Returning back from the Rockies we stopped off at the Natural Bridge which is a rock bridge over a waterfall it was slightly marred by two coaches of Japanese tourists.
The drive back saw the weather turn from sunny mid 20's to rainy and sometimes snowy cooler weather. It took over 8 hours to get back to Kamloops, with the wether turning for the worse it was decided just to take the highway back to Vancouver which would knock about 4 hours off the journey if we had gone a possibly more scenic route. Instead we stopped off a Capilano suspension bridge and tree top walk. The bridge was ok but the Valley of the Giants tree top walk in Western Australia was much better.
Vancouver is quite a nice city although not too much going on. The first full day was spent checking out Stanley Park more walking around the edge of the park and its lakes and then spending the afternoon at the Auquarium. It's hard not to compare the things I've seen in recent months and the Sydney Aquarium beats anything I've seen hands down.
Something I'd been looking forward to for a while and hoping I could get tickets was watching Ice Hockey. It was only pre-season but there was only one Canucks home game on while we were in the city so I was extremely happy I could get to see it.
It was worth it and faster paced than the Baseball although I thought it would be more like the Basketball where inbetween breaks there would be more entertainment for the crowed. Each period is 20 minutes but the clock stops everytime there is a foul or incident so each period last nearly double that time. In a way you get more for your money but if the clock kept running I think it would make the game more exciting as you have less time to mess about and therefore more pressure to score. The fighting was a bit lame and looked staged more than any sense of anger etween each other. But its all an experience, its like any sport you can get good games and bad games and with my inexperience at least I don't know what I saw.
Wednesday was a day trip to Seattle, since we were so close and it was somewhere I wanted to go it seemed like a good idea. It took about an hour to get to the border where the elite of Americans patrol the border from illeagal aliens and are the last line of defense against terrorism. In reality the majority have a Hitler complex and one twinky away from a heart attack. It wasn't too bad although my humour didn't go down too well so I was glad to get out of there.
It took another couple of hours to get to Seattle and without a map we headed for the Space Needle as a point of reference, which turned out to be handy. Like Toronto and Vancouver Seattle doesn't have a great city scape, the best one includes the space needle which slightly defeats the reason for going up there but if theres a tall building that sticks out I like to see the views.
After the needle I got the monorail downtown whgich onl took 5 minutes or so and took you right into the heart of the shopping area with all the classics, Macys, Abercrombie and Fitch and others. After a quick look around and some sly purchases it was time to head back to Vancouver and try to avoid rush hour traffic. On the way back it took 5 minutes to get back through border patrol.
The final day was spent in Whistler which is 120k north of Vancouver. Its a ski town and is hosting the 2010 winter olympics, unfortunately this means they are improving the roads and digging most of them up. On the Way we stopped off at Brandywine Falls and then drove through Whistler town to Lost Lake.
There are a few tracks around the lake which during winter are used as cross country ski tracks and the rest of the year used for hiking and mountain biking. We spent another 3 hours walking (3 hours seems to be a minimum limited) although this time we got lost a little. Things worked out quite well though because we were told there was a bear o the lower track and we were on the upper track. However we were told about another bear on the golf course which was still there. I decided irrationally or otherwise to get a bit closer than other people were willing to get and although it looked at me a couple of times it didn't see too bothered by my presence.
That was the second and last bear I saw in the wild or on my own without a tour guide. With all the signs on the sign of the road I thought I'd see far more wildlife I saw some deer and Elk but no Moose or Caribou. I thought there would at least be some road kill like in Australia where 20,000 kangaroos are killed every week. Canadian animals seem far more inteligent all I saw was a skunk and chipmonk but that was it.
And that is the end of my travels for 2008...............or i it?
