Sunday, 28 October 2012

Vancouver Botanical Gardens





The Canadian Rockies

One of our best trips so far was up to The Canadian Rockies!

We first went to Jasper, a small town at the top of The Rockies, and spent the day on the trails walking around following the river and checking out a few lakes



The famous Pyramid Mountain behind the township in the background

Lake Baeuvert below was surrounded by the Fairmont Lodge which has its own golf course, restaurants etc
 
We decided it would be fun to go live it up in the lodge restaurant and have tequila and cocktails for lunch

 
The next day we had a tour trip set up that would take us in 9 hours from Jasper right through The Rockies on the famous Icefields Parkway (considered one of the top highways of the world) to Banff, another small town a bit more popular and populated than Jasper - this was the highlight of my trip!!
 
The sights on this road where amazing, these were my favs...
 
 
Athabasca Falls



 
 
Columbia Icefield Glacier Experience
 
The Columbian Icefield is a giant peice of land covered in snow that feeds into eight glaciers (our tour guide described it really well like the palm of your hand, with your fingers being the mountains around and the glaciers pouring down between them all)
 
This part of the trip we stopped off at the Athabasca Glacier, which is roughly 6km long and 1km wide, and jumped on an Ice Explorer truck to go up onto the Glacier
 
Its so small you can't even see it in this picture, but half way up the Glacier is a tiny little black line and that is one of the Ice Explorer trucks


Looking down the Glacier


Rasta...
 
 
Cafe stop along the way
 
 
 
Peyto Lake (the bluest lake in The Canadian Rockies)
 


 
 
Lake Louise - this is a resort lake with a huge hotel overlooking the lake
 

 
This was one side of the hotel, was crazy to see something this big out in what seemed like the middle of nowhere
 
 
Another cafe stop along the way
 
Amusing ourselves....
 
Then we headed into Banff, this is the famous Mount Rundle (big jagged rock in the background) just before you get into the township
 


Our night in Banff we wandered around the little township, got some dinner and found a Mexican restaurant for tequila and martini's
 
The next day we were planning to hire bikes and check out more of Banff but the weather had packed in, so we did a smaller version of sightseeing before heading to the bus station to go back to Vancouver
 
Along the river



As we walked through the suburban streets behind the main town strip to the bus stop, we went past this property with a huge male elk sitting out front on the lawn. He was so still, for about 5 minutes we actually thought it was just a tasteless statue until we saw the cold breathe out of his nostrils. We walked past the other side of the property and noticed at the back two little females which he must have been standing guard of
 
 
 
 

Saturday, 20 October 2012

Vancouver Lookout

While in the city one day we decided to go up the Vancouver Lookout and get a 360 degree view of the city



Rogers Arena, I went to see a football game in there a few weeks ago, its really impressive and the roof opens up

This is looking out over the city, over Stanley Park which is where the Aquarium is and you can bike right around the sea wall which we did over summer, and looking out to North Vancouver which has really big houses up the hill looking out to the city. On the side is Grouse Mountain as well where everyone snowboards in the winter

Canada Place right on the waterfront in downtown

Trip to Penticton

A few weeks ago we took a bus trip to Penticton, which is inbetween Okanagan Lake and Skaha Lake. It was amazing scenery, based around a huge lake but with very dry desert like hills surrounding

 

The first day we rented scooters and went for a ride along the waters edge of Skaha Lake from the top which is Penticton down to the bottom to a little town called Okanagan Falls

 
 
The road ran right beside the Lake the whole drive down
 
The very end of Skaha Lake looking back across the other side to Penticton
 


 
 
We came across a little family of deer on our way back too...mum and two babies


 
This area is full of wineries because it is so dry, so the next day we went to a couple of vineyards to do some wine testing, and have a glass of wine and some nibbles. They were all running up the hill on the side of the lake so had amazing views looking down over the township