Victoria to Whistler

We got the bus up to Nanaimo to catch the ferry over to Horseshoe Bay which is on the mainland somewhere between Vancouver and Whistler, and then took the sea to sky highway along the coast and then through the mountains to get to Whistler. It was another exceedingly beautiful day, and we saw our first Bear!! YAY!

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We were so excited, it was a Black Bear eating on the side of the road and it stayed there for a while before walking back into the forest. The highlight of the day though was taking the chair lifts up Whistler-Blackcomb – it was just breathtakingly gorgeous and we felt like the luckiest people in the world to be here today. To top it off our room is superb with views over the mountains and it’s been another perfect day in Canada. Our photos are here.

Whale Watching and Butchart Gardens

We spent a day at both the gardens and Whale watching. We arrived at the gardens with perfect timing – before any of the main hordes of tourists so mostly had the gardens to ourselves. It was another beautiful day and there were so many gorgeous flowers and gardens. We then went back to Victoria, and after lunch went to the Whale watching place and got all rugged up in boiler suits for out on the water. We went in a high speed zodiac which went about 60 km/h most of the time except when we were edging up to Whales and Porpoises and Seals. We saw 3 Minky Whales and probably 50 Porpoises, and lots of Seals as well. We also saw our first Bald Eagle! Our photos are here.

Victoria

So far we’ve had an amazing time in Victoria – we love it here! We have spent a lot of time in massive parks, wow the scale of things here is definitely super-sized. The trees are massive, the parks, the cars, the food, everything is big!

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Victoria Parliament Buildings on the harbour on our first night here.

We went up to Craigdarroch castle on the recommendation of our hosts at our B&B in Victoria, which then led us by accident to Government gardens where we ended up spending a couple of hours wandering and looking at the Olympic Mountains in Washington which you can see very clearly from here. We have been so lucky with the weather and are still having blue sky days which we are very pleased about. We’ve also spent lots of time wandering around the harbour, we think that this harbour at night is the most beautiful we have ever seen, and also hanging out in our beautiful room. Originally we were thinking of staying at the Empress, but had read and heard that the rooms are getting quite run down so found another lovely B&B – and it’s the best place we have stayed ever…. the bathroom is about as big as our old lounge was and the bath is so massive it’s like an actual spa pool. Woohoo!!

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Dre in our bath and Karen having a Bloody Ceasar at the Fairmont Empress.

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Tomorrow we are going to Butchart gardens and also Whale watching which we are very excited about!

To see our photos from the last couple of days click here.

Lighthouse Park

The last couple of days we have been chilling around Commercial Drive and Trout Park near our house, and also we took a trip out to Lighthouse Park in West Vancouver. Lighthouse Park was absolutely beautiful and we were so glad we made the effort to get out there. We spent the day walking all of the trails and hanging out on the cliffs, looking over the water back onto the city of Vancouver and also the forests. It was probably our best day here so far, again beautiful weather (still cold!) but sunny and blue skies. It was really nice to do something out of the city and we can highly recommend going there! You can see our photos here.

Stanley Park and Chinatown

Today we spent most of the day around the waterfront and Stanley Park. We really loved Stanley Park and were stoked to see a Racoon and two different kinds of squirrels.

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Initially we walked around the start of the sea wall and then went into the more touristy part of the park, before crossing the road and going into the forest and around beaver lake (where we didn’t see any beavers but saw some trees they had gnawed down) and then coming back out on the other side at the sea wall again. It’s a perfect time of year see all the trees covered in beautiful flowers so we are really lucky to be here now.

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We finished up the day in Chinatown with some yummy (and sometimes un-identifiable) food. Our photos are here.

A very long day

On 22nd April we woke up in the Mercure Wolli Creek, near Sydney airport at 5.45am in preparation for our flight to Vancouver. After our first buffet breakfast of the trip, we went to the airport and checked in, Karen did some work on the laptop and Dre did his favourite airport activity – looking at watches. We boarded our Air Canada flight, got introduced to our new favourite drink, Clamato juice (spicy tomato juice with clam broth – sounds disgusting but is delicious) and 14 hours later landed in Vancouver at 7am on 22nd April….. already the day had been long but it was only just beginning!! We got these awesome views from the plane as we were landing – blue skies (although it looks grey through the camera and thick plane window), and a city surrounded by snow capped mountains and water – woohoo, the beginning our our next adventure!

Vancouver from the plane window.
After arriving at our B&B, our lovely host Greg made us breakfast and we set out for the day. We wandered along Commercial Drive for a while and then took the skytrain and walked for about 45 mins along the river to Granville Island markets – the food was amazing and we pigged out on smoked Salmon and beer (Dre). We had Salmon jerky, spicy pepper smoked salmon and maple syrup smoked salmon – yum!

View of the city and mountains while walking to Granville markets.

We went back to Commercial Drive, had dinner, and managed to stay up til about 10pm to get our body clocks on Vancouver time before crashing and having a big long sleep.

You can see our photos here.

Osborne Road

We have had the time of our lives so far living here. Obviously the view has made it so much sweeter…we have made an album of all the best photos we’ve taken over the 2 years we’ve been on the top floor. To see it click here.

Karen’s Parent’s Visit

Karen’s parents came over and stayed with us for a few days before riding their new motorbike down along the Australian coast and then riding along the Great Ocean Road. We mainly just relaxed, fed birds on the balcony and also did the Spit to Manly walk. To see our photos click here.

Lightening Storm

We had an amazing lightening storm the other night, these photos were taken at about 10 at night but the sky and harbour and bright from the lightening.

Sparkly Cockatoo on the balcony

Just a random pic, after some rain but had to put it up on the site cos it’s awesome!

Andrej and Karen Brummer

The adventures of the Brummers

Monthly Archives: April 2009