Millstream Trail

A couple of miles north of where I live in West Vancouver I discovered the Millstream Trail. It's not a long trail, but does go through a really great wooded area. Furthermore, the walk to the trail was awesome, but for completely different reasons. Finally, to top it off, the trail comes out at a great spot overlooking the whole of Vancouver! But let's start at the beginning; about 2 walking minutes north of my place is Highway 1, and just beyond it is the neighbourhood known as "British Properties"

The houses in this residential area are just amazing. If I had mountains of cash and wanted to move to Canada on a permanent basis, I'd want to live here for sure!

Not only are the houses awesome, but the view of Vancouver you would have from your window is staggering! I doubt it would ever get boring.

So, after an hour of admiring the homes of Vancouver's ridiculously rich I came to the trail in question. In case you want to know, the trail starts at the intersection of Millstream Road and Eyremount Drive.

The trail begins to the right of this signpost, just beyond the house you can see in the background.

A few days before I took this walk there had been a lot of snow, and the trail was still covered in it. Also, the streams were partly frozen. I'm glad I chose a warm day to do this one.

I was actually pleased when I read the warning sign for the trail. The line "This property is presently an undeveloped wilderness in its natural state" was exactly what I wanted. I just hope areas like this stay the way they are.

That said, I was a little dismayed when I came across an obstacle to my journey. I called this obstacle "The Fail Bridge". The bridge across a small stream had collapsed and been taped off.

However, this did not stop me, and I found a way across the stream a few metres up from the bridge. Fail bridge failed again, ha! So I continued on the trail and was happy to find that the other bridges had not gone the same way as the first.

As mentioned before the trail ended at a great little spot overlooking Vancouver called the "Hi-view Lookout". The view was amazing, and you could see for miles and miles!

In this pic (from top to bottom) is the sky, Vancouver, Downtown Vancouver, Stanley Park, the Burrard Inlet, West Vancouver and some trees. You can also see Vancouver Island from this point, but the sun was in that direction, and I doubt any photos would have come out very well even if it hadn't been.

So after some time admiring the view I set off back along the trail and home, where I ate straight away as I stupidly didn't think to pack a lunch and was rather peckish by the time I got back.

Rogers Plus

I should probably mention that I left the Safeway meat wrapping job, and am currently working at a "Rogers Plus" video rental store. It's much more my scene, and also much closer to where I live. Furthermore, I'm getting better pay and more hours!

Also, to top it off I can get 2 free rentals a day, which trumps the 10 a week I got at Blockbuster. Win!

West Vancouver Seawall

Today I went for a stroll along the "West Vancouver Seawall". It was late afternoon, and the sun was beginning to creep towards the horizon. This and the looming clouds gave me some pretty good pics in my opinion.

The walk isn't particularly long (10 blocks), so leaving late wasn't a problem. I knew what time it was due to this being at the start of the walk.

A few minutes in and I stopped at a pier, and met Bob. He also seemed to be enjoying the view.

At another pier and I meet Bob's bro Terry.

At the end of the walk I was surprised to find this interesting feature. It is simply entitled "German Friendship Globe".

However, the most surprising thing about this is that the globe is slowly rotating! Very cool.

As usual you can view more photos by following the associated pics link on the right.

Totem Poles, Snowshoeing & Xmas

Sorry for being so lazy about updating this blog, it's been a crazy few weeks.

Anyway, before Christmas I made another visit to Stanley Park to finally see the infamous totem poles.

It was approaching dusk, and the sunset was awesome. I got to see a few other features as well, such as this sculpture...

and this dragon ...

The walk gave me a pretty amazing view of North Vancouver, which was amplified by the sunset, and the snow on the mountains beyond the city.

A few days after this I went up Grouse Mountain again with Liz from Safeway. This time it was at night, and showshoeing was the order of the day! This was a lot of fun as it had been snowing heavily for a couple of days beforehand, so the coverage and texture was perfect! Going up hill was fine, but downhill was quite tricky, and half the time I was sliding on my ass. However, the snowshoes helped with this.

Unfortunately this was the only half decent photo I was able to take. This was mainly because it was very dark, and partly because I was busy making sure I didn't fall down cliff or something.

On Christmas Day I went out for a dinner with a few SWAP participants.

We enjoyed a meal and plenty of booze at the Beaver Restaurant and Bar under the Samesun Backpackers Hostel in Downtown Vancouver. It was great fun!

Well that's it for now, and I'll try to post updates more regularly from now on. However, if you get impatient you can hear about my day to day exploits by checking out my twitter page. If you don't know what twitter is, it's basically a bit like facebook status updates. And if you don't know what facebook is, then check out this interesting video description of twitter here. Furthermore, when I post any blog updates (either to this blog, or my personal blog) they will be automatically referenced in my twitter feed with a link to the post. Well, until next time!

Grouse Mountain

Recently two work colleagues from Safeway and myself went up the "Grouse Grind". This is basically a steep path up to the resort near the top of Grouse Mountain; one of Vancouver's local peaks.

Even though the path is very steep, it isn't overly long. We completed the ascent in about 90 minutes. However, the record is something like 25 minutes!

So you know how you're progressing there are markers at quarter intervals.

Once we finally reached the top we sat down and had a coffee (don't get to do that when going up mountains usually), and then took a stroll around the top. There was plenty of snow around, which gave the place an almost enchanting feel. However, the most exciting thing was the bears, and thanks to an electric fence between us we could get pretty damned close! Then there were the reindeer, not as exciting, but still a first for me.

After watching some Christmas singers in the resort we took the aerial tramway back down to base of the mountain. On the way down we were treated to a spectacular view of Vancouver.

And finally, what you've all been waiting for, the video. Be careful, it's a long one!

Ice Hockey

Last week I went on a SWAP organised event to see an ice hockey match. The "Vancouver Giants" were playing the "Chilliwack Bruins".

However, getting to the stadium became a bit of a mission. This is because the bus we needed to get to the stadium was completely full 3 times in a row. At this point we tried a different bus at a different bus stop and succeeded. However, there was a guy (who I'm pretty sure was on weed) that I sat next to who suddenly, and without warning decided to tell everyone to have a "happy happy day", and then started to sing "If you're happy and you know it, clap your hands". Weird!

Anyway, we finally arrived, and had only missed a few minutes of the start of the match in which 'The Giants' had scored a goal. The game was good, but the constant deluge of advertisements at every possible opportunity can get a little annoying. However, the beer helped!

From watching a couple of matches on TV I was expecting far more violence than there was in this game. I know, I shouldn't want more violence, but I do, I'm only human! Well, the final score was Giants 4, Bruins 1. It seemed very one sided, Vancouver rocks!

After we all left the stadium we had to wait for a bus, which took a while at that time of night, but we did have a laugh.

And here is the video, enjoy!

P.S. You may have noticed a new section on the right hand side of this page entitled "Vids & Pics". This is available wherever you are on my blog, and provides links to the vimeo video album, and each photo album that I've uploaded to facebook. These photo albums contain all the photos that I take (including those not added to the blog) and are of a higher quality than the blog pics.

Beaver Lake

The other day I was going to visit horseshoe bay, but I missed my bus and didn't really have time to get the next one as I was going to an ice hockey game that evening (more about that in the next post). Anyway, I decided that it was too nice a day to waste it, so I made my second venture over to Stanley Park.

Last time I voyaged over there I hadn't really planned it, so there were features that I missed which I wanted to see this time round; the main one being Beaver Lake. After ambling around the general area of it's location (I hadn't brought a map with me), I finally found it.

It was getting fairly late in the day and the sun had started to set. This meant that the lake came across as being rather eerie. This was exacerbated by the fact that there was hardly anyone around at the time. I quite like the atmosphere of the photos that I took.

I then headed south through Stanley Park towards Vancouver's Downtown area where I was to meet the SWAP group for the ice hockey, and came across a statue of the park's namesake and an awesome view of the dusk cityscape.

"To the use and enjoyment of peoples of all colours, creeds, and customs, for all time, I name thee Stanley Park."
Lord Stanley, Governor General, October 1889