Updated on June 23, 2005

Following are some pictures of John and Heather's trip to British Columbia! We started off in Surrey, visiting downtown Vancouver over the first few days. Then we went with Phil and Les over to Vancouver Island, to the west side for some fishing. Visited Victoria for a couple days and then back to Surrey. Took in Stanley Park and then headed north to Whistler and on towards Quesnel to see John's brother (and drove on some nice drop off cliff roads on the way!). The drive back was done through the Fraser canyon so we could see some different sites. The pictures here are from Heather's camera and take you up to just after our return from Victoria. John is downloading and posting his so check back in a week or so to follow the rest of the adventure!

The steam clock in Gastown in downtown Vancouver

Heather's cousin's daughter - Jenna

Heather's cousin's son - Keigan

Heather's uncle and aunt - Phil and Les - who's place we stayed at in Surrey

Heather's cousin and his girlfriend - Kirk and Angela

The wild life in downtown Vancouver

Click here for the view from Canada Place

John at the Imax ready for the African Safari in 3D (which was pretty to look at but unfortunately no one got eaten)

The Wheatsheaf Pub (they have one out there too!) outside of Naniamo - where we had lunch after coming across on the ferry and before driving to Ucluelet

Click here for pictures of The Big Trees

The view from the car on the drive to Ucluelet

Click here for pictures of Long Beach near Tofino

The view from the pub in Tofino where we had lunch before fishing

An afternoon of fishing

My first catch (a Cabezon - an ugly prehistoric fish that is supposed to taste good for eating - don't know as we haven't eaten it yet)

Adding my second catch (a Red Snapper thank you very much!)

My third catch (an even bigger Cabezon - it better taste good cause we've got lots of it now!) and a bass from Leslie (you can only keep 2 bass and that was her third so either you give it to someone else or you throw it back)

I caught 3 fish but went home with 5 fish in total - had another bass given to me by someone on the boat. When you get back, they clean the fish for you and keep it on ice. Then we picked up our fish, packed them in the cooler and Les and Phil took them back to Surrey to wrap and freeze so we could bring them home with us and eat them here.

On the ride back, we got a close up view of a bald eagle as he swooped in to grab a fish that was thrown overboard for him.
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Coming back at the end of the day - the big boat is an old boat built in Collingwood and is now used as a restaurant and lodging. We stayed in the buildings on shore.

The fisherpersons and their catches for the day

A night walk in Ucluelet. Note that this is around 9:30pm and the sun is just setting. That was probably the hardest thing to get used to on the whole trip. The sun always seemed to be up and it was really easy to lose track of time. We'd think it was mid afternoon based on the sunshine and it would really be almost 7pm!

More scenary on the way back to Nanaimo where we would catch the train (with about a minute to spare) and travel down to Victoria

Waiting for our whale watching tour in Victoria

Heading out to find some whales

Some harbour seals on the rock. Hard to see as we couldn’t get too much closer. It’s mating season and they were all very nervous as we approached. We saw some doll porpoises as well but they move way too fast to get a picture

We did see some wonderful Orca's but it was hard to snap pictures - most of my lovely images of them are in my head. Here you can see some lovely fins! John had hoped to see the bigger whales (blues and greys) but no luck (we'll have to head to Mexico for a better chance of seeing them, I think). I was thrilled to see the Orcas. It was wild to know at one point we had killer whales swimming on both sides of us, basically surrounding us, as they swam up one side and then turned around and swam down the other side as they worked their way back down the coastline.

The Underwater Gardens in Victoria. You actually walk down underneath the water to see everything. We saw some great water life (and a very cute little girl who was having the time of her life putting her hands in the little pool where you can actually touch things like starfish - I was right in there with her - it was very cool!) They have a couple of octopi - one quite large! And lots of fish, crabs and underwater life of all types.

Henry and some of his ladies at the wax museum in Victoria

The view from Spinnakers Pub across the harbour in Victoria - accessible by a short walk or by water taxi!

Crazy Johnny at Spinnakers

The walk back, with a view of the parliament buildings all lit up

After checking out, stashing our luggage for safe keeping at the hotel and a bit of a walk (longer than we thought!) we got to see Craigdarroch Castle. It was actually built as a house but it looked so much like a castle that people called it that. No Casa Loma but a very beautiful place. Click here for the pictures

The Dominion Hotel where we stayed in Victoria

A quick shot on the ferry trip back to Vancouver

Click here for pictures of The Vancouver Aquarium in Stanley Park

The view from the patio up on Whistler - where we stopped for a beer after our 20 minute gondola ride up - way, way up!

And for my former Molson co-workers and my other beer drinking friends, we did get a chance to try a lot of different beers. My uncle makes his own which ranks up there as a favourite of mine (along with his wonderful white wine which was so smooth it's dangerous cause once I start with it, I drink more of it than I should!). Another favourite beer of mine was Herman's Dark - which we had over on the Island. We hit a few local brew pubs (like Granville and Spinnakers) who brew and sell their own stuff. And we tried to buy beer that was brewed locally where ever we were. Had a couple of very strong beer that I probably wouldn't have again but nothing I'd call bad! But then is there really a bad beer?