20 minutes it still hadn’t turned up.
At this stage Officer Don and Brad offered us a lift home if one of us didn’t mind being ‘in the cage’. As ‘home’ was further out of town than they could go, they dropped us off at the waterfront where taxis were plentiful.
Bloody great blokes and quite the days end for us.
Wednesday 18th July, 2018
Day 2: Vancouver Aquarium | Stanley Park
Today we visited Stanley Park and the Vancouver Aquarium. The aquarium was well worth a look and allowed us to see otters playing around in the water – Angela was well pleased! A walk through the park was followed with a late lunch and happy hour in Gastown again. This time we were much better prepared, caught the bus home and stayed well away from the Twilight Zone.
We’ll miss the vibrancy of Vancouver when we move on tomorrow.
