Western Canada - Kirsty

Hello again! It's seems only yesterday since we last blogged, but once again it's time to fill you in on another country. 

To be honest we had left Canada planning until we arrived. Having heard such great reports about the west coast, and knowing that they spoke English meant we could be flexible with timings and sight-seeing! We arrived on June 1st. Officially the longest day ever. After a 13 hour flight from Auckland leaving at 8pm, we flew back in time and arrived in at 3pm the same day. We calculated that June 1st was in fact a 43 hour day. A 43 hour day where Kirsty got a solid 7 hours' sleep on the plane, and Marie boosted her 'films watched' tally. I think we can say when we checked into our hostel our bodies had no idea where we were or what time it was! Coupled with the fact that Canadians are just entering summer, it was still light until 10pm (had been getting dark in New Zealand at 5). To keep ourselves awake until a vaguely acceptable hour we went for an early evening stroll along the waterfront and down to Stanley park. We enjoyed the sound of the waves, the unexpected sandy beaches (like I said I had no idea what to expect from Vancouver) and modestly warm evening. It was this evening that we made our first observation - lots of Canadians have dogs. And these dogs are either of epic bear-like proportions, or tiny rat looking things. There are very few average, border collie medium sized dogs. This has sparked a new game for the trip, entitled 'big dog, little dog'.
  
We've been told Canadians are amongst the friendliest people in the world, and we can conclude this to be true. We've found the hostels much more pleasant than Aussie counterparts, with free wifi, towels, a huge spread of breakfasts all served with a genuine smile and greeting. On the Saturday morning we got up and headed to a local farmers market before making the recommended trip to Vancouver island. Still being a bit dazed we failed to comprehend quite how far it was from downtown Vancouver, and after a walk, 3 buses, train and ferry we arrived in Victoria, the provincial capital. We only ended up having an hour and a half there, but that was enough time for us to go on an excellent tour of the legislative building. It was perfect timing for the Queen's jubilee weekend, and we discovered Canadians are incredibly proud of their British heritage and are always keen (like the Kiwis) to tell of their British connections. The grand building was designed by Rattenbury (who was wandering around giving theatre performances) who was 25 when he won the anonymous design competition. To ensure he got te job despite his inexperience he lied about his CV including having designed buildings in his home town of Leeds! It was built in the 1890s and houses the parliament of British Columbia. There were a few anecdotes which we thought we'd share. A window was made for the building for Victoria's jubilee but due to the soft furnishings needing to be finished it was boxed in the basement, where it sat lost for a further 60 years! Another disastrous queen Victoria monument was her bronze statue shipped over to stand overlooking the building at the front. Somehow it got unloaded en route in San fransisco where it again got lost for a further 7 years. By the time it finally made it to Victoria, the prime spot had been filled with a fountain, so she had to be placed at the entrance to the gardens. This unfortunately meant that by overlooking the building, the first view visitors and ships would get as they came into port would be of the queen's derrière! This was deemed inappropriate so she was turned to face the port, meaning now in order to see her face you either sit in traffic or fall in the water! 

On the ferry back we were asked by a man very sincerely whether, since we had also just visited New Zealand, we were on a 2012 queen's jubilee commonwealth country tour!  On the Sunday we just stayed in Vancouver, wandering around the quaint shops and cafes at Granville island, taking the aqua bus along the river, visiting Canada place, enjoying a Blenz coffee (real BC coffee!) and a lovely evening cycle ride around Stanley park. A pleasant 9km ride allowed us to enjoy the view over the city skycrapers, view out across the water and of course the mountains in the background.
  
On Monday we completed another first for the trip. I drove in a left sided automatic car on the right side of the road to Kelowna. This is the home of Chantelle, a good friend of my friend Jo. Once again we had a fantastic few days enjoying the Canadian hospitality of Chantelle and her friends. Sadly the weather was rainy and overcast so we didn't see this beautiful lakeside town in its full glory, but we did, however, see some pretty good views, manage some walks and sample some local goats cheese! We saw some of our first Canadian wildlife - deer and a marmot and scared ourselves silly that we could hear bears (we didn't see any but the 'bears active' signs were enough!). Chantelle's friend Kerstie volunteered to take us on a local wines tour. Of course doing wine tours is a regular activity for us now! Canada makes wines I hear you say? Yes! In fact they win many global competitions for them. Sadly they do not export as there is not enough space to grow the amount of vines to produce enough wine for export. It's all snapped (or drunk) up by the locals. We enjoyed the unique experience of Canadian wine tasting and the explanations from the sellers.
  
It was touch and go as to whether we'd be able to drive onto Banff due to large rainfall and a subsequent mudslide on the main highway. Fortunately it was cleared on the Thursday and we were able to complete the 7.5 hour drive through the world famous rocky mountains to the Banff national park. Wow. We thought we'd seen mountains and stunning scenery in New Zealand! This was incredible. The white snow on the grey Rocky Mountains that go on as far as you can see, contrasting with the lush . green pine forests. And the occasional roadside elk made it a memorable driving experience.



Banff itself is a cute little town, popular of course with skiers, but even at this time of year it had a lovely vibe and atmosphere. We took the cable car up Sulphur Mountain where we spent a few hours taking in the views, chipmunks and watching the snow clouds come over the tip of the mountains. The 'U' shaped valleys are carved from glaciers over the years and the summit for our view point was at 2281m. Much to our delight (and horror at the same time because we had to drive to Calgary) we woke up to unexpected snowfall outside our hostel. It was beginning to settle and looked very picture postcard! Of course snowfall was a regular occurance for Marie when she lived in Switzerland, but 17 months on it was as if it was her first sighting of the fluffy white stuff from the skies. I have to say I didn't enjoy the initial drive in the snow as it turned more blizzard-like, but once we were out the mountains and looked back the view was incredible. Calgary is a major city, about a 2 hour drive from Banff. We initially were unimpressed with the city itself, I guess we've been to so many now we aren't fussed by skytowers, shopping malls and museums. It did, however, redeem itself when we went to a lovely jazz club in downtown on Saturday night. On Sunday we stumbled accros a leaflet for a 'heritage park' just out the city. We spent the afternoon in 1890s Canada complete with steam engine, ranch, animals and characters in role. This is the part that our siblings disown us.... We had a lovely afternoon in the town joining in with a sing song, old style ice cream making and wandering around the largest living history museum in Canada! We enjoyed learning about Canadian history and heritage as we went to the aboriginal encampment - showing the nomadic lifestyle as the people moved by seasons following the buffalo. The 1878 settlement included a ranch house which, like many other buildings in the town, had been built by a Mr Mackay! Many Scots (including some of my family) it turns out came over with the promise of free land for agriculture and prosperity. We spent a good while at 'Drew's Saloon' hearing about the prohibition laws and how for a period of time you could only be served alcohol if you had a doctor's note for 'medicinal reasons!'.





We've really enjoyed western Canada - the scenery, the people, the breakfast (pancakes and maple syrup of course). In some ways it's similar to New Zealand but with bigger cars (and many strangely have no number plates!) lots of take-aways and driving on the wrong side.  One thing I cannot seem to cope with is the fact that everything is electric - from buses to toilet flushes. Almost every time I have been caught out with the sensors, flushing too soon or not at all, and a few soap spraying disasters. 




I think western Canada has quickly pushed its way to the 'top places we've visited' list. We really only skimmed the surface and are already discussing what we would want to see on a return trip (the famous Lake Louise, Jasper national park and a week on Vancouver island!). We are looking forward to heading back to Toronto next week. But for now we are to make the jump to 28 degree heat in Chicago, crazy to think we were in snow only 4 days ago!