Vancouver Island: Butchart Gardens & Hatley Castle

We decided to explore Vancouver Island by way of joining a local 2D1N tour. Our tour bus driver after picking up all the tour members, drove straight to the Ferry Terminal at Tsawwassen. Once the loading process of all vehicles into the ferry was completed, all passengers disembarked from the vehicles. We had a simple snack at the ferry restaurant before we chose a comfortable spot in the indoor lounges to relax. When confronted with pleasant sea view, we moved out to the balconies to enjoy the scenery. The 1 hour 35 minutes journey across the Strait of Georgia was quite a pleasant experience. The ferry finally berthed at Swartz Bay Terminal of Vancouver Island and after unloading, we proceeded straight to the first destination - the Butchard Gardens.

Almost everyone who comes to visit Vancouver would make a stop at Butchart Gardens. Every year, a million visitors come to see this Gardens.

Butchart Gardens has a history dating back to the early 1900's. In 1904, Robert Pim Butchart first set up a limestone quarry and built a cement factory at the current garden site. When limestone was exhausted, his wife Jennie began to create something of beauty out of the massive dug pit. She organised the pit to be filled up and eventually the quarry was turned into the now famous Sunken Gardens.

The Gardens was later on given to the grandson, Ian Ross during the latter 21st birthday. For 50 years, Ian was deeply involved in the upgrading and improvement of the Gardens. He introduced outdoor symphony concerts and a variety of stage show. Ian died in 1997.

Ian's son, Christopher, a gifted dancer added new features to the Gardens. He designed, produced and executed firework shows choreographed to music. This tradition is maintained and kept to this days.

In 2009, the current owner, Robin-Lee Clarke, great granddaughter of Jennie Butchart continued the good works of her ancestors. One of her contributions is the Children's Pavilion in the Gardens.

 

 

 

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The next day, we went straight to Hatley Castle after breakfast. Hatley castle was built in early 1900's by the Lieutenant Governor of British Columbia, a Scotsman, James Dunsmuir and his wife Laura as their family mansion. The castle was occupied by the family and James' descendants until the death of Laura in 1936. It was then sold to the Canadian Government in 1939. The Canadian Government had since then sold off portions of the land. Beginning 1995, the property has become the premise for the Royal Roads University. By then the Castle has been accredited as a Classified Federal Heritage Building. It is simultaneously being used as the University administration building. Because of its current usage, we were only able to appreciate the castle from the outside.

Capilano Suspension Bridge, Vancouver

Our One-Day Tour of Vancouver with a local tour company on 16 August 2017 covered two major attractions - The Stanley Park and The Capilano Suspension Bridge.

Capilano Suspension Bridge is just 8.5Km from Vancouver City Centre. Not surprisingly, it attracts close to a million visitors annually.

Our tour guide who didn't join us for the park visit (because of entrance fee and his frequent stops at this attraction) kept reminding us not to miss three of the attractions - the Suspension Bridge, Treetops Adventures and the Cliff walk. We did all of them.

Crowd that day was huge but not excessive. Occasionally, we had to slow down to wait for older folks who moved at slower pace and families with young children. 

The experience of crossing the Suspension Bridge has some similarities to our visit to Poring Hot Spring, Ranau. But crossing Capilano Suspension Bridge is by far more adrenaline provoking because it is 140m long and suspended 70m above the river below.

We did the Treetops Adventures immediately after crossing the suspension bridge. This attraction consists of seven footbridges suspended between old Douglas Fir Trees forming a continuous walkway erected 30m above the forest floor. This is mild compared to our Poring Hot Spring Treetop Walk.

Our last station was the Cliff Walk. I was quite fascinated by the anchoring system used to suspend the boardwalk next to the shear cliff.  As far as the walk, my only "complaint" is that the walk was rather short! A much longer boardwalk would have provided a more thrilling experience!

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Hunting Birds at the Raptor Corner.

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Cliff Walk

Anchoring system to suspend the boardwalk.

Trees commonly found in this area.

Ski Mountains, Vancouver

During winter, many ski enthusiasts come to ski and snowboard in many of the skiing sites in Canada. At the time we were in Canada which was early Autumn, skiing season has yet to start. Still, that did not deter us from visiting some of these ski mountains and resorts around Vancouver.

The Lo family took us to a few skiing sites so that we could see first hand what these ski mountains are like. In Mt Seymour, the gondolas were totally shut down but hikers could still come to trek the mountain and enjoy some of the spectacular views.

Seymour Mountain

Mt Seymour.

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Cypress Mountain
Cypress Mountain was all quiet when we dropped by to have a look. Still we saw a few cyclists who love the challenge of cycling in hilly terrain.

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Grouse Mountain

Grouse Mountain is popular all year round because there are quite a variety of things to see and do. The mountain is also a wild life refuge. 

We took the skyride from the Valley Station to the Alphine Station next to the Peak Chalet. Along the 8-minute ride, our gondola moved slowly upward and dangled above the vast track of pristine wilderness on the mountainside. At the far end of the horizon, we saw the Pacific Ocean, inlets and bays and the man-made dam. Spectacular view indeed!

Bird show.

Grizzly Bear.

Paragliding starts from Grouse Mountain Peak and 
descending 3,300 ft and eventually lands at Cleverland Park..

Driving to Rockies in Canada

Whenever I met friends who came back from Vancouver or Toronto, the usual question posed to me was: "When are you coming to Canada?". My usual quick response would be: "Soon!". But over time, they were less enthusiastic about asking but instead added: "We won't be asking because we know the answer!".

That prompted me to seriously consider planning for a one-time grand tour of Canada. I would do a tour that would silence and appease all the doubters!

A 4-week tour was planned and we finally landed at YVR, short for Vancouver International Airport at 10.45am local time on 14 August 2017. That was also our first time flying in China Southern Airlines. Besides its much lower fare, the flight's only transit point was attractive to me because I dislike multiple stops along the way. The flight from KK to Vancouver has just one stop in Guangzhou. Its only drawbacks are the wee hours departure time of 3.30am in KK and a transit of 7 hours in Guangzhou.

After spending a week in Vancouver, we picked up our rented car from YVR and started our driving tour to the Rockies - our primary place of interest.

Since that was my first experience in driving a left-hand drive vehicle, I took extra care to avoid any mishap especially in the initial period of driving. In fact, I had been warned earlier that it may take a bit of practice to get use to driving on the right side of the road rather than the left side which I am used to all my life. In the end, I did well and the car was returned in one piece without any bump or scratch!

From Vancouver to Edmonton, we had overnight stops at Hope, Kamloops, Rivelstoke, Banff, Jasper and finally in Edmonton.

Route through the Rockies from Vancouver to Edmonton.

After Coffee Break on the way from 
Vancouver to Hope.

Coffee Break near Rogers Pass to Lake Louise.

We returned the rented car at Edmonton Airport and took a direct flight thereafter to Toronto by Air Canada.

In Toronto, we didn't rent a car but instead moved around in the city by using public transport - the subway and the public bus.

We also joined two pre-booked tours in Toronto - a One-Day Tour to the Niagara Falls and another 3-Day Tour to Montreal, Quebec, Thousand Islands and Ottawa.

3-Day Tour to Montreal, Quebec and Ottawa from Toronto.

P/S We did learn a lesson about booking air travel with multiple stops. We had to pay CAN$25 (RM87) for each luggage from Edmonton to Toronto by Air Canada simply because we booked the flight KK-Canada and return sector separately from the Edmonton-Toronto sector. Had we booked the whole flight in one single booking through "Google Flight" website under the multiple stops, we would have enjoyed free 2x30Kg luggage for each passenger throughout!