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Yesterday was spent exploring Vancouver. Went to Lynn canyon park with Karen (I'm staying with mums cousin and his wife and two kids) which had an awesome rushing creek with a swing bridge and tall forest. Was awesome scenery not far from the suburbs aka 'neighborhoods' as theyre known here! Got the seabus into downtown Vancouver and had a good view across the water at the city. It was raining most of the day which was disappointing!! Wandered around the city for a long time and went to check out the infamous stanley park which, even though it was raining was cool- lots of birds and a wetland which after studying them at uni I know a fair bit about them! A lot different plants to Adelaide though!
Decided I should head home after resisting the urge to buy almost everything!! Thought it was relatively simple BUT the stupid iPhone let me down AGAIN!!! Got off at the wrong station so attempted to catch a bus up north but realised I had no idea which one to get and it was too far to walk! So got on the train again and went right around the loop which goes pretty far east and got off at the right station- then walked god knows how many km the wrong way!!! If I had been familiar with the city I'd have known the mountains are north!!!! The main issue was my phone went flat and didn't have Karen and daves number.
Something dumb happens to me everywhere I go so this is it for Canada!! Relaxed for the rest of the night which i felt I deserved. At least it was a long and steep walk in training for the inca trail!!
Today I got a train into downtown (the right one and transferred when I had to!) but it was peak hour soooo the first 2 went past completely chocka block! I managed to push my way onto the next one with my big backpack and ran thru downtown to get to HI central where the Moose Network bus was to pick us up from. We had about 15 mins before getting on and we set off up to the mountains!
We stopped at some scenic places along the way including stanley park, one of the three Vancouver mountains (I can remember the other two!) and went for a reasonably intense walk to Shannon Falls which was pretty cool! Had lunch at Alice Lake and headed up to Whistler. The driver called Dave was pretty funny and almost over enthusiastic!! I'm not used to tours and not sure how ill handle it but there's a couple of east coast Canadians, a few Aussies, English, Dutch, German and Belgians. It's a hop on and off trip so some people will be leaving and joining at different times. At the moment there's 21 of us.
We are staying at HI Whistler which is in Function Junction about 10 mins out of Whistler Village which is annoying but it was built for last years Olympics so is nice and new and one of the better hostels I've stayed at!
Heading back to the hostel soon, have been to check out prices for snowboarding gear and lift passes so gonna give that a go tomorrow! I know the first (and my only day) is meant to be tricky and frustrating but I've been skiing before so will try it out- lessons are wayyy too expensive. Just one day myself will cost $100 but not often you get to do it in aus!!
Will post my success/lack of success tomorrow or the day after!!
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