I got up and caught the Greyhound coach from Whistler back to Vancouver at 10am, arriving at my hotel (HI Hostel Central) at 1pm. It was too early to check in so I left my bags with them and bought a pulled pork pizza to celebrate Australia Day. They had no lamb available. Sorry Sam K. I went back to the hostel, checked in and stayed in the room all afternoon. I decided I need to rest today and tomorrow in an attempt to ameliorate the cough. I had planned to go to “flyovercanada” today, which is where you sit on chairlift style seats, with legs hanging over, in front of a 4 metre tall screen, and fly over Canada for 25 minutes. The seats shake, they spray moisture and have a certain aroma coming out. I thought that probably would not be helpful, especially the spray. So instead I read and listened to music and the audiobook (I’ve now gotten to Part 4 of 6) for the day. I headed to bed around 9.30pm.

Today I woke up feeling a lot worse. Actually I felt bad overnight and it stayed that way through to the morning. So after breakfast I went to the Town Plaza Medical Centre to see the doctor. After I explained the background, he examined me and identified a partially inflamed lung, and prescribed a steroid anti inflammatory puffer, but also to stay away from smokers and to stay out of the cold weather. That was a bit of a shame as I had arranged to go on a twilight snowmobile ride (2.5 hours started about a half hour before sunset) tonight. But my health is important so I cancelled that. I decided I needed to rest up for the balance of this trip until I get better, so I also cancelled going to the Whistler Sliding Centre for a ride on the bobsleigh or skeleton that I was looking at for this morning.

So I then went to the pharmacy and bought my puffer and went back to my hotel for the rest of the day. I did one load of laundry, packed my bags and switched between watching TV and listening to my audiobook for the rest of the day. For dinner I had a bowl of warmed up vegetables and three hard boiled eggs. Then at 9pm I switched off and went to bed.

I got up at 7am and made a coffee. Then I lay down and got back up again at 9am. Feeling better but still tired. I Skyped into Sarah D, who is in Sheffield England, and who I will be catching up with whilst I am there. Sarah was a turtle program volunteer for Care for Hedland Environmental Association in 2010-11 when I met her, as she was billeted to my place for part of her stay. She’s been busy lately so it will be great to catch up before she possibly moves to Spain soon. We had a good old natter.

I then headed out to arrange to go to do some ziplining (riding a flying fox). There were four options, and I chose the most basic one, the ”Bear” course. Interestingly, my whole group was from Australia. One young lady from Brisbane, and four girls and their mother from New South Wales. These latter family were here for 5-6 weeks, as the girls (I guess between 11-14 years old but I could be wrong) are all really good skiers and have won gold medals in Australian competitions. The mother showed us a video of one of them and she was really good.

We hopped into the tour van and headed up the mountain, past the Whistler Sliding Centre, where I was hoping to go tomorrow for a ride on either the skeleton or the bobsleigh on the 2010 Olympic track. There’s so much to do here! Anyway, we got up to an A frame building and went inside whilst our two guides arranged the gear for us. We then got into the gear, which included the straps and brackets etc. to hold us onto the steel cable (zipline). We left all our gear there (I left my Canon as it was bulky but I brought my GoPro with me, attached to its head strap.

We then got our instructions, and headed off to the first of the 5 ziplines we would take. I was pretty sure I’d need someone to actually push me off to go over. I ended up going last on this first one, and saw it was fine for the others, so decided it was fine, then walked off the steps and “flew”. I had strapped my GoPro around my hand so I could video as I moved, and so I have some video of 4 of the 5 ziplines. The 4^th line was interesting because it looked like you were going down, but the second half was upwards, so you had to bend your knees and get into a ball to make all the way to the other side. So I couldn’t video that one and wrap myself at the same time. Everyone made it across, but mainly because the guide receiving us was able to push the “brake” outwards along the zipline to capture the shackle of the person coming in (if they didn’t look like they’d make it), and pull them in.

Herewith a few photos taken from the video I shot (clipped from video using Nero 2017).

The fourth photo has my foot in it. This was on the last line, and there was a competition between the others to do an upside down ride on the line. I was a bit too old for that (or at least my back feels old), so I did “the floppy salmon” ride instead, where you flop around like a salmon or a worm. Needless to say, I didn’t win. All in all, it was great fun. I felt great all the way through, and went back to the hotel at about 3pm and read and watched TV through until around 9pm when I went to bed.

Today is my bus trip to Whistler for 3 nights. So I got up early to pack my bags and check out of the hotel. I ordered a taxi to the Bus and Train station. Whilst waiting for it to arrive, I took a photo one of the local buses.

These are called trolleybuses because they run off electricity from the overhead wires, hence the two long poles on their roof that allow them to change lanes. They have been in operation since 1948 and operate on 13 routes in metropolitan Vancouver.

The taxi arrived and I got a ride to the bus station and checked in. We left at 10.30am, with a 2-hour timeline for the trip up to Whistler Village. I took a few photos on the way. Majestic!

This is the view from my hotel window. Much more spectacular in real life.

After settling in, I wandered down to Whistler Olympic Plaza. Whistler was the site of the 2010 Winter Olympics and Paralympics. There is a bunch of different things to do like Bobsleigh and Skeleton rides that you don’t get at other ski resorts. So will have to try one of those!

With only 3 nights here, I wandered around to various spots and took photos.

Then I did a load of laundry, updated a few days of my blog, went to a very nice Italian Restaurant for dinner then went back to my hotel room. My bathroom has a spa bath, so I have made myself a promise to use it every night!

The hotel room view – at night.

After my bath, I went to bed to watch TV and then switched off at 10pm to sleep.

Today I woke up early, started to read the newspaper (The Globe and Mail weekend edition), took some more medication, felt drowsy and lay down. I awoke at 12.30pm, it was raining outside. I went for a short 5 kilometre walk and felt a lot better. I went back to the hotel, finished reading the newspaper and then lay down and listened to my audiobook. I’m currently on Part 3 of 6 parts.

The audiobook totals 51 hours. It’s Tom Clancy’s Executive Orders. The story is about everybody across the whole of the USA political and judicial systems being taken out by a plane crashing into the Congress Building, and Jack Ryan, the recently sworn in Vice President having to reinvent the government. Whilst there is a lot of issues from Iran / Iraq and terrorism issues and a deliberately spread Ebola virus. The reinventing the government bit is interesting to me because he brings in a lot of the private sector to take control of the various Departments, a bit like some of President Trump’s choices. It’s a great book and was free from Audible, which I found out about from Dan Carlin’s Common Sense podcast. That is also very interesting. I love the various podcasts available for free download now.

By 10pm I decided to go to sleep. I was feeling a lot better by that time, about 95% so I think the rest did me good.

I woke up feeling a bit better, probably 75%, so I decided to get out of hotel room for a while. I dosed up on medications and then headed out to the Dr Sun Yat-Sen Classical Chinese Garden. It took me an hour to get there as I walked past the waterfront, and then stopped for 15 minutes to watch a junior soccer game around the corner. Some waterfront photos.

There were also lots of condominium blocks that I passed along the way.

The Garden was very well set up with three different gardens, two with ponds but set up with different trees and plantings.

It was very relaxing and I enjoyed sitting in the various contemplation rooms and enjoy the surroundings. It rained whilst I was there and so I spent more time indoors, including having some Chinese tea and trying my hand and Chinese writing.

On my way back to the hotel, I diverted to the False Creek, where a number of the condominiums were. It’s quite a nice area with a waterfront area for joggers and some rocks to sit on.

I then got in a queue to take a small ferry down to Granville Island at the other end of False Creek. My hotel is on Granville Road, so it would be a shorter walk. Below is the Ferry I took, along with a couple of other photographs I took on the way. The last (colourful) photo is of an operating Cement Works.

When I got to the other end of the trip, I found out that the Vancouver Boat Show was on, right where I had disembarked. So I paid my $15 and went to have a look. There were some real beauties.

Of course, even if I had that amount of money, it’s unlikely that I would buy one. It would be great on the water, but probably wouldn’t get much use. Certainly not compared to just going on a fishing expedition every 6 months.

After leaving the Boat Show, I walked back across the Granville Bridge to my hotel, getting a few photos along the way. I picked up a Subway roll for dinner and then headed for bed.

I was really unwell and stayed in bed for both Thursday and Friday, apart from ducking out to purchase food, drinks ad newspapers. I spent most of the two days watching TV  (pre-inauguration and inauguration for the President of the USA as well as some other shows) as well as listening to my audiobook. I started to feel a little better by late Friday afternoon. But still only about 50-60%.

Didn’t have a great sleep overnight. I slept for 3 hours only, waking up and needing to blow my nose quite often. This led to a blood nose, which I’d had a bit during this holiday but this was really bad. I went through a quarter of a toilet roll during this trip. By 6am I has got the nose to stop bleeding but then my sore throat started to get drier and worse. Not an enjoyable night. It was raining constantly as we came into Vancouver station. In the end it rained all day too.

I caught a cab to the Ramada Hotel Downtown and checked in. I wasn’t feeling too good so I took some Tylenol and lay down. By around 4pm I was feeling worse, with a really bad head cold and sore throat, so headed down to the closes pharmacy (London Drugs). It was overcast and raining, but it was even more depressing seeing the number of homeless people. When I was in Toronto, I saw about two every block, but here I passed about 4 groups in the 5 blocks, and they were in groups of 6-8.

The pharmacy was very large and sold all sorts of retail things, much like a pharmacy, newsagent, grocery store, camera and music store all in one. They even sold 12inch vinyl records (which are apparently back in favour for people who listen to music). I purchased some Dayquil, Nitequil, Ginger Ale, the day’s newspaper, and then I headed back to my hotel. On the way I took a couple of photos (GoPro wide screen so it looks like birds eye). I think these will be a great idea for the Volunteers Room of the Karratha Health Campus which has just started construction. We’re bound to have medicinal marijuana legalised in Western Australia in the next 5 years. What a money earner it’ll be! Medicinal marijuana, bongs, cookies, and all other implements. There are 3-4 stores that sell the implements in the 5 blocks I walked, but only one that sold marijuana itself. It’s actually not fully legal yet across most provinces of Canada, but there are stores that trade, knowing that legalisation will occur soon. It’s then up to the local police to decide how to manage this.

I took some medicine (from the pharmacy, not the marijuana store), lay down on the bed, and read the newspaper. I then turned off the lights and turned on my audiobook to listen to. By 7pm I was feeling worse so I took some sleeping tablets and went to bed. After a couple of hours I went to sleep.

Today I got up, had breakfast, packed my bags and then checked out. I was originally due to get onto the train for it to leave at 2pm, however I had received an email the night before from ViaRail that the train would be delayed. So I spent an hour and a half in the Business Centre at the hotel (more comfortable than the railway station) and then caught a taxi to the station. I bought a couple of magazines and a large coffee, took some photos of the overcast weather on the mountains.

I really like the flock of birds in the second photo. I then went inside and sat down to read until the train arrived at 4pm, 3 hours late. By 5pm we were on our way. I was in a single bed compartment (unit 3 on carriage 11). It was getting dark by this time, so I got a small amount of video but no photos.

I wandered down to the rear dome carriage, spoke with some people from Michigan and had a Crown Royal whisky and dry (my new favourite Canadian whiskey. Dinner started at 5.30pm but I was in the second slot, which started at 7.15pm. I had a very tasty rack of lamb with vegetables, washed down with a Fort Garry Dark Ale. I’m quite getting to enjoy that beer. I then headed back to my room, converted the lounge into a bed and then tucked myself in.

I got up early for breakfast, and had to take a few photos of the sunrise at the front of the Inn.

I had to lighten the second shot so the green vegetation on the hills wasn’t too dark, but will play around with some of the darker ones to get a better balance that includes some of the orange and reds.

I then went back to my hotel room, read a newspaper, watched Criminal Minds on TV until lunchtime, watched a couple of movies and then on to the latest shows from MSNBC, CNN and Fox. Sean Hannity really does not like his President Obama but does love President-elect Trump.

It’s interesting that most of the Canadian TV channels are actually from the USA. Probably like our Foxtel I guess.

So after this I headed to bed at 8pm after a very relaxed day.