The Final Chapter

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apologies for not posting for a while but thought we'd do Canada in one hit

The train journey from Oldenburg to Amsterdam was uneventful, but much more relaxing than trying to drive all that way in pouring rain. Our train took us all the way to Schipol Airport where we had booked overnight accommodation as our flight to Vancouver left very early next morning. Once again it was so cold and wet we decided not to travel back into the city centre to go exploring, but just relaxed at the hotel and had a wander around the shopping complex at the airport.

A four hour stopover at Heathrow made it a very long day by the time we arrived in Vancouver, but it was great to see Chris and Gem waiting for us as we cleared customs. They live in a lovely flat in Kitsilano which is a really nice area near the beach, and heaps of restaurants and shops nearby. But jet lag and time differences kicked in and we crashed fairly early on that first night.

Vancouver is a fantastic city with mountains and beaches both close by, and lovely parks and gardens around the city area and lots of touristy stuff to do. We went to the Aquarium (a good indoor activity when it is raining!), and the Granville markets, then had way too much sushi for tea! We are waiting to do a walk up Grouse mountain, but the weather needs to improve first. Another beautiful area we went to is Capilano park - a rainforest area, where there is a huge suspension bridge over the gorge and a raised boardwalk around the treetops area which was really nice and lots of other walks in the area too. Huge old Douglas fir trees hundreds of years old. A river quite close by leads to a salmon hatchery - and very fast flowing water as the dam is just upstream. They have built “fish ladders” to help the salmon get upstream, and at one place there is a viewing window built into the hatchery complex so we saw them jumping up the steps, up to 2 and 3 foot high. We had a great time encouraging each salmon as it tried to jump up the next step and also spent a bit of time watching the fishermen just downstream of the 2^nd bridge trying to snag a few on their journey past.... As they are not allowed to used barbed hooks, it makes catching them and keeping them on the line all that more difficult.

Then it was off to Seattle to visit John, a friend we have known for over 30 years! He has an amazing condo overlooking Union Lake and the city area. We were sleeping on the fold out couch in the lounge so got to see the beautiful lights of Seattle all night long (yeah yeah …. Sleepless in Seattle! In fact we were - as we are still trying to adjust to the time difference and we are usually awake way too early every morning...) Seattle is another very livable city, except for the traffic. We visited the Pike Street markets which had fantastic displays of fish, fruit and flowers, plus all these quirky little shops with antique and collectable junk. Not your usual tourist trash, but old books, comics, collectable toys, china, old coins and music, etc. We also did a tour of Underground Seattle, which told a lot of the history of the city as it developed - originally built on marsh land and continually sinking, they eventually raised the road level to the height of the first floor of all the buildings, so there is now a warren of underground rooms and basements full of history (and ghosts???)

On the way back to Vancouver we took a detour to tour the Boeing factory – that was fascinating, no photos allowed though – all the 747's, 777's and the new 787 Dreamliner ( made of plastic rather than the usual aluminium – very interesting) are manufactured there and the tour takes you all through the assembly areas and you get to see the airplanes being put together – the place is huge, 98 acres under one roof – you could fit Disneyland in there with 12 acres to spare! Boeing employs 32,000 people, and with Microsoft, Amazon and Starbucks headquarters all located in Seattle, it's quite a big city. Another stop was to the outlet stores just before the border – after 3 months on the bike, and no room for any shopping, it was a welcome relief to be able to give the credit card a bit of a thrashing and get some new gear.

Back in Vancouver on Saturday it was fine so we went for a long walk during the morning around local beaches, shops and into Granville markets for lunch. Then we hired bikes and rode around Stanley Park. The autumn trees are everywhere and the colours are spectacular. Maple leaves as big as dinner plates, and lots of other trees with all shades of reds, yellows and oranges. Lynn Canyon is another nice rain forest area to visit – again with a suspension bridge and lots of bush tracks. We were really lucky getting another fine day and there were some nice bush walks around Rice Lake. We took Chris and Gem to visit the Salmon hatchery and the fish jumping up the ladders as they hadn't been there before, and then we had Jappadogs for lunch. (A japanese versions of a hot dog - a Vancouver speciality.)

Filling in days – waiting to catch a plane! Lucky there is so much to do around here. On Monday we … well, actually we start most days with a walk to one of the many coffee shops along West Broadway. But then we went to see the old Britannia mining museum - an area that was mined for gold, copper and silver – and they used a gravity mill to break up the rock. A small train (and an extremely annoying tour guide) took us into a rock tunnel to experience what it is like underground and demonstrate a couple of the olden types of drills that were used. Shannon waterfall is also close by so we took a small detour to see that too.

The next day we drove to Whistler village - it was a beautiful drive there alongside Howe Sound, and the mountains in the distance, and so lucky we scored anaother great day. There is such an extensive system of chairlifts and gondolas covering the slopes of Blackcombe and Whistler mountains it would be a fantastic place to ski – plus a great village. It is a very picturesque place. Hmmm..... wonder if I have any more leave available?? The mountains all have snow at the top, but need a decent dumping now before the season opens at the end of November. The luge track that was built for the 2010 Winter Olympics had just reopened for the season though and while we were there some of the Canadian team were having a few practice runs, so that was interesting to watch. We also walked around Lost Lake, which becomes a cross country track in the winter and is lit all the way from the village for night skiing.

And so that brings us to today … our last day in Canada, the last day of our amazing adventure, and time to head for home. It was hard to imagine being away for 3 months when we began, but now we wonder how that time can have passed so quickly. We have been fortunate to have been safe and well the whole time. Incredible that there were no break downs or problems with the bike – especially considering some of the roads we went on! What a wonderful world we live in. What a priviledge to have seen such a lot of it on this trip – but there is still so much more to explore. Next time......