After a sad farewell to mum and dad in Silver Star we finished packing up our lives to squeeze into a car, then a short plane and another car for our final 10 days in Canada. One thing we totally underestimated was car rentals – I didn’t really budget for them and we ended up needing cars – often big ones to fit all the stuff and then getting scr&*ed by insurance costs. Anyhow having a car in Vancouver was a must, we stayed in a lovely Airbnb close to the centre of town, managed to buy a few things for our trip to Latin America – firstly bye bye suitcases hello backpacks. Slightly upgraded versions to 20 years ago when I was backpacking south America but totally more practical than the massive suitcases.
On the Sunday we met up with Simon, Ella and Mia thanks to Dan in Sydney putting us in contact. Simon and his girls went out of their way to show us the best bits of Vancouver in a day! The science centre (the boys loved it!), Granville Island for lunch, Stanley Park in the afternoon, back to their house where they dug out an old bike so archie could spend a few hours riding the pavements and lanes as all he has spoken about recently is riding his bike! In the evening we went to the Cactus club on the water with a few more of their friends, the kids outnumbered the adults and the boys had a great time playing and running about. Thank you Simon – we hope to see you again one day!
The Monday morning was a early start for me to get across to the other side of the city to sit an exam I had kind of been preparing for our the season – Privacy Management. Felt strange going to the exam centre, I was searched and checked more thoroughly than any exam I have taken – luckily 3 hours later I finished and also passed yipppeee. Then we headed to the Ferry Terminal to take us across to Vancouver Island and meet up with Kelly, Andy, Ella and George. It was a beautiful ferry ride through the smaller islands to get to Victoria, reminded us a lot of the south island of New Zealand. We found the Yate’s and headed to our Airbnb for wine, catch ups and a curry from Tim.
The following day we explored Victoria, the castle (?! – more like a stately home), the botanical gardens and the portside town for ice cream. We met Andy’s cousin in the evening for dinner too. The following day was challenging as it was Burning Man ticket sale day – this is the bucket list event we are going to for Tim’s birthday in August. After 3 hours of trying on 4 devices, getting through but getting chucked off the ticket site we weren’t successful. How ever we are still going just got to pray to the ticket fairies. We had an amazing drive to Parksville and checked into another Airbnb, this one close to the beach.
The weather was raining and cold – not right for whale watching! So we went to Cathedral Grove to see the 500 year old trees – HUGE!! The following day the weather was beautiful so Kelly, Andy, Ella, Dexter and Archie got dressed up into the waterproof gear and set off on a little boat. They saw loads of cool wildlife – seals, sea lions, sea otters and more but alas no whales. They did get a lifetime guarantee to keep going out with the whale watching company until they did spot them though! That evening we were on a ferry back to the mainland and up to Whistler.
Whistler – WOW what a different mountain to Silver Star, you can see why it’s so popular! We stayed at Deb’s house (Andy’s sister) who kindly moved out (!) to let us in. The resort was in between seasons, last few weeks of winter and spring kicking in. We managed walks, pub lunches and watching some amazing big air competitions. We will certainly be back Whistler – summer or winter (or both!) We left Whistler a lot lighter as we had sent 13 bags of winter ‘stuff’ via sea back to Sydney – no we were down to a bag each!
We flew to LA to the ever hospitable Dinesh and Nicky, had a few days with them to repack with the summer stuff we had sent to their house, see the awesome gift we had bought them arrive (lifesize cushions of all the dogs and Susan the squirrel) yummy food and then we were back to the airport to fly to MEXICO CITY.
I should mention home schooling on hold for Easter – I will write about how we are going in a future blog. Tim’s shoulder is healing well. The boys have enjoyed hanging out with other people although the constantly moving every few days is challenging for Archie in particular. There will be a future blog on hints and tips (and what not to do) when travelling with 6 and 8 year old super active boys…..
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