Canada - Day 1 (Vancouver)

This entry is brought to you from 40,000 feet somewhere over Idaho…

We started our official exploration of Vancouver the best way possible – on bikes. And started with the most obvious destination – Stanley Park (just up the road from Frank’s place).This was our first taste of Canadian forest, with its massive trees, dark, mossy interior and the occasional squirrel. Ryan and Frank also spotted an otter scampering across the rocks into the sea.

Totem poles in Stanley Park

Bike path around the park

We extended the ride by continuing along False Creek. It was fun to see all the other people out riding, walking, running and rollerblading, and the whole waterfront precinct was beautiful.

Obligatory photos with the "laughing" statues out the front of Frank's place (we watched people do this all day from the 14th floor)(and couldn't help ourselves)

After lunch, Frank took us for “Frank’s official driving tour of Vancouver – Part 1: Northside”. We stopped at the base of Grouse Mountain (one of the peaks overlooking the city), but elected not to take the (moderately expensive) gondola to the top, instead hatching a cunning plan to come back and hike the trail up. We also saw the Cleveland Dam and drove up Cypress mountain (enjoying the view back over the city on the way up).

Snowcaps in the distance over Cleveland Dam

View from the dam wall

View over Vancouver from partway up Cypress Mountain (the greenery at the right-hand side of the bridge is Stanley Park)

From there, we dropped into Horseshoe Bay (where the ferry departs for Vancouver Island) and followed the coast back to Whytecliff Park, with a final stop at a small rocky outcrop set at the bottom of a pretty little street that Frank had discovered by accident, but has become one of his favourite stops. From there we enjoyed views of the big container ships coming in and out of the bay.

Vantage point in Whytecliff Park

And the track to get there

Watching the ships from Frank's secret spot

After all that driving, we were planning on rewarding ourselves with a world-famous Stanley Park chocolate milkshake (well – Craig had one there once and said it was the best he had ever tasted)(it has now become a thing of legend). I guess his claim will have to remain unchallenged, because (much to our thirsty disappointment), the café there no longer sold them. We settled instead for ice-cream and coffee (no prizes for guessing who got which).

The view we could have been enjoying over chocolate milkshakes...

Sunset from Frank's place

Dusk (taken about 10.30pm)

Canada - Day 0 (the travel day - doesn't really count)

So I’m currently sitting in Calgary airport and I’ve decided that instead of wasting time waiting for our plane, this would be the perfect opportunity to finally update the blog (although it probably won’t get posted just yet). You’ll have to forgive me for not posting anything sooner, but I’ve been too busy having fun :-)

Canada has been awesome. I’m officially in love with the snowcapped Canadian Rockies. And chipmunks. And possibly also brewed Canadian coffee topped up with cream.

Not much to say about the first day. Our flight from Melbourne was delayed after they had to offload us all to fix the electrics on the plane (pretty much turned it off and turned it on again), so we missed our connecting flight from LA to Vancouver and got to enjoy the wonderful LAX airport a few hours more than is necessary (actually, any hours are more than is necessary)(that place is dreadful).

In happy contrast, Frank’s place in Vancouver was AMAZING with its 14th floor panoramic views of English Bay (as all the Clements who have made the Vancouver pilgrimage well know)(seems to be a Clement rite of passage). We went for a stroll along the waterfront and enjoyed the changing light from 14 floors up as the sun eventually set over the bay (with the realization that the sun doesn't set until about 9.30pm - means lots of long days for adventures to come).

Proof we made it

The waterfront

The view by day...

And by night

Bright Lights of Launceston

Admittedly I haven't been in Tassie much but one night I was here and Kristenne was at work so I thought I would go see what is happening at night. No aurora but the lights were on.

Winterbrook Falls and Black Bluff

A perfect blue-sky autumn day (Tassie perfect - as in not cloudy or raining but still freezing cold...) inspired us to take a trip back to Winterbrook Falls and complete the hike we never quite started a couple of weeks ago (after driving most of the way, finding the last bit of road closed, walking a kilometre into the trailhead and then discovering that we didn't have enough daylight to walk the track itself...)

The walk-in to the falls is along an old tramway through proper Tasmanian rainforest (giant trees. lush green and everything covered with a million different kinds of moss). There were remnants of the tramway still to be seen (with a bit of imagination in some places) as well as a profusion of colourful toadstools and fungi necessitating lots of camera stops.

The track eventually left the tramway and climbed steeply beside a (very audible but pretty much invisible) rushing creek until finally breaking out of the rainforest to a vista of the falls themselves plummeting down off the bluff.

Ten minutes more of walking had us back in the forest and to the foot of the falls. 

I'm pretty sure this look means "I want to go that way" ie back to the car...

This was where I realized that after lugging my tripod the whole way, I had neglected to bring the bit that actually attaches it to the camera. So much for those long-exposure rainforest creek shots…

So Ryan saves the day by proving that a rock can do just as good a job as any fancy-pants tripod.

Having seen how tantalizingly close the bluff appeared to be, we decided to take the optional side-track to the top of Black Bluff. This was steeeep (I am sensing a theme with Tassie walks...). The trail took us up through the “Eye of the Needle” – a narrow gap between a couple of massive boulders (marked by a helpful sign reading “Behold – the Eye of the Needle), and onto the plateau itself. 

Once up on the bluff, we started to see patches of snow and then actually managed to be briefly snowed on by a passing cloud that left blue skies in its wake. 

This is Ryan being snowed on (or snowed at to be more precise). Let the record show that he actually appears to be enjoying himself.

This is the snow on its way off the other side of the bluff

We battled up the final climb in howling wind to briefly stop at the ice-covered trig and snap a couple of shots of the amazing view before hurrying back down again.

We headed back on the slightly longer Maxwell’s track, which was a lot more well-defined and a lot less steep than the tramway track (eventually becoming something that was almost recognizable as a fire trail). This ended in a couple of km’s of actual firetrail and a bit of a slog back to the car.

All up, almost 16km of walking and 1300m of climbing. 

Tassie take two

Well – so much for chronicling our Tassie adventures…

We have managed to travel around a bit and see some stuff, just lacking the motivation/time/feeling in my fingers (cold joke) to update the blog. So let me rectify that by giving you a brief(ish) summary of some of the places we've been.

Ben Lomond

Our number one tip for Ben Lomond is not to waste the $24 park entry fee driving to the top on a day when the peak is in cloud. Not only will you completely fail to see any of the spectacular scenery, you may also be woefully unprepared for the miserable conditions and will have to listen to your husband bitterly complain about his frostbitten ears after you make him go walking anyway so as to not totally waste your money. Just saying…  

Same goes for Cradle Mountain. I'm pretty sure it's in this photo??

Quamby Bluff

So blue-sky days mean visiting high places - and we took advantage of the nice weather on this day by finding a random peak to climb close to home. 

Quamby Bluff turned out to be a pretty cool (albeit steep) walk with lots of varied terrain from open forest and farmland to dense rainforest to boulder-hopping up scree slopes to the low scrub of the bluff itself.

(Ryan is actually on the track in both these shots...)

The views from the top more than made up for the effort. 

And then, to top it off, we encountered this little fella on the way back down who was quite content to snuffle for ants just a metre or so away from where we were standing.

.

Gunn’s Plains Cave and Leven Canyon

This trip was built on a vague plan to string together visits to a couple of interesting-sounding places picked at random off the map. Gunn's Plains Cave is a bit further afield than the more popular Mole Creek Caves and was surprisingly good (once we overcame our initial doubt about finding the place apparently deserted)(the guide was down in the cave with a group at the time). We got our own personal tour (complete with an hour's worth of Dad jokes)(although I do approve of comparing the shawl formations to streaky bacon)(mmmm...bacon). The formations were abundant and spectacular and we would definitely recommend this tour.

We followed the cave tour by a visit to nearby Leven Canyon. A short walk out to a couple of viewing platforms yielded some good views up and down the canyon. 

We also did another walk into the canyon floor which culminated at “Devil’s Elbow” which (we think) marked the junction of couple of rivers into the canyon. This walk took in a short section of the 5-day “Penguin to Cradle” hiking trail and was pretty steep and rough.

(I know this doesn't look that bad, but everything AFTER the bridge was steep and rough...)

Woolmer’s Estate

The forecast for the day was cloud and rain, so we settled on an indoor-ish visit to a historic property near Longford. Although the weather forecast didn't prove entirely accurate (see the blue skies in the pictures below) the tour was actually pretty interesting. There were an abundance of outbuildings to look through, complete with a lot of their original equipment (including an impressive double-storey shearing shed). We forked out a bit extra for a guided tour of the homestead itself, and I would definitely recommend it. The house was crammed full of its original furniture and was a fascinating (albeit slightly creepy) look at how (wealthy) people lived in the early 1900’s.

Greetings from Tassie

So I thought I better start chronicling some of the places I've visited in Tassie (if you're not up to speed - I've moved to Launceston, I'm temporarily husband-less and I've got a whole lot more free time on my hands). Anyone want to buy a nice house in West Pennant Hills???

One of my bosses today told me that Tassie has two seasons - February and the rest of the year. This does not bode well for the sun-loving Ryan, who missed a cracker of a weekend (and what may well have been one of the last days for the year where the temperature actually exceeds 30 degrees). 

I decided to spend Sunday checking out Liffey Falls after reading somewhere that they are touted as one of the prettiest waterfalls in Tasmania. I also specifically chose to go on a hot, sunny day after I visited Lilydale Falls the weekend prior when it was wet and raining and got covered in leeches (well, covered might be a slight exaggeration, but I did get four on my boots and spent the whole of the car trip home stressing about whether a undiscovered leech would be content to suck on the first bit of leg it encountered or if bodily orifices would be more attractive). At least I got some nice photos:

Anyway, Liffey Falls. My initial plan was to drive to the picnic area at the bottom and walk the long track back up to the falls, but I don't seem to be having much luck with the roads here and ended up somehow at the top. Still not quite sure how that happened?

The falls themselves were indeed quite pretty. The bright, sunny day probably wasn't the best for taking excellent water photos, but at least I remained leech-less.

From the falls, it was about 4km to the lower picnic area, and this was quite a pleasant walk directly alongside the creek. It did start getting a bit hot for the walk back up again though, and my wildlife concerns shifted from one black, wriggly creature to another after I came awfully close to a black snake sunning itself on one of the sections of boardwalk (no photos of that one 'cos he hightailed it in one direction while I took off in the other).

I revisited the falls on the way back up and managed some better photos without the hoard of other sight-seers who had been there initially.

I also somehow managed to drive home a different way than what I intended. There was nothing for it but to console myself with gelato along the way :-)