The 11 day Denali discovery
cruisetour ended in Vancouver city on the morning of 7/7/14. We disembarked,
collected our luggage that has been brought to the Customs hall by the cruise
lines, cleared the Customs and took a taxi to the Hotel. The hotel was Century
Plaza Hotel & Spa, which we have booked earlier through Hotels.com. The hotel was in downtown, close to the market,
shops and restaurants. As the check in
was at 3 pm only, we left the luggage in hotel care and went about exploring
the city of Vancouver. Vancouver city is called officially as city of Vancouver
to distinguish it from the Vancouver Island and incidentally the Vancouver city
is not located in the Vancouver Island. We went first to the Lookout, which was
only at a walking distance from the hotel, to have a bird’s eye-view of the
city. It is located on the top of the office buildings of Harbour centre and
the viewing platform is only 551 ft, above street level, but it gives a good
3600 view of the city and surrounding landscape. The revolving restaurant on its top is
another tourist attraction. Close to the
harbour centre is the waterfront mall, which has a nice food-court. From there we came down to Hastings Street and
took the bus to Stanley Park.
Stanley Park is a sprawling urban park spread over 1000 acres and there
is a rose garden, rock garden, aquarium, totem pole corner besides the sea walk
along the seawall which runs round the park and is 9 km long. There is a hop-on hop-off shuttle service covering
important points of interest besides horse drawn carriage tours. Our interest was in totem poles and so we
made a bee line to that corner called Brockton point. It has a number of poles of different
heights, with different animal figure carvings.
Totem poles are carved out of the trunks of trees by indigenous people of
pacific region of North America and the designs and figures stand for cultural
beliefs, clan lineage, notable legends etc.
But they were not symbols of worship.
The animals represent the belief that one is associated with one of nine
different types of animals in one’s life.
It was good walk from the bus stop to this point and after we walked
back to catch the bus and walk again to the hotel to check in, we had all the
exercise to compensate for the lack of it in the last few days. Our room was in the 27th
floor. It was spacious and had a
kitchenette, with all the gadgets, but there was no plates or bowls and so
could not be made use of. But there was a good conveniences room in the 5th
floor of the hotel, with a coin operated laundrette, free internet facilities,
free Wi-Fi hotspot. We made good use of it as in the ship there was no laundry
and internet connection was quite slow and costly.
We had pre-booked on-line tours
for two days with West Coast Sightseeing. The first one was to Whistler and
Shannon falls. We left on this tour next morning. Whistler is a popular resort town
in Whistler Mountain. Whistler with
Vancouver hosted the winter Olympic games and Para Olympic games of 2010. A platform with Olympic rings is in Whistler Mountain top and in Whistler Plaza in commemoration of the event. The route from Vancouver to Whistler is a
scenic route which is called Sea-to-Sky Highway. It is a winding mountain road
with spectacular ocean, mountain and rain forest views and roaring falls. On the way to Whistler there were halts at
Horseshoe Bay Park, Porteau Cove and Squamish village centre. In the first two
we enjoyed wonderful views of sea and mountain, while in the third of forest
and mountain, a foretaste of things to come at Whistler.
Whistler and the adjoining Blackcomb mountains are popular ski
resorts in winter. We did not spend much
time in the Whistler village. We had our
lunch in the Subway restaurant and made a bee-line to Gondola station. First we
went up to the Whistler Mountain-top in
a gondola. You have the option of reaching the peak through Gondola or through
a chair-lift or else by bike or walk in the respective trails. After a visit to the Roundhouse Lodge at the
top, we made to the Olympic platform for a photo session. As we were taking in the magnificent scenery all
around at the height of 6000 ft. above sea- level, we were joined by another South
Indian family, settled in Seattle U.S. and holidaying in Canada. In their
company we took the peak
On the way back there was a
halt at Shannon falls. With water falling from a height of 1105 ft. from the
ground, it is the third highest fall in British Columbia. As we were tired, we
were content to rest near the base and watch the falls from a distance. We
returned to the hotel at around 6 pm and had our dinner in a nearby Indian restaurant
where the Indian chef, Mani, who is from Tamilnadu, obliged Rajam with a glass
of hot water with pepper and crushed ginger as Rajam had developed mild dry
cough. We had a good rest and carried on so leisurely next morning that we
missed the booked tour to Grouse Mountain and Capilano Bridge and the company
was good enough to offer an alternative tour i.e. Vancouver City and Capilano
Bridge, which started late.
In this tour we had time to explore Stanley Park and its seawall and sea
walk as the coach stopped there for a time before proceeding to the
Bridge. The Capilano Suspension Bridge
is 460 ft. long and 230 ft. above the Capilano River. The walk across shaky bridge is fun but a bit
scary as we swing sideways, sometimes a little violently, when people rush for
a view or a photo. After going to the
other end of the bridge we went on tree-top adventure walk where we wander
through chain of seven suspension bridges 100 ft. above the ground. At the end
of each bridge there is viewing platform around the trunks of the big Douglas fir
trees from where we can view below and around, the sprawling rain forest. After
this walk, we crossed the bridge to take the Cliff walk. This is described as “heart-stopping cliff
side journey” as we walk over suspended walkways jutting out of the granite
cliff above the Capilano River. It is
high and narrow and in some places only the thick glass at our feet alone separates
us from the canyon far below. These two walks, cliff walk and treetop adventure
walk we took as a challenge to test our fitness and as we did them slowly admiring
the view all around, we did not have time to visit the Raptor’s ridge. There is a totem park and also a cafeteria,
which was selling hot samosas besides sandwiches etc. in the bridge park.
After leaving Capilano
Suspension Bridge Park, the coach went round the Chinatown and made a final
stop at Granville Island. Granville Island
is not an island but a peninsula separated by a creek from downtown
Vancouver. It is a busy shopping
district and has a big market. It is
also an art centre with a few galleries. As tour ended by 5’oclock, we took
time to walk around the busy Robson Street.
To our surprise we found a section of the street closed to traffic to
help people watch a street performance. The
next day we left for Sydney by United Airlines, bringing to an end a memorable
tour. I have uploaded photos of Vancouver in the Flickr album “Vancouver”:
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