On our way to Whistler there had been a major car crash and we had to overnight in the middle of nowhere, well somewhere near Lilloet and Seton Lake. Whistler was wet and very commercial, much more than the last time we visited with the boys in 2001. We then crossed the water over to Vancouver Island. Wow what a beautiful place. After our trip across some fantastic places and scenery here in Canada the weather and the island itself have made it a real pleasure to spend time here. The climate on the island is very temperate the temps got up to 30*C. On the island we stayed at a few campsites the nicest one was called Jinglepot in Nanaimo. The island has some beautiful places, we visited Cathedral Cove with 800+ year old red woods, Little Qualicum Falls, Ucluelet with its wild Pacific shoreline (we stood on the other side of the Pacific diagonally facing this point in New Zealand), beaches where we collected Sea Dollars from the shoreline at Qualicum Beach (I'm smuggling these back home), Victoria with its lively arts scene music on every corner great fish and chips and an interesting self guided city history walk/ tour courtesy of my guide Sarah, finally the Pacific Marine Drive along the south coast including Port Renfrew (Botany Beach, Botanical Beach), Otter Point, French Beach and Sooke.
Wild Beaches
We have added to the list of animals we have seen; -
Top of the list was a breeding pair of bald eagles, Sarah spotted the male caching a fish in the sea just off shore, Brown Otter and California seals (lots of them), No whales though (unfortunately).
Pair of Bald Eagles just off the coast near Sooke (we know the picture isn't the best)
Over to Vancouver and I went out to take some photos of Lions Gate Bridge and the city skyline. On the way back across the bridge I passed a guy climbing over the edge. Unsure if he was a jumper, it's about a 300 foot drop to the sea below, or whether he was going to do some adrenalin thing I'm not sure anyway when I got to the bridge control office the officer was calling the police so I didn't hang about to see what happened but no jumper was reported the next day.
Lions Gate Bridge at dusk
Vancouver skyline
Granville Island is another arts area we spent time walking around in the morning, visited Costco for a cheap lunch come tea and spent a time walking around Stanley Park. While looking at the totem poles in the park a First Nations family started talking to us about one of the exhibits which had just been erected by a member of there family.
Sunday morning we took the greyhound bus to Seattle. Then visited the famous Pike Place Market with beautiful flower stalls ($10 for enormous bouquets), the fish stalls provided entertainment as they sold by throwing fresh fish out to the vast number of customers watching and once again loads of street entertainment.
Pike Place Market - Seattle
Dave in a water fountain - very wet when he got out!
Yuk! But interesting an alley next to Pike Place Market. Everything on the walls is used chewing gum.....
We saw another one of those circular rainbows in the sky above Seattle. That's two now!
OK nearly done, we flew over to JFK then drove to Cape Cod and after a couple of nights on to Boston, that's where we are now. Cape Cod, quintessential New Engalnd shaker homes. This little spit of land is the first place the pilgrim fathers touched down in the New World before moving further up the cost to Plymouth.
Shaker Customs house in Cape Cod
Boston today we walked the Freedom Trail through the city seeing some of the original 1600's buildings and finding out about the American founding fathers. I think the most interesting one was the Old Corner Bookstore now a Chipotle Mexican Grill, formerly Dr. Thomas Crease House, 1718, is notable as the launch pad for publishing in the Americas. Set on the corner of School and Washington Street this Anglo Dutch-styled colonial building sits on the site which was originally Anne Hutchinson's home. It was destroyed in the fire of 1711, and rebuilt by its owner Dr. Thomas Crease. In 1829, Timothy Harrington Carter converted the building to house seven presses, and went about printing and selling books. In the 1840's, the team of William Ticknor and James Fields established the royalty system, which for the first time bound authors to publishers, and rewarded them both a signing fee and a ten percent portion of sales. The greatest writers of the era including Charles Dickens and William Thackeray, Henry David Thoreau, Harriet Beecher Stowe, and Nathanial Hawthorne established Ticknor & Fields as a leading book publisher. Around this time other American & British publishers pirated the works of those authors.
Origional Publishing Royalty Building
Massachusetts State House circa 1800
Tomorrow we start our final 6 days before returning back to the UK for 2 weeks and then Europe. So these last few days in the U.S. are going to be spent in Acadia National Park. So we'll be back in touch just before we get home.
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