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I am getting the Greyhound up to Vancouver, I thought that it was only 2 hours but it turned out to be 6 hours!
I got into Vancouver pretty late so for the first night I just stayed in the hostel and got to know a couple of my room mates.
On my first day here I have got a whale watching tour booked. We head out on the boat at about half 9 and go down to the bay as there had been a grey whale sighting. We looked there for a while but never got to see anything. They got word that Killer Whales had been sighted about 50 miles down the coast in American waters so we headed down there. On the way we saw loads of little whales, can't remember what they were called but they were quite scared of us so only came up for air then dived back down below. As it was the salmon run there were loads (and I mean everywhere you looked loads) of salmon jumping out of the water, it was class to see. We drove down the coast going between a load of islands and between massive mountains to try and get to the Killer Whales. The scenery was absolutely amazing but we wanted to get down to the Killer Whales before they went too far south. After a couple of hours driving down to the spot we found all the killer whales. At first we only saw one that was coming up for air every so often but after about half an hour there was a whole load of them, the tour guide who was a marine biologist thought they may have been up to 17 of them around our boat jumping in and out of the water. The calfs then started playing with each other and fighting each other which was really good to see, they seemed to be competeing against each other to see who could breach out of the water the highest so it was amazing.
We stayed with the whales for about an hour and a half and then had to leave them to head back up to Canada. On the way back up we saw a load of bald eagles flying over us and eating in their nests. When we did get back up to Vancouver I had a look around Granville island and checked out the street entertainment.
That night I had a look at what I wanted to do the next day, there is so much to do here that I am fully spoilt for choice. The city is huge!
I decided to head up to Whistler while I was here so the next day I was up at 6 to get my coach up to Whistler Village. Wasn't really quite sure what I wanted to do up there but I wanted to see the place. On the way up in the coach the scenery was amazing, the whole place is surrounded by mountains, water and islands so it was a great view everywhere you looked. Once I got up to the village I went to the visitor information centre to see what I wanted to do. There is so much to do up here, I could have went bungee jumping, White water rafting, taken a gondola up to the top of Whistler then got another one over to the of the Blackcomb mountain, I could have went kayaking, went to natural hot springs, gone bear watching, rented out a bike or quad bike and explored that way. In the end I decided to do a tour called Zip Trek.
My tour didn't start for a few hours so I had a look around Whistler Village then took a hike up the mountain to the Bobsleigh, luge and skeleton track from the Olympics. No wonder one of the competitors died, the track is absolutely insane. It is the fastest bobsleigh track in the world and in the winter they are opening it up to visitors so if I came back I would well do it.
I headed back to the Village to start my tour. They put us in their van and drove us up the mountain for 10 minutes. Once we got out we were taken to a treehouse which was the first zip line. The first one was only small and just took us down a bit to the next zip line. The second one was twice as big and went from Whistler mountain over to the Blackcomb mountain over the river in between, it was ace. When everyone was over we then had a tour of the mountain, we got told that there were 65 grizzly bears and nearly 1000 mountain lions around where we were, we didn't see any though. After the small tour we went back on some more zip lines, flying between the two mountains. When we had nearly finished the tour we had to use the Zip line to get back to the village. One of them was 2200 foot long and according to our tour guides we got up to speeds of nearly 50 mph. The best one though was the last one which was 1200 foot long and we were able to do it in any position we wanted, I managed to get my feet up on the rope holding me up and done the whole thing upside down! It was weird seeing all the trees and river flying past me upside down!
After I had finished my tour I stayed around Whistler Village for a while then headed back down to Vancouver.
That night I went out with a couple of lads from my room for Labour day weekend. They shut about 3 blocks to traffic and set up bands and street performer for the celebrations. We went to a few pubs and then went for food, one of the lads I was with, Jacobson, was the most sleazy guy I have ever seen, his chat up lines just didn't work at all and scared 2 girls off in McDonalds, it was actually cringeworthy!
I haven't actually seen any off Vancouver really yet so I spent my last day just walking round the city and seeing the Olympic sites. The city is so big yet so clean, I actually love this city!
I wanted to try and get to Vancouver Island but it would take me 4 hours to get there by public transport so I didn't bother.
I leave to meet Jodie and my Mum and Dad in San Francisco tomorrow before heading to Vegas for 2 weeks. I have fully loved Vancouver but haven't had time to do half of the things I have wanted to do. I am definately going to come back here, hopefully in the winter sometime so I can go skiing!
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