Canada: Day One - Vancouver Sightseeing

11:30pm

So it's been a busy first full day in Canada. Today was devoted to seeing the sights of Vancouver.

First up we drove down to Stanley park. Despite the devestation of the recent windstorms, the park is really pretty, there's a lot to see and do in there.

We saw some totem poles. I couldn't really get as close as I would have liked for photos though. There was the famous hollow tree (hollow enough to drive a car into!) and a bit of the aquarium. We saw manatee's and seals having a swim about.

Next up we headed to Granville island and after our 'rockstar carpark' we grabbed some lunch. Not too traditional Canadian - lamb Yiros! Was good eating out in the hot sun, watching the harbour.

Since Christine had some tickets, we caught the putt-putt boat (the False Creek ferry) to Yaletown. We looked at an open house, around $900 000 Canadian gets you a pretty nice townhouse. The same money might buy a pretty nasty box in London.

Heading back to fetch the car from Granville we found the park was not so hot - the windshield was covered in bird poop. Ignoring it we headed for Capilano dam.

Stopping at the fish hatchery, I got to see the famous phenomenon of salmon leaping upstream. It's set up in a neat glass-panelled viewing platform with the 'waterfalls' visible. A fish would make the attempt every minute or so, most often ending in failure. Just can't work out how this evolved into them.

Next up we headed to Lynn canyon. Outside the entrance were dotted warning signs, showing the multitude of ways you can die in the water. Apart from the usual (can't swim, diving into submerged rocks etc) there more interesting ways, like being swept into underwater depressions, where the force of the water pins you there. As an added incentive to take heed, a neat list showed how many, and when the various fatality types had occurred.

Ignoring all this (we weren't planning on swimming), we headed canyonward. We crossed a rather scary suspension bridge, we headed down to the calmer waters, where some kids were diving into the water.

  

Disappointed with the lack of injury, we left.

Driving further up, we ended up at the top of Cypress mountain, at the lookout. Took a few snaps of the beautiful city, and the amazing variety of ships in the harbour.

It was getting late, and we had a date with Christine's parents, and a heap of sushi. We ordered the sushi for pickup, waited a while for it to be ready, then headed to Christine's folks' place, remembering to pickup the sushi only a little bit late :-)

Christine's parents' place was lovely, an award-winning garden (no, really award winning). The sushi was really nice, and the fireworks were fabulous, though quite far away.

Later on Christine showed me the photo album she made from her Australia trip all those years ago, and boy, was I a dork back then!

Eventually headed home and got some sleep. We'd sworn to make an early start in the morning.