Vancouver Island: Victoria, Bug Zoo, Butchart Gardens, Butterfly Gardens

To Vancouver Island (via ferry from Tsawassen to Swartz Bay)!

Literally the last car on the ferry :)  Car loading is very organised and efficient.  Ferry is very comfortable, had a cafe, sun deck, and a small kids play area.

Good views on the ride to the island

The Victoria bug zoo is tiny, looks really amateur, but is surprisingly awesome.  I held a tarantula, a giant hissing cockroach, a scorpion, and a huge millipede!

Victoria reminded me a little of Hobart

Butchart gardens is a major (if not the biggest) tourist drawcard for Vancouver Island.  It's huge and beautiful, you could easily spend a whole day there.

Before (a spent quarry)

After (a multi-million dollar tourist magnet).  Note the cliff on the right now covered in plants.

After Butchart we hit up the Victoria Butterfly Gardens.  Not bad, but I've seen much better at Cairns (which has the advantage of being in the tropics).  They import all/most of their butterflies from Costa Rica, which somehow seems more depressing than a butterfly farm where they are grown on-site.

E liked the flamingoes more than anything else :)

An Atlas moth caterpillar .  We didn't get a decent photo of the adult moth but they are massive, largest in the world!

Vancouver: Depressing Gastown

We loved lots of things about Vancouver, but Gastown wasn't one of them.  We had a few hours to spare and spent them there to our regret.  It's a tourist trap right next to the cruise ship terminal.  There's nothing interesting to see except a bunch of tacky merchandise shops, some ordinary or overpriced restaurants, and this steam clock.  Despite giant ship-loads of tourists disgorging right next door, it's obviously struggling as a tourist destination since there are quite a few boarded up shops (currently papered over with ads for a bike race to look less depressing).

Steam clock (not actually steam powered), it just does steam-whistle chimes

You've seen it now, don't go :)

Vancouver: Grouse Mountain

A cable car to lumberjack Disneyland on Grouse Mountain!

*sigh* lets add that to the "if we didn't have kids with us list"

Lumberjack show

Being a lumberjack, climbing a pole with spurs

Fun! The action with the rope flip-up and spurs felt a bit like prussiking 

Birds of prey show.  Pretty cool.  It was good for E to see an owl up close, since they are in lots of her books.

Some sort of falcon.  These birds are ridiculously fast in a hunting dive.  Fastest animals on the planet apparently.

There's a bear in there (no, really, there is).

There were tons of people doing the Grouse Grind on the Saturday we visited.  It's a run/walk: 2.9 kilometres (1.8 miles) long, 853 metres (2,800 feet) elevation gain that covers the same ground as the Gondola.  There is also a snowshoe grind!  They have very cleverly turned it into a social competition, with big leader boards for fastest times displayed in the coffee shop.  They make money on the time tracking system, the coffee shop, the parking, and the gondola trip down.  Very smart.

Vancouver: Stanley Park

Stanley park.  It's giant, and there's only one way to see it: by bike.  We hired a bike and a kid trailer from Bayshore Bike Rentals, which worked out really well.  They have tons of kid-transport options, and the location is perfect, you ride maybe 100m down a quiet street with giant green bike lanes on both sides, then you are in the park.

Great water park on the east side of the park.

A full lap took us about 2 hours with some big stops, your top speed is determined by other tourists so don't expect to be going fast.  Cyclists and pedestrians are well separated, but all cyclists go anticlockwise and there isn't any room to pass in many sections.

Second beach.  Great place for a picnic: shaded grass and playgrounds on the other side of the bike path.

Awesome salt water pool at second beach.  Perfect for kids, there's a shallow 'beach' entry.  Also a two-lane lap pool.  Water was nice and warm.

Vancouver: Jericho Beach, Suspension Bridge, Sea-to-Sky

Arrived in Vancouver, staying in a great house near Commercial Drive and E 1st Ave.  Commercial is packed with bars, restaurants, and espresso bars, and is just a little bit grungy.  It reminded me a lot of Brunswick St. in Melbourne.  There was even a blues bar with great live music and an oyster bar: both of which made me sad, because they were awesome but definitely not kid friendly :(

Anyway, a few hours of daylight left on a super-hot day: to the beach!  Lots to choose from, we went to Jericho on advice from people we were staying with, and it was really nice.  The water was a much more human-friendly temperature than the California coast, although the water was a little weedy.

Jericho Beach

Next day: Capilano suspension bridge.  We thought this was just a bridge, turns out its more like treetop Disneyland.  It was fun though.

Cliff walk.  Nice engineering

No fear here.  Glass walkway (although the pattern and lots of shoe scuffs made it easier to take)

Suspension bridge.  Serious wobble with this many people on it.

Treetop adventure.  There was a woman with two false legs doing this, stairs and all, it was really impressive.

Then onto the famous sea-to-sky highway (99) towards Whistler.  Amazing scenery on the drive, but impossible to capture well, since there is almost nowhere to stop.  Grabbed a couple of photos from the car.

Shannon falls.  Great spot for a picnic, and short kid-friendly hike to the falls.

Shannon falls

As close as we got to Whistler before the kids cracked it :(

Airports you don't hate: Vancouver and San Francisco

To the Canadia! I've never been more impressed with an airport, just being interesting enough to pause for a couple of photos in the terminal is a remarkable feat. Well done Vancouver.

International arrivals, very cool.

Argonath?  Just Canadian customs on the other side, not Gondor.

Not to be outdone, San Francisco has been getting some great art exhibitions lately.  This recology one was on when we came through, with some great pieces.

A styrofoam hummer!

Maker Faire

Maker Faire! E and I jumped on the train (which she liked more than the whole fair) and spent the day with the nerds.

First: Arc attack, a faire regular.  I was glad I'd brought her ear protection for just this, she seemed to really like it.  They started with the imperial death march :)

In front of the giant mousetrap

Metal, fire.

Sweet giant bubble maker

Human sized replica of mousetrap.  It broke twice during the run, just like the real game :)  Liberal application of a sledge hammer didn't fix it either.

They live, we sleep.  Built out of polarized light filters.  None of the 16 year-olds around me were nearly as excited as I was by this.

Climbing wall that lights up with different routes

Whiskeydrome.  These guys are great, E was a big fan.

There are bikes inside those cupcakes :)