Day 3 - Vancouver to Whistler
Written at Whistler 1583km
If you want to take good
landscape pictures, you have to be there at sunrise or
sunset. That means one can't sleep more than 6 hours
during the summer here in Canada if you want to take
pictures of both. The rising sun lured me out of bed at
5:45am on day 3 of my trip anyway.
I made a couple trips back
and forth between the hostel and my car, getting my
tooth brush and stuff, and I think I annoyed the door
watching guy quite a bit. (He sits there checking
everyone that wants to go into the hostel, making sure
they actually have a bed booked).
The Runner, or as I call it "The
I-want-to-jump-into-the-harbor man" - Click to Enlarge
The eastern lighthouse at Stanley Park - Click to
Enlarge
The good thing about being
up early is the total lack of traffic. At 6:30am it
took me less than 15 minutes to get to Stanley park from
Jericho beach. I originally wanted to take pictures at
the Lost Lagoon, but without any clear signage in the
park I just headed east and parked at the light house
instead.
Cruise ship and kayakers in
Vancouver - Click to Enlarge
After I parked the MINI I
saw a film crew preparing to film a scene with Vancouver
downtown and harbor as the backdrop. They had a mint
looking yellow Porsche 911 with an actor in it (he sure
looked familiar, but I didn’t recognize him) I went over
to the car and asked if I could take a picture of it. An assistant girl said no. No? Yeah right. There is a
reason why I bought a 300mm Image Stabilized lens! (well
mostly for wild animals and stuff) So I went like 100
yards away and took a couple of shots anyway. They were
doing some scenes with a rowing boat in the water in
front of the downtown skyline. The Porsche 911 was
driven slowly on the passenger walk way while the
director told the people in the boat to row.
The "No" girl and the
beautiful 911 (she was quite good looking too actually)
- Click to Enlarge
Beautiful place for a
movie or whatever it was! - Click to Enlarge
I managed to get some semi
interesting shots of Vancouver, but I did arrive a
little too late for the best light of the day. Very
soon the sun was too bright and harsh for any decent
shots and I packed up my camera. Refilled my water
bottles with some tap water in a washroom (yum?) and
found a place to sit down and write yesterday’s journal
entry.
Downtown Vancouver at sunrise -
Click to Enlarge
Along the coast near the light
house - Click to Enlarge
Joyce showed up at about 8am
and we walked around the park and had a little coffee
(ice-cream in her case) together in downtown. We walked
into this “self interpretive trail” at Beaver Pond
(which doesn’t have any beavers anymore) and saw this
gorgeous flower. In fairy tales the guy would go and
get the flower and give it to the girl, but I just took
a picture of it, hehe.
The water lily at Beaver Pond -
Click to Enlarge
The morning went by too
quickly. Whatever you enjoy doing the most always seem
to last 5 seconds, and whatever you don’t like (boring
physics classes anyone?) seem to last an eternity. Such is life.
If a picture can express a
feeling, this is how I felt when I had to leave Stanley
park - Click to Enlarge
I left Stanley park at about
11:40pm and headed for the Catus Club restaurant in
Yaletown. Dixon was already on the patio and waved me
inside. He was an energetic and friendly guy (just as I
know him on the internet) we chatted a little bit
about my trip and some roads I’ve been on. Gimpster (Wyane)
showed up soon after. He was a little rounder and
shorter than I thought, but he wasn’t as intimidating as
I thought he would be either.
Me, Dixon, and Wyane (Gimpster) at
Catus Club - Click to Enlarge
We chatted about cars and
roads and fishing and we all ordered sandwiches. I got
a teriyaki chicken burger with pineapple, weird stuff. Dixon bought us lunch, thanks buddy! Dixon
mentioned a couple of times that Yaletown is also called
"Yummy town". Wasn't the food that he was talking
about though, but I do agree he was right.
After lunch we went out to
see Gimpster’s Miata and took some pictures. Honestly,
everyone was just as expected from chatting online so
much. It was really like we had known each other for a
long time.
Dixon and Gimpster in the Miata -
Click to Enlarge
Me and Dixon left Gimpster
and went to T&T riding in Dixon’s Pathfinder. It was in
good shape and the low end torque was good. Its no
sports car, but Dixon sure does drive pretty good!
After leaving Dixon I headed
up to Cypress falls. Again not looking at my maps I
managed to get lost in downtown Vancouver and crossed
the wrong bridge, duh! I finally found the Cypress Bowl
road and headed up. It was quite steep with some really
tight hairpins. I was following this modified Protégé 5
closely in the corners, but he hardly pushed his low
profile 17” tires, no fun! I got all the way up to the
ski hill and couldn’t find any sign that pointed to
Cypress falls. So instead I headed ½ way down the hill
to a scenic look-out. The view there was every bit as
good as on Grouse Mountain! One of the parked cars
smelled like burnt brakes, people really ought to learn
how to hold gears and engine brake down the hills.
I
highly recommend this lookout for people visiting
Vancouver, its free and you get an awesome view of the
city. Forget Grouse mountain unless $36 (with parking)
is nothing to you, or if you really want to see 2 black
bears (there are lots of them in zoos anyway, and in
zoos you get to see a lot of other animals at the same
time)
View from Cypress Bowl -
North/West Vancouver, Lions Gate Bridge, Stanley Park,
Downtown - Click to Enlarge
View towards the
west, Mount Baker in the background - Click to Enlarge
I headed down the hill and
drove towards Point Atkinson’s light house. Because I
had plenty of time left and I feel confident in my sense
of direction, I didn’t look at a map again. Great
idea! I got lost in West Vancouver’s residential area
and had some time to look at all the beautiful houses
there on the hill side. Some of the hills there were
extremely steep (for a guy from flat as a pie Calgary at
least). The handbrake didn't hold the car still in some
places.
Finally I was sick of being
lost and dug out the map. Found my way through Marine
Drive and got to the light house parking lot. I’m glad
Joyce didn’t choose to come here, she would probably get
really lost too. Marine drive was very twisty and
narrow with a 30km/h speed limit. Saw a cop there
giving a guy a speeding ticket, ouch.
The parking lot was full and
I got stuck behind another car up a gravel incline. The
car in front of me moved too slow and I stalled the MINI
for the first time in months, oops! There was a cop
there searching through all the cars and pulling on the
door handles of all the parked cars for some reason.
Light house park view point
by the seaside was quite cool. You could see Vancouver
downtown with a big snowy mountain (Mount Baker) in the
background. The light house was red and white
like my MINI, so I liked it :)
View of Vancouver
with Mount Baker in the back - Click to Enlarge
Point Atkinson Light House - Click
to Enlarge
The walk back up the hill to
the parking lot was totally killing my legs. My lack of
sleep and too much walking and driving finally caught up
with me. Once I got back to the MINI I noticed something
wasn’t right! When I press unlock the car’s lights
didn’t blink, uh oh! And then when I looked inside the
umbrella is on the steering wheel instead of the back
seat! Turned out that my cell phone must have blocked
the remote control from locking the car when I left, and
the cop who was searching through all the cars opened it
up. He left a note saying “Remember to lock your car”,
right officer, you caught my MINI unlocked probably for
the first time ever that it wasn't locked.
I felt pretty burnt out at
that moment, tired, having my cars searched by a cop,
and left my good friends in Vancouver whom I won’t see
again for a while. I drove on anyway, and headed up to
the “Sea to Sky” Highway that connected Vancouver to
Whistler. I could understand how it might be a fund
road to drive, the scenery was very nice, and there are
some curves. But with the holiday traffic, and the
extreme amount of construction going on, plus Dixon’s
warning about cop presence there, I just didn’t enjoy it
a whole lot. The only high light of that road was that
I saw my car’s twin and we traded waves.
Video - Sea to Sky highway
Stopped at Shannon Falls on
the way up, it looked quite impressive. A little too
crowded perhaps, its definitely a tourist hotspot. I
saw this guy putting his SLR on a mini sized tripod on
the ground at a very stupid location to take a picture
of the falls in really bright sunlight. I have no idea
what he was thinking, but it looked funny when his face
was 6 inches off the ground.
Shannon Falls - Click to Enlarge
Shannon Falls close up - Click to
Enlarge
There is an extra view point
at Shannon Falls which required going up like 6-7
stories worth of stairs. I was already really tired,
but hey, I told myself that I’m not gonna come back back
here any time soon, so up I went. The view up there is
better than the one below, and at the very least there
are almost no other people bumping into your shoulder
every way you turn. I helped a family take a picture of
them and took some neat close up pictures of the falls
too. A tourist there said to his friend that he thinks
this waterfall is more impressive than Niagara, yeah
right…
I left Shannon falls and
drove by the Squamish Chief. It is a big slab of rock
which somehow did not impress me very much. I stopped
the car, looked around for 2 minutes and just kept on
driving without taking a picture.
Up along Highway 99 near
Whistler was Brandy Wine Falls. A 500 meter hike up a
little hill was required. Again I convinced myself that
since I would not be back in this area for a while, even
killing my legs were worth it. I’m glad I did walk up
that little hill, what a view! This waterfall looked
really impressive. In my opinion it looked more
dramatic than Shannon Falls. The way the bottom kind of
gets round made it look like a giant toilet bowl, and
isn’t that just cool? The sun wasn’t helping me though,
it was making my lens glare up like nothing I’ve seen
before. I had to hold my hand up to block it out and use
another hand to try to take a picture in portrait
position, not really easy since the falls were pretty
dark.
Brandywine falls, or as I call it,
the largest flush toilet in BC - Click to Enlarge
Finally I got up to the Alta
lake hostel at Whistler at like 8pm. The lake was such
a nice place to be. What an awesome location for a
Hostel! I spent the next 2 hours sitting in my
car looking out at the lake and trying to finish writing
my journal entry for today.
The hostel was pretty much
totally full, and I had to sleep on an upper bunk for
the first time. Man was it hot! The window was
absolutely minuscule and there were no drafts at all. Whenever someone opens the room’s door a nice cool
breeze did come in through the window, but only very
briefly before the door shuts again. I really wish I
could just hold that door open. Since I was so tired, I
fell asleep after an hour or so eventually. It was
getting dark outside and people partying outside finally quietened
down, that helped.
I read that there might be
bed bugs at this hostel, but fortunately none was on my
bed, or at least they didn’t think I was worth biting.
Statistics for today:
Money spent on food: $8.50 (Thanks to Dixon)
Engine stalled: once
Got lost: 3 times
Vancouver - I love you! (Panorama taken
at Stanley Park) - Click to Enlarge
10/7/06
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