Day 2 - Nelson to Vancouver
Written at 6:28am Nelson 643km
I sat in the parked MINI
outside of the hostel to write this journal entry. I
couldn’t sleep ever since 3am due to a guy snoring
way too loud, so I decided to leave early and get to
Vancouver, hoping I could catch a nap somewhere along
the way. I knew when I don’t sleep enough it’ll be hard
for me to concentrate, and driving 7 plus hours after
sleeping for like 3 hours isn’t exactly the smartest
thing in the world to do. But the excitement of the
trip and the allure of Vancouver kept me wide awake.
Washed up at the hostel and
took a peak inside the kitchen before I left. There was
a woman sleeping on the kitchen floor by the door,
almost stepped on her, lol.
Went out by the river side
to snap a morning shot of the river, Nelson is very
pretty place indeed, with rivers and hills, and a really
stylish downtown to boot. I’ll be back again for sure.
6:45am in Nelson - Click to enlarge
Traffic was basically
non-existent from Nelson to Castlegar. Highway 3A was
very fast flowing and smooth, I was able to drive at a
very quick clip, enjoying the crisp morning air and the
open road. The same thing can't be said about one of the
birds out in the forest however. It became my MINI's
first ever bird kill. Why God designed birds to
fly straight out into a moving car is beyond me!
(maybe its got nothing to do with God, but whatever)
Video: Past Castlegar
Video: Before Grand Forks
Video: Grand Forks
MINI at Christina Lake past Castlegar -
Click to enlarge
9:14am Near Osoyoos 897km
I took a break at a
viewpoint just outside of Osoyoos to write this journal
entry down. Just before this viewpoint were a series of
very fast corners and downhill hairpins. With traffic
being a non-factor, it made for an extremely
entertaining ride. I don’t think I had ever braked that
hard for corners before. Loads of fun heel and toe
downshifting and pulling some Gs! I’m in need for some
food though, hasn’t had much to eat yet other than the
Trail Mix bars!
Osoyoos viewpoint looking down at the hairpin bends
- Click to enlarge
Osoyoos viewpoint - Click to enlarge
Written at 11:18 am Princeton
Went to a Dairy Queen for a
grilled chicken Salad. The burgers yesterday made me so
thirsty for an entire afternoon, so I decided to have
something a little less heavy today. I don’t know if it
came with the salad or not, but I found a little red
spider crawling on the table as I ate. Hmm.
Felt pretty tired since I
drove 4 hours straight non stop. The roads were fun
however. Right after Osoyoos were more downhill
hairpins needing 2nd gear. I haven’t
squealed the tires this loud on a public road for a
while! That was definitely one of the most fun road out
there, just mind the cliffs!
Journal entry written the
next day at Stanley Park:
From Princeton I drove non
stop to Surrey. The highway from Princeton and Hope had
some absolutely wonderful twisty sections. Unfortunately there are also equally many sections of
boring 4 lane highways and quite a lot of traffic. At
those boring 4 lane sections I played “Drive the best
racing line” since I was faster than everyone else and I
wouldn’t be in anyone’s way while using the whole width
of the 2 lanes available to me. There was also this
Hope slide view point, where you could see a big chunk
of mountain which slid down into the valley like 60
years ago. It was pretty neat to look at, but I guess
it wasn’t so neat for the people buried below.
Hope slide Panorama
- Click to enlarge
Video: Princeton to Hope Twisties
Video: Princeton to Hope Highway
Video: Past Hope
The drive from Hope to
Surrey was exhausting. I tried to play “Follow the
leader” where I would follow the fastest car so I could
drive fast but avoid getting a speeding ticket. Highway
one (Trans Canada) was extremely dull and full of cars. On the upside I was 1 hour ahead of schedule at that
point. Well, I thought I was anyway. Had to stop at
Surrey for fuel because the fuel light was on. While at
the gas station I cleaned out the windshield of dried up
bug juices and checked the front bumper for damage.
Highway 1 between Hope and Vancouver
(For some reason I remember this scene very well from my
Vancouver trip back in 1997, the landscape has a very
unique "style" to it) - Click to enlarge
Video: Highway one freight train
Video: Traffic near Surrey
The traffic was just
terrible once I got in Vancouver, my 1 hour lead evaporated as
quickly as water in a desert. It was an eye opening
experience for me to drive in downtown Vancouver near
Chinatown. So many people run yellows and reds, barge
into your lane, and generally driving like they have
explosive diarrhea. May I suggest some diapers? Geez,
clam down people! Anyway, I’m not one who likes to
complain much, so instead I tried to blend in and drive
like a maniac myself by squealing the tires on take off
to get in front of a traffic queue, go me!
Video: Vancouver speeders
Traffic jam across the bridge going into
Vancouver mainland - Click to enlarge
Lots of people and traffic in downtown
Vancouver
- Click to enlarge
Checked in at Jericho beach
after about 40 minutes of stop and go in Downtown. Honestly, driving in Calgary doesn’t seem to fall into
the category of “City” driving in comparison. I’ve
never stopped so many times in such a short period of
time. All those slopes are giving my left leg a work
out too. (because of the clutch, for those who doesn’t
drive a manual)
After checking in I was
right back on my original schedule again. So instead of
taking a nap I went up to Lynn Canyon as planned. Lynn
Canyon was such an awesome place for a little hike. The
forest really seemed to be enchanted, it felt so
peaceful and alive. It is really amazing how Vancouver
managed to have all these parks like right inside the
city. The trees looked ancient and very tall. The main
attraction was the suspension bridge, and boy, was it
ever crowded. Supposedly there is a 20 people limit on
the bridge so they don’t have to bring out as many body
bags when the bridge falls, but people didn’t really
care and went on it anyway. Some people were quite
scared by the swaying and such, it was fun to watch them
grab onto the railing and scream.
Video: Stanley Park highway
A totally packed Lynn Canyon Suspension
Bridge - Click to enlarge
View looking down from the bridge, it is
a pretty long fall...
- Click to enlarge
One little girl was
particularly scared. A couple of young guys were
jumping up and down the bridge while she and her mom was
walking on it. She stopped and cried to her mom
“Stoopid people!” Haha.
The scared girl trying to get the hell
off the bridge
- Click to enlarge
I met a photographer on the
way back from the Twin Falls just below the suspension
bridge. I first thought he was using a medium format
camera, but then after chatting a little it turned out
he was using a lend hood from a Hasselburg medium format
camera on his Nikon SLR. We talked a little about good
photography spots around Vancouver and he suggested a
couple of places to go, like the bird sanctuary and the
coast near Nanaimo on Vancouver island for sea lions.
Twin Falls panorama
- Click to enlarge
Wouldn't be surprised if
fairies descent from the top of this tree, the forest
felt magical - Click to enlarge
I spent about 2 hours at
Lynn Canyon and was pretty much spent from all the driving and walking. My planned destination was Grouse
Mountain, and with the sunny weather and mild
temperature, I wasn't about to miss it just because of
being tired! I arrived at the base of Grouse mountain Skyride
at about 7pm.
Waiting for the Skyride to come down -
Click to enlarge
I do want to apologize
for the terrible pictures up until this point of the
day, perhaps I was too tired or maybe the sun was a
little harsh, but nothing looked any good at all. Oh well.
Amazingly I drove to
Grouse Mountain from Lynn Canyon
without looking at a map! Didn’t get lost either. Grouse mountain
was obviously a Vancouver tourist cash
cow, everything were designed to extract every penny out
of your pocket. First of all the parking lot wanted $5
to park for more than 2 hours. However since the
mountain is sponsored by Volvo, if you drive a Volvo you
got to park for free. This is about the only time I
regretted trading the Volvo for a MINI. At the Skyride
booth they wanted $31 just to get up the mountain!
That, or I could walk for 1.5 hours with almost 20lbs of
camera gear. So I just shut up and paid up.
Once inside the Skyride (or
as I call it, the most expensive human cage in
Vancouver) a young woman greeted the 14 of us. The skyride was totally packed on the way down, but I guess
at this time of the day not many people are going up. Of course I picked this time to go on purpose so I could
get some nice sunset colors in my photos. The skyride
woman sounded like she had said the same lines way too
many times – “Thankyou for riding the skyride today,
hope you enjoy the ride, it’ll take about 6 minutes to
get to the top and we’ll reach a height of 3710 feet…”
No one was really paying
much attention to what she was saying, because the view
was just fantastic. I felt my
ears popping a bit from the rapid attitude change. Once
at the top I wandered around the hill and looked for a
good spot for a panoramic view of Vancouver. But to my
dismay the best view was from the really expensive
restaurant near the skyride. Those cash grabbing greedy
people! Even at the restaurant trees were still in the way
of downtown. So
I hauled my gear up to the top of the hill instead.
On the way up I saw this
male Deer having supper. It wasn't scared of
humans at all and looked really relaxed and happy. Yeah, I am an animal pyschic.
Happy deer on Grouse Mountain
- Click to enlarge
Hill top Panorama from the top of Grouse
Mountain (Vancouver down by the left, the Chalet in the
middle) - Click to enlarge
I almost ran down from the hill
top, there were so many blood sucking flies up
there! I managed to kill a couple by hand, but fleeing
was the better option. There was also a “theatre in the
sky” up there at the chalet. They first put you through
10 minutes of torture by showing you a clip in a waiting
room outside of the main theatre. It was about the
reason why human beings are attracted by high heights
and why we all got suckered into paying $31 to get
stuffed in a cage to get up here. It’s the view!
Right… of course I knew that, no need to show me a
stupid video! After that we got to go inside the main
theatre, which had bench seating. The 15 minute “movie”
they showed were some pretty decent ariel shots of
places in and around Vancouver in an eagle’s point of
view. However the narrator’s voice was very deep and
irritating. By the half way point of the video I was
ready to head out the door. They turned on the lights
at the end and said we could leave or stay for another
20 minute video of how the orphan bears ended up caged
on top of Grouse mountain. Right! So my choice was to
watch a video about the bears, or go see the bears with
my own eyes, duh! So out I went!
Live bears! - Click to enlarge
"Bear" arse - Click to enlarge
To be honest the bears
didn't seem to be
exactly “caged” The little fenced off area had a little
pool and lots of places to hide and run around. At
first they were pretty far away from the fence,
wrestling each other. But after a while they got bored
of that and went right up against the fence and started
eating grass. A lady beside me said that she should get
one of these for her backyard so she wouldn’t have to
mow the lawn. Sound likes a good idea, you wouldn’t
need a guard dog and don’t need to deal with angry neighbours either! There
was one downside though, along
with the bears there were hundreds of those blood
sucking flies, and I couldn’t stand it after watching
the bears for 2-3 minutes.
Bears up close to the fence
- Click to enlarge
Right about then my friend
Dixon gave me a call, but then the connection dropped
mid way through the conversation. He left me a message
afterwards telling me where to meet tomorrow. I went up
by the chalet and snapped a couple more pictures of
Vancouver.
Looking down at the Highway 1 bridge -
Click to enlarge
Vancouver downtown - hazy sunset but
still very pretty - Click to enlarge
The trees were in my way and
I was dead tired, so I decided to
call it quits and head back down at about 9:30pm. The skyride was jam packed and you could smell all the
sweating people, eww. (and I’m sure others were saying
the same about me)
Sky ride down the mountain - Click to
enlarge
Once I got back down I gave
my friend Joyce a call. We decided to meet tomorrow at
7:30 am at Stanley park. After the call I managed to
drive all the way back down to the hostel without
getting lost or looking at the map! I was pretty proud
of that, especially since it was done in the dark at
night (must be a man thing, not looking at maps) I
stopped by the beach near downtown for one picture but
was too tired to bother lugging my tripod around for
more pictures.
Video: Lions Gate Bridge
Beach near Vancouver downtown just after
sunset - Click to enlarge
At Jericho beach I took a
shower and decided to get some night shots of Vancouver
downtown on the beach. So I headed down to the beach in
pitch black (thank goodness I bought along a little
flash light). It was so dark that the exposures needed
like 2 minutes each. I was just totally exhausted from
sleeping so little and doing so much in one day, so even
though the pictures weren’t really the way I wanted them
to be, I just packed it up and went to bed. I seriously
wanted to sleep on the beach, the temperature was
perfect, the sea air crisp and the sound of the waves
soothing. I fell asleep almost instantly at the hostel.
Just past 11pm looking towards West
Vancouver - Click to enlarge
Vancouver downtown at night - Click to
enlarge
Statistics for today:
Sleep – 3 hours
Driving – 9 hours
Walking – 6 hours
Sore legs – 2
Money spent:
$27 for hostel
$8 for food (I honestly
forgot to eat since there were so much to do and see and
I ran out of time)
$48 for gas
10/7/06
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