Ukee, Tofino & Victoria

Our last week in Vancouver and Western Canada was spent with Cass and Pete who, along with Alyssa, came camping with us on "The Island" as the locals say. We packed up our Dodge Caravan, and headed for Ucluelet, a tiny town about 30 minutes south of Tofnio. It's not an easy place to get too, but it's well worth the trip. It was a 2hr ferry ride from Vancouver, then a 4hr drive. Once you get out of Nanaimo, the city in which you dock, it's a beautiful drive. There are huge lakes where you can camp, and do lots of water sports. The whole drive was hot, and sunny, until we entered out campground.

We had to wheelbarrow our stuff to the campsite! It's not as fun as you think.

Apparently, there is something called a 'Fog Zone', which is where Ucluelet and Tofino lie. Everyone was saying how beautiful Tofino is, but they forgot to mention that even in the middle of Summer, it's freezing! We didn't go anywhere without layers. Cass and Alyssa recognised the area in which we were camping as a 'Twilight look-alike' and it turns out, some of the movie was shot in and around the surrounding Tofino area.

We were only there for 3 nights, but it was beautiful. We saw 4 killer whales from our camp site, which was incredible. We went to the beach which you couldn't actually swim in as it was freezing (unless you were one of the crazy locals), made smores, and just hung out. It was the best way to spend out last remaining days in BC.

Enjoying our first beer!

View from our tent 

Panoramic views

 

Enjoying drinks from our beach front Campsite 

Alyssa taught us how to make Smores!

I'm now stepping a little back in time to April when we headed to Victoria, the Capital of British Columbia with Sam and Daniel. We went there for a night, which is actually quite a long way to travel for such a short time. It took about 4-5 hours to get there by public transport, which involved, a bus, a train, a boat and another bus. It was really fun though. It was a smaller town than I expected, but it had old, beautiful buildings. We went to a few breweries, but because of BC's crazy liquor laws, we weren't able to buy beers from the brewery, but we were able to have 'free samples' and fill our growlers. There wasn't that much to do there, just the main touristy things. We walked around downtown, looked at some old buildings but the highlight of the trip was probably going to the Butchart Gardens which isn't actually in Victoria.

The Butchart Gardens were beautiful. It's a year round garden that is open to visitors and has seasonal flowers. When we went, it was tulip season, and I have not ever seen such a wide variety of tulips. They have a Rose Garden, and Japanese Gardens too, which would be beautiful when in season.

Parliament Building in Victoria

Craigdarroch Castle

Tulips, Butchart Gardens

Weeping Heart, Butchart Gardens

Tulips

Butchart Gardens

Pansies, Butchart Gardens

Butchart Gardens

Our Whistler Ski Trip.

We have finally ventured further than an hour of out Vancouver, and I never want to leave. It's official, Canada has stolen my heart. Michael and I, along with Justin (aka. our chauffeur & friend from back home who is now living in Vancouver), headed to Whistler over the weekend and the drive alone is breathtaking. The snow covered mountains surround by the beautiful lakes line the highway and makes the 1 and a half hour drive fly by.

The drive to Whistler

It was a perfect weekend for a ski trip. The mountain opened its Gondolas 2 weeks early, the price was cheaper because of the limited opened slopes, there weren't as many people around and best of all the forecast was sunny! We drove up Saturday morning, hired our gear, rode the Gondola up the mountain for half an hour and by the time we hit the slopes it was about 11am.

Whistler, view from the top of the Gondola.

For those of you who don't know, I'm not much of a skier or boarder. I tried my luck back in 2007 in Switzerland, in the most amazing town ever and failed horribly. So, needless to say I was extremely nervous about giving it another go. I ended up doing 3 runs. I was keen for the family zone, which was explained to us as a nice, green run, perfect for beginners.

What they didn't tell us is that to get to the family zone, you have to go down what felt like a section of a black run due to it's vertical cliff. In reality, it was a pretty steep hill, but for a nervous beginner, not being able to see the space between the top and bottom of the hill wasn't at all appealing. This is where my memories of my previous skiing experience came flooding back. I remember trying to go down hills and loosing control. Falling over, and not being able to get back up, or get my shoe clipped back in mid slope. I remember taking my ski's off and walking down the hill and thinking that I would be stuck on the mountain forever, because there is no way I could ski down to the Gondola.

Michael, geared up and ready to go!

The first run started well. I was slow, Michael and Justin were very patient, and apart from having to side step down 1 section of the run, it was good. I fell over once or twice, got back up and kept on going, slowly. Towards the end I was getting faster and a little more comfortable with the ski's.

Our second run was the exact same run as the first but we kept on going, further down the mountain to the second Gondola stop. Apart from the terrifying hill at the top, this run was great. I was getting really comfortable going down the slopes. I felt comfortable turning, slowing down, when I lost control I didn't stress out, it was great. We got to the bottom of the slope and the boys said I was doing great, I felt great and thought, I should leave it here. I've had a great experience, lets not ruin that, but the boys were like, you're doing great, lets do 1 more run.

View from the top.

Top of the Whistler Gondola, looking to Blackcomb

Lesson of the weekend: Listen to your gut! A new trail opened that afternoon, the Pony run. It was described as one of the easiest green runs on the mountain. It was awful. There were quite a few moguls on the downhill sections.The boys were loving them on their boards, but for me, it was tough to ski on. As I tried to turn, one ski's would go half way up a mogul, my other ski was further down, and all of a sudden I was on the ground. This happened numerous times, and to make things worse I was having real issues getting my foot back in the skis. It was so frustrating. By the end of the run I felt like I had been used as a punching bag. I had stacked it repeatedly. I had fallen on my side, on my butt, on my belly face down the mountain, pretty much every way. My legs were aching because at times my feet weren't releasing from the ski's as I fell which, can get them pretty twisted and sore. All my confidence that I gained by the end of the second run was gone and my memories of disliking skiing were back, more prominent than ever.

More amazing views of Whistler.

Although I had a bad experience on that third run, I still had fun. The second run was great and I really did enjoy giving it another go. The views also made up for every bad moment. It was amazing, being out there in the mountains, it was just so beautiful!

The mountains close around 4 so we headed back to our hotel, got warm and went out for some well deserved beers. The town of Whistler is a really cute ski village. There is a main section that is pedestrian only, and it's a pretty good vibe.

Overall, an amazing trip. I'm glad I skied, I would most likely do it again but other recreational activities such as saunas and outdoor heat tubs and heated pools sound just as amazing!

View from Whistler Village

Small lake, frozen over in the village.

Bottom of the slopes, in Whistler Village.