Vancouver to Scotland

Back to having French toast and apple sauce for breakfast.

Today it's time to go home after a wonderful holiday. Handed the car back with 2,087km on the clock (1,297 miles).

Weather is still very hot and sunny (about 28C), seems western Canada is having an Indian summer! Pity we had to leave now.

A fairly uneventful journey home, but didn't get much sleep on the plane. Arrived home about 9.30 am local time on Wednesday.

Link to more photos is here (this is a selection of about 230 of the best, cut down from the original 900 or so).

Vancouver - the Grouse Grind

Blueberry pancakes for breakfast.

We were missing the mountains, so decided to head for the nearest one to Vancouver, Grouse Mountain (1,231m 4,039ft). This is home to the Grouse Grind, a popular workout trail also known as "Nature's Stairmaster".

It's a steep trail which climbs 853m in 2.9km (2,800ft in 1.8 miles). The record for completing it is about 25 minutes, though the average time is apparently 1 hour 30 minutes. We managed it in 1 hour 20 minutes, but it was pretty hard going.

It's a one-way trail, you're not supposed to go back down the same way to avoid collisions. Fortunately there's a gondola that can be used as an alternative.

At the top there are various tourist attractions - bird-of-prey shows, lumberjack shows, paragliding, zip lines etc.

Here they'd rather you didn't walk to the top but prefer you to buy a chairlift ticket. Guess what we did...

Highlight of the attractions was an enclosure with two grizzly bears, which have been there for the last 11 years after being orphaned as cubs.

After taking the gondola back down we went for a drive in West Vancouver, visiting Lighthouse Park.

Saw some Douglas squirrels, but no bears!

We ended up in a seaside village called Horseshoe Bay where we stopped for a drink.

Dinner was in a local restaurant in Kitsilano called Local Restaurant, where we had nachos and burgers.

Vancouver - Stanley Park

Breakfast was omelette and toast. Weather hot and sunny today again.

We caught buses to Denman Street where we rented bikes for the day.

We cycled round Stanley Park which borders downtown Vancouver. This also has hiking trails across it so we walked a bit too. There's lots of wildlife too, geese, herons, squirrels etc.

A Polish woman was feeding a family of raccoons which seemed happy to come right up to her.

Before handing the bikes back we also cycled along to Canada Place, a cruise terminal and convention centre.

Later we walked the length of Robson Street, the main shopping thoroughfare in the city. There were beanbags laid out in Robson Square which came in handy for a rest.

The buses in Vancouver have cycle racks mounted on the front.

We walked to Chinatown for dinner visiting a traditional Chinese park on the way.

We caught the bus back to Kitsilano and had a drink in the Wings bar.

Vancouver - city tour and football match

We had French toast and apple sauce for breakfast. Hot and sunny all day again.

In the morning we walked into central Vancouver via Kitsilano beach and Granville Island, from where we caught a ferry to downtown.

We walked across town to the old Gastown area, where we had ribs and veggies for lunch, then went to Portside Park.

We had tickets for a Canadian Football match between BC Lions and Toronto Argonauts at the BC Place stadium. This was a great experience, BC Lions won 28 - 23 but it was quite close.

We bought popcorn during the match which came with unlimited refills of the bucket, so that was basically dinner! It was still warm later so we walked back across town to the B&B, stopping in the odd Irish pub on the way.