Our first stop was vancouver; we were meeting my aunt j9, uncle Paul and cousin charley and I was really looking forward to catching up with some family.
We went down to van the day before they arrived so we could spend the morning doing the grouse grid; the last hike on our bucket list! The hike was a 3km climb up a lot of stairs an approx 850m elevation gain, up to the heart of Vancouver's ski hill. The grind attracts a lot of keen locals chasing after their daily exercise and there was definately a lot of fit looking people running past us on the track! You aren't allowed to walk down the trail either as it is so steep..or at least they tell you that so you pay the $10 to take the gondola down to the parking lot! Clever marketing!!
Back in Vancouver we caught up with the weary Baxter carpenter travellers who were coming to the end of their epic 3 months world tour! They had spent some time over in Europe and the US and had some pretty incredible stories including seeing part of the America's cup in Sam Fran! ..the part when the kiwis looked like they had a chance of winning!!
We only had 1 day in Vancouver together so we rented out some bikes and hit the pavement in an attempt to see as much as possible. We rode around the sea wall around Stanley park and had a break in Yale Town for some brunch! Rhys scared us all my misplacing his wallet..only to discover it in one of the many pockets in his backpack! After our refuelling stop we continued over to Granville island and then through the city streets to Gas Town to see the steam clock! Riding through the city streets was a little scary but we made it and then waited about 10 minutes for the clock to go off! After almost 5 hours of solid riding we returned the bikes and headed back to the hotel to relax and recover!
We had decided on Japanese that night so in the recommendation of the hotel concierge headed to an all you can eat Korean and Japanese BBQ! I am dangerous at an all you can eat event as I feel I have to get my monies worth and order as much as possible! Unfortunately you have to pay for the extra food if u don't eat it so this usually means stuffing ourselves a little too much! It was pretty damn good though and a good end to a short, but sweet time sort with some family!
The next day we had the cruisiest of all mornings and saw j9 and co off to the airport where they were headed to Hawaii for a week of paradise!
We had a few more hours to kill before we had to lug ourselves to the airport so headed over to vancouvers latest attraction; the fly over Canada. A '30 minute ' simulated flight over Canada..it was pretty awesome but broken into 3 sections so I don't feel like the main video went Long enough ! It was still cool to see some other parts of Canada even if they didn't tell us where they were!
It was then back to the hotel to grab our oversized bags and the rest of our luggage before we headed to the airport, with a lot of staring on the bus and train, enroute to our next stop; Montreal
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