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Okay, here's the next part of the trip report. The bear picture under the cut is slightly fuzzy David says, but I say BEAR!!! who cares? It's a BEAR!
We left Banff with much sniffling at the leaving of the mountains, and although we were lured onwards by the ocean we really didn't want to leave the glaciers. Kelowna was our next stop; the drive to Vancouver would've totalled about 12 hours and we couldn't do it in one go so we picked a point halfway, which Kelowna is, and I chose it for the Stargate associations over Penticton, another possibility. Don't regret that but it wasn't our favourite part of the trip; the hotel was on a busy main road (although opposite a Chapters) and pretty noisy, and we were sharing a single room with the girls (very, very early bedtimes for us as there's only so long you can read, turning the pages quietly and squinting in a low light at the words).
We had one full day there and we spent it going around two vineyards, Mission Hill and Quails Gate. Mission Hill was beautiful and I had a eee moment as we stood in front of a rippled terraced hill of green lawn and I knew I'd seen it before. Because I have a packrat memory when it comes to written material, I took about ten seconds to track it to an article in a Food and Drink magazine (freebie glossy given away in Ontario by the liquor shops). When we got home I looked it up and yes, it was in the summer 2005 issue.
The next day we set off for Vancouver, spending a single night there before catching the ferry to Vancouver Island for the next major part of the holiday.
We hadn't booked the ferry from Horseshoe before we left; I wanted to before we left but D didn't as we weren't sure which one we'd want. We decided to drive from the hotel to the ferry terminal to take a look around, maybe book, and see how long it would take. So we left the hotel at around 5.30.
Big mistake. Huge. We came out of the hotel and were unable to get into the lane we needed, just swept along in the traffic, and ended up soaring over the Lion's Gate Bridge (not for the last time...) and into the one-way system of Stanley Park.
An hour later, after much frantic map reading by me, we arrived at Horseshoe Bay, only to be stopped by a smiling man wanting to know which ferry we wanted. When we explained we were there to book one, he looked astounded, astonished and amused. In fact, he called people over to join in the snickering at the clueless tourists (although they were very sweet about it, just baffled and bemused, to carry on the alphabetical theme). 'You do it on the phone,' he told us kindly. A friend of his came over with a timetable and we were waved away.
Except when we called (a hideous, automated system that took 30 minutes to navigate) all the ferries were booked up, so we had to go from Tsawassen instead, an hour or more drive away. Took us on the prettier route across, but left us in the south of the island and added two hours to our drive to the cottage.
Oh, well.
Temperatures hit record highs that day; the rental car told us it was 38C midway across the island and it wasn't wrong. Cooled off as we went through the mountains though, most of which had snow at the top. Vancouver Island is BIG. I didn't appreciate how big until we took five hours to drive across it. Stunning scenery, lakes, mountains, lush forests... all so very beautiful.
We arrived at the cottage, exhausted but happy, and made a quick pasta meal for tea.
Sat down to eat it in a table by the window, when David choked and said, 'A bear!'. I opened the door carefully, stepped out on the porch and took a picture, being very, very quiet and then we all watched the bear vanish into the woods I'd been planning to walk in after tea after trying and failing to get in the bear-proof refuse bin.
I realise that to some of you, bears are nothing to get excited about. Back in Banff, I listed, wide-eyed, to two elderly American ladies scoff at a shop assistant when she warned them that the trail they were planning to take had been closed due to a black bear sighting that morning. "Honey, we see black bears all the time at home," one said.
"Well, there have been incidents of people being attacked..." she tried to tell them.
"By a black bear? Oh, I don't think so!"
Hah! Even as we spoke, pretty much, a man from the next town over to us in Ontario was fighting off a black bear and killing it, armed with a knife after it attacked his dog and him in the woods. I had a feeling that the shop assistant would have approved of that fate for these two ladies as they were awfully snippy with her. The highlight came when they tried to pay and spent five minutes poking at the assorted change in their hand before she told them that what they were holding up was a quarter, just like the American one, with a wealth of sarcasm in her voice.
Where was I? Bears. Wildlife in general, in fact. You see, we hadn't seen any. Nope. A marmot, some ground squirrels, one mountain goat and two moossesss that only I saw as we were driving. We WANTED wildlife. And there it was.
We saw another bear on our way off the island; walked across the road, causing the car in front of us to brake sharply and ambled into the bushes. VI has 64. I think the island isn't big enough for 64 bears and me.
Of course, we didn't need bear bells. We had Lauren, who managed to accompany every hike with a running monologue as I panted behind her. I can guarantee the bears heard us coming.
There was a hot tub on the patio of the cottage.
What do you call the Davitts in a hot tub? Bear Soup!
Heh, heh.
We left Banff with much sniffling at the leaving of the mountains, and although we were lured onwards by the ocean we really didn't want to leave the glaciers. Kelowna was our next stop; the drive to Vancouver would've totalled about 12 hours and we couldn't do it in one go so we picked a point halfway, which Kelowna is, and I chose it for the Stargate associations over Penticton, another possibility. Don't regret that but it wasn't our favourite part of the trip; the hotel was on a busy main road (although opposite a Chapters) and pretty noisy, and we were sharing a single room with the girls (very, very early bedtimes for us as there's only so long you can read, turning the pages quietly and squinting in a low light at the words).
We had one full day there and we spent it going around two vineyards, Mission Hill and Quails Gate. Mission Hill was beautiful and I had a eee moment as we stood in front of a rippled terraced hill of green lawn and I knew I'd seen it before. Because I have a packrat memory when it comes to written material, I took about ten seconds to track it to an article in a Food and Drink magazine (freebie glossy given away in Ontario by the liquor shops). When we got home I looked it up and yes, it was in the summer 2005 issue.
The next day we set off for Vancouver, spending a single night there before catching the ferry to Vancouver Island for the next major part of the holiday.
We hadn't booked the ferry from Horseshoe before we left; I wanted to before we left but D didn't as we weren't sure which one we'd want. We decided to drive from the hotel to the ferry terminal to take a look around, maybe book, and see how long it would take. So we left the hotel at around 5.30.
Big mistake. Huge. We came out of the hotel and were unable to get into the lane we needed, just swept along in the traffic, and ended up soaring over the Lion's Gate Bridge (not for the last time...) and into the one-way system of Stanley Park.
An hour later, after much frantic map reading by me, we arrived at Horseshoe Bay, only to be stopped by a smiling man wanting to know which ferry we wanted. When we explained we were there to book one, he looked astounded, astonished and amused. In fact, he called people over to join in the snickering at the clueless tourists (although they were very sweet about it, just baffled and bemused, to carry on the alphabetical theme). 'You do it on the phone,' he told us kindly. A friend of his came over with a timetable and we were waved away.
Except when we called (a hideous, automated system that took 30 minutes to navigate) all the ferries were booked up, so we had to go from Tsawassen instead, an hour or more drive away. Took us on the prettier route across, but left us in the south of the island and added two hours to our drive to the cottage.
Oh, well.
Temperatures hit record highs that day; the rental car told us it was 38C midway across the island and it wasn't wrong. Cooled off as we went through the mountains though, most of which had snow at the top. Vancouver Island is BIG. I didn't appreciate how big until we took five hours to drive across it. Stunning scenery, lakes, mountains, lush forests... all so very beautiful.
We arrived at the cottage, exhausted but happy, and made a quick pasta meal for tea.
Sat down to eat it in a table by the window, when David choked and said, 'A bear!'. I opened the door carefully, stepped out on the porch and took a picture, being very, very quiet and then we all watched the bear vanish into the woods I'd been planning to walk in after tea after trying and failing to get in the bear-proof refuse bin.
I realise that to some of you, bears are nothing to get excited about. Back in Banff, I listed, wide-eyed, to two elderly American ladies scoff at a shop assistant when she warned them that the trail they were planning to take had been closed due to a black bear sighting that morning. "Honey, we see black bears all the time at home," one said.
"Well, there have been incidents of people being attacked..." she tried to tell them.
"By a black bear? Oh, I don't think so!"
Hah! Even as we spoke, pretty much, a man from the next town over to us in Ontario was fighting off a black bear and killing it, armed with a knife after it attacked his dog and him in the woods. I had a feeling that the shop assistant would have approved of that fate for these two ladies as they were awfully snippy with her. The highlight came when they tried to pay and spent five minutes poking at the assorted change in their hand before she told them that what they were holding up was a quarter, just like the American one, with a wealth of sarcasm in her voice.
Where was I? Bears. Wildlife in general, in fact. You see, we hadn't seen any. Nope. A marmot, some ground squirrels, one mountain goat and two moossesss that only I saw as we were driving. We WANTED wildlife. And there it was.
We saw another bear on our way off the island; walked across the road, causing the car in front of us to brake sharply and ambled into the bushes. VI has 64. I think the island isn't big enough for 64 bears and me.
Of course, we didn't need bear bells. We had Lauren, who managed to accompany every hike with a running monologue as I panted behind her. I can guarantee the bears heard us coming.
There was a hot tub on the patio of the cottage.
What do you call the Davitts in a hot tub? Bear Soup!
Heh, heh.
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