Day 35 - 39 ~ BRITISH COLUMBIA - Vancouver

We completed our adventures on Vancouver Island and continued our trip to the mainland of British Columbia.  On day 35 we drove onto the "Queen of Oak Bay" ferry at Departure Bay in Nanaimo for our short ride over the Strait of Georgia to Horseshoe Bay in Vancouver.

The Queen of Oak Bay ferry is a huge boat with three levels for cars and other vehicles.  Inside there is comfortable seating, a nice café, tables with ports for computers and free WiFi.  Too bad it was a short trip.  I would have enjoyed some time to catch up on my blogging.  Oh and I have to tell you about the vehicle parked in front of us.  It was pulling a trailer with young cows in it.  Young Guernsey’s that were very uncomfortable and kept moooooing while waiting to debark.  People were taking pictures and talking to the cows.  You don’t see that every day.

We will spend 12 days exploring the southern part of British Columbia starting with VANCOUVER.  We will circle to WHISTLER then east to CACHE CREEK, southeast to KELOWNA, and lastly turning west to HOPE near the border.

Vancouver (Sept 11 - 15)

We spent five nights in Vancouver.  This is not enough time to see everything.  There is so much to see and do in Vancouver.  This is a large cosmopolitan city that I think is bigger than San Francisco.  We have been to Vancouver a few times before, the last time being 9 years ago.  So we revisited some of our favorite places.

There are no decent RV parks in the city of Vancouver so we stayed in nearby Burnaby, about 15 miles outside of Vancouver.  We have stayed at BURNABY CARIBOO RV PARK during our last visit and had a bad experience.  But that was 9 years ago and decided to give it another chance as it is the only decent place that is close to the city.  Our bad experience was with a neighbor who was a permanent guest.  The cops had to be called as he and she had a loud, violent fight in the middle of the night.  People behavior should not be a reflection on how nice a RV park is, but the fact that a place has permanent guests is uncomfortable to us.  But this time we had a very pleasant stay. 

This is a large RV park with about 150 sites.  But there are lots of trees on the property and tall hedges divide the sites to give some privacy.  The sites are close together, but the hedges help.  The WiFi is weak, but there is cable TV with lots of channels.  The property is across from a nice lake (Burnaby Lake) where there are nice hiking trails.  Next to the property is another hiking and biking trail that leads to a city park and creek.  The property also has train tracks (for the Skytrain) on two sides and the highway is on another side.  So there is lots of traffic and train noise all day and night.  But we had a small fan running all night providing ‘white noise’ and that helped a lot.  The good part of that is it is walking distance to a train stop.  The Skytrain takes you to several stops in Vancouver.

We had five days of beautiful, sunny and warm weather.  This made exploring the Vancouver area fun and pleasant.

Greater Vancouver Zoo

The zoo is located in Fraser Valley on 120 acres with over 500 animals of 140 species.

 Baby Moose

 Grizzly Bear

Capilano Suspension Bridge Park

This is a must see attraction.  This is Vancouver’s oldest visitor attraction.  Since 1889 visitors from all over the world have crossed its world famous 450-foot span suspension bridge.  Added to this adventure are a series of cable bridges suspended between tree-friendly platforms that reach as high as 10 stories.  A new addition is the Cliffwalk where you can walk the cliff face on boardwalk platforms.  We have visited here before and it is one of our favorite places. 

The above picture was taken today ........ 

The below picture was taken in 2007 (9 years ago). I haven't changed much 

........  well, maybe ..

 Lots of spider webs.

 Cliffwalk - this is new

Grouse Mountain

Nearby Capilano Suspension Bridge is Grouse Mountain, 4,100 feet.  We rode the tramway (the largest aerial system in North America) to the top of Grouse Mountain, looked around, had some coffee (yes, there is a Starbucks) and watched an HD film about Grouse Mountain’s two orphaned grizzly Bears.  When we first visited this mountain top 9 years ago we were in a “white-out”.  Of course it was in the spring.  There is a lot to do on this mountain; zip lines, take a chairlift to a higher peak, Heli tours, paragliding, bird watching, visit the orphaned grizzly bear’s 5-acre sanctuary, or eat at one of the 5 restaurants located at different points on this mountain.

Stanley Park

We visited Stanley park a few times during our stay here.  We ate at the Teahouse (Est. 1978).  This is an excellent restaurant with a great atmosphere and a nice patio.  You drive through this park on a one-way road.  We were trying to remember where this place was.  After driving a while we found it but ended up driving right by it.  Could not turn back so we had to drive all the way through the park again.  But it was a nice day with nice sights throughout the park so it was okay.  We were rewarded with a great meal. 

"Girl in a Wet Suit", given as a gift in 1972 by sculptor Elk Imredy.  

She represents Vancouver's dependence on the sea.

Vancouver Aquarium

The Vancouver Aquarium is located in Stanley Park, so we visited this park again on another day.  We also had another excellent meal at the Tea House. 

The Vancouver Aquarium is Canada’s largest aquarium with belugas, penguins, sea otters and 50,000 other aquatic creatures.

Can anyone find Nemo??

 Giant Green Anemone (above) and 

Clonal Anemone (below) this plant clones itself by stretching until it splits in half.

Moon Jelly

 Helen - Pacific White Dolphin

FYI:  Parking throughout Stanley Park is paid-parking.  All day parking is 11(CAN$).  Otherwise it is 3(CAN$) an hour.  But you can pay once and park anywhere in the park on the same payment (as long as it is within the time).  We made the mistake of thinking you had to pay at each place you parked.  We ended up paying around 16(CAN$) for parking on this day. (Aquarium, Tea House, back to the Aquarium). Don’t make the same mistake.

VanDusen Botanical Garden

We have never been to this garden.  We discovered this place when we were looking at “things to do” on our last day.  This is a beautiful garden on 55 acres with over 7,500 unique species and varieties of plants.  It is a GEM and a “must see” the next time you are in Vancouver.

 Another spider web

 Do you see Slowpoke

 "Last of the Giants"

Black Squirrel.  I was watching this guy work at tearing this stuff off of a tree trunk. 

He must be building a home somewhere nearby.  Black squirrels are rare and are a genetic mutation.  Research has found they have a greater immunity against diseases.

Next we explore the rest of our destinations for southern British Columbia.