22nd – 28th May 2017
Flying into Canada from Japan, we managed to achieve time travel of sorts. No DeLoreans or flux capacitors were involved, but thanks to international time zones, our flight actually landed before it took off. As you can imagine, this played absolute havoc with our body clocks, which took a few days to get over.
When we arrived at our hostel in Vancouver, we found our room wasn’t ready. Although all we really wanted was a shower and some sleep, we had no choice but to head out and explore the city.
Vancouver was described by our guide book as “a cool and edgy city that is full of colourful characters”. We’d describe it as a slightly unfriendly place; Vancouverites didn’t come across especially warm and welcoming (although this may have been a hangover from our time in Japan, where everyone was so lovely). It also has a shocking number of homeless people; the worst we had ever seen in a western city, with the possible exception of San Francisco. A local told me the homeless migrate to Vancouver as it has a temperate climate; in the winter, it’s better to be homeless in Vancouver than homeless in Calgary.
Having said all that, Vancouver is certainly not without its plus points. I’ve never been in a city where you can sit at the harbour and see snow capped mountains in the distance. It has a fantastic park in Stanley Park, and lots of bars and pubs to try too, if you have the time and budget (sadly we didn’t get to try many).
As with some of the other cities we had visited, on our first day we did a walking tour of the city to try and get an appreciation of the history and layout of the city. The one we chose had a focus on the history through the Prohibition era, and the bootlegging that took place to ensure the locals could drink when they wanted to. It was a bit different to the normal tours and quite interesting too, with tales of race riots, dodgy politicians and illegal activities (on the subject of illegal activities, something presently illegal in Canada – until mid-2018, at least – is smoking cannabis. However, the police aren’t bothered about anyone doing this as the law is set to change anyway, meaning getting a whiff of weed whilst walking down the street is a very regular occurance).
Over the next couple of days, we walked down to Granville Island, home to a market selling some amazing food, walked along the seawall which lines Stanley Park and took a tour of Roedde House, one of the oldest buildings in Vancouver.
On the 4th day in Vancouver, we picked up our rental car and headed to the port to get the ferry to Vancouver Island. The drive across the island was fantastic; it contained some of the most beautiful scenery we had ever seen in our lives. We were aiming for Tofino, a small town known for its surfing.
Tofino was a lovely seaside town (we had envisaged it was going to be a bit tacky but it wasn’t at all). On the first night, we went out for a meal and a couple of drinks to celebrate our 3 year wedding anniversary. However, we couldn’t drink too much – we would be surfing the next day!
Although we had surfed a fair bit before (most recently in Australia) we felt we needed a bit of a refresher, so booked a proper lesson. The biggest difference between surfing in Canada and Australia? The temperature of the water. It was bloody freezing. Despite having thick wetsuits on, it was quite a shock getting in. Stupidly, I had refused the option of boots (Em wasn’t so silly) and my feet felt like they were going to drop off. However, over time we got used to the cold, we had a good teacher, and managed to stand up quite a few times (to be fair we also wiped out a lot). Our teacher, Kim, tried to get us to do some more advanced stuff like turning the board, and although I did manage to get it to turn once, it was pure luck, and I was so surprised it happened I ended up falling off. See us in action below…
After our totally rad morning at the beach we went to sample some of the local beers, something I know more about than surfing. There are lots of microbreweries in Canada; like the UK, it’s really taken off there so you don’t have to drink Coors Light if you don’t want to! We visited the Tofino Brewing Company.
We only had 2 nights in Tofino (we wished we had stayed more) before we moved on to Victoria, the capital of the state of British Columbia (we were very surprised to find it wasn’t Vancouver). It has been described as the most English of Canadian cities, an accolade that is probably justified; the architecture down by the docks is reminiscent of many English cities.
It was a nice stop, although we are glad we only had one night, as there isn’t too much to see and do. This is probably summed up by the fact that the most memorable moment was when we thought we had lost the iPad (this “moment” lasted a full hour, sent us into total panic, finally ended when we found it in the glove box of the car. Who put it there? Neither of us will admit to it*). On the following day we packed up and headed for the ferry again, and then onwards, to the Rockies.
(Posted by Ben)
*It was almost certainly Emma
Emma & Ben... Far From Home 
