Canada

Since the food was generally extremely good in Canada, I thought a post to share the best places we ate would be worthwhile. TorontoFlippers – excellent breakfast, with soufflé pancakes being the highlight. BanffFarm & Fire – the pizzas here are extremely good, with plentiful and unusual toppings.Sky Bistro – locally sourced menu which is…

When we were waiting for our food in the Ukranian restaurant we identified our best and worst points of the holiday. Here they are! Danny – he quickly decided his beef chuck at Shelter in Tofino was the best food he’d had, and he’d enjoyed seeing bears the most. However, he said he hadn’t got…

First stop of the day, Jo and I walked to the good coffee and doughnut café we’d previously found a week earlier, to collect a snack for the airport. A nice 45 minute walk in the morning sun to Neate Donuts, with excellent coffee and a box of doughnuts, was a good start to the…

Rather than return to Vancouver by sea plane we were booked on the morning coach and ferry crossing. We picked up more baked goods from the hotel’s in-house café/bakery (the closest for a long distance, apparently) and headed off for a short walk to the bus depot. Whilst waiting we ate some very nice pastries…

WARNING: This post contains A LOT of photos of whales, but none of Wales. The main event today was a whale watching trip. We’d been moved to an afternoon boat, from the morning, then delayed around an hour. Some sloppy excuse about a broken engine. Of course, before all of that we headed out for…

A long drive back to Victoria today, but first a drive to Ucluelet, next nearest town to Tofino, for breakfast. After checking out of the hotel in Tofino, and on the way to Ucluelet, we quickly stopped at Long Beach for a look as the previous time we’d tried the car park was full, but…

We’ve had some bad hire cars over the years, but this was one of, if not the, worst. The only good thing was the boot size. Otherwise it was underpowered, understeered on the gentlest of corners, had way too little power for the size of car, and wouldn’t park straight. The reversing guides on the…

Today was our bear watching tour, booked for lunch time so Keith and I left the kids first thing to go and have another look for sea otters while the teenagers chilled. Around the other side of the peninsular we saw another sea lion mooching about off Tonquin beach and more excitingly a hairy woodpecker…

A big day with our bear watching excursion just after lunch, so before a late brunch Jo and I walked to the coast on the lookout for seals. No seals, but we did find a few woodpeckers. Very hard to photograph as they move around a lot, and very quickly. Just after noon we headed…

Our first walk today took us into some “Twilight-esque” forest. Totally different plants than we have seen before and an almost prehistoric feel to the undergrowth. Very little sounds apart from the crashing waves on one side and the traffic noise on the other, but in the middle everything feels muted. I have never seen…

A day of shorter walks was planned, so we fuelled on café breakfast (which included a breakfast sandwich inside a fried savoury doughnut!) and a box of 6 regular ring doughnuts for 6 Canadian Dollars (about £3) and headed towards Ucluelet on highway 4. We stopped twice – once at Combers Beach and then at…

Another day, another café breakfast, Vancouver’s excellent and 24 hour Breka again. Then a taxi to the seaplane terminal for our fight to Victoria on Vancouver Island. Danny was particularly looking forward to the flight, so I’m sure the slow build-up and waiting for the pilot to saunter out to his charge helped. They stowed…

The plan for today was an exploration of Vancouver by water taxi. After breakfast from a bakery less than 2 minutes from our hotel, we headed to the nearest water taxi stop. First stop was Granville Island. The main attraction was a large indoor market, with other smaller shops surrounding it, street artists, etc. After…

Our walk into Vancouver at lunch time was rewarded by cormorants and seals (harbour I presumed but I am not sure) in the estuary by the mariner. Then we popped out to see Stanley park after a particularly fabulous bowl of ramen for dinner as we had heard that Beaver Lake at dusk was a…

We began the day waking up on the train after not a lot of sleep. Mike told us we’d definitely arrive into Vancouver for 8.30am but of course that didn’t happen, as they needed to split the train into two for the station (no real explanation given, but it wasn’t because it was too long!)…

Mila was very annoying today… She sat in the bubble car reading her book with headphones on and then occasionally looked out the window to say – “ooh look deer!”, before going back to her book. I saw nothing, even though I stared out the window the whole time! Grrrr We did all see a bald…

Today we boarded The Canadian train, on the last day of its journey from Toronto to Vancouver, boarding at Jasper. An early start to check the luggage in meant we had plenty of time for breakfast since the train was already delayed – quite normal in Canada given the majority of rail traffic is goods…

We had two hire cars, each for around a week, and this was our first to transport us from Calgary to Jasper. On arrival at the Avis desk in Calgary they said there were no more cars of the type that had been booked for us (a medium-sized Ford of US-market derivation) so we were…

For our final day in Jasper we decided to do a hike in the morning before it became too hot (30 degrees C was forecast, and happened), then back to Jasper for lunch. We drove out to Pyramid Lake, took a look at the island, then headed up into the mosquito infested woods to see…

After 9 days of calorie intake being greater than calories burned through exercise, Jo and I decided to go for a run before breakfast. We picked an out and back route north from the hotel in Jasper to the H.J. Moberly Bridge which is the first crossing point over the Athabasca River. With an 8k…

What a busy wildlife day!! We had seen big soaring birds walking along the main road in Jasper, but only as silhouettes against a very bright sky so identification was pretty tricky. Our tour guide was quite a character but she was very knowledgeable and did deliver! She started by showing us the elk we…

Today’s plan was simple – late breakfast, washing clothes, late lunch then a wildlife tour with a guide. After breakfast, we stopped at the supermarket for snacks, and came across some enormous peaches. Next stop, washing clothes. After getting some cash and working out how the machines worked Jo and I had coffee, tea and…

3 x deerTall stork/heron thingy x2 by brook, mostly white- great blue heronEagle? Fingers on wings, white head, white band on tail- decided on bald eagle for this one having done lots of image comparisons!3 x goatsBig bird – White underside, dark on top, large wings small head and tail, seen at bridge- not sure,…

We left Field after another tasty hotel breakfast, sat by their fire as it was a little colder this morning. The plan for the day was a 4-5 hour drive along the Icefield Parkway, which connects Lake Louise with Jasper, and is the biggest non-polar icefield. After a quick stop at the spiral tunnel, where…

We saw a grizzly bear! It was eating berries and nibbling on the bark at the base of some mini silver birch trees at the side of the road (bow valley parkway). The ranger wasn’t happy about its proximity to the road and the idiot tourists so he shouted at it and it trombled a…

Our only full day in Field was filled by advice from the hotel staff, who said we should go to Moraine Lake (back at Lake Louise) and go canoeing then hiking up to other lakes in the area. Before that, breakfast – best so far. After collecting our hiker’s (packed) lunch from the hotel reception…

Before leaving Banff we visited Bluebird for breakfast, which turned out to be fantastic – full breakfast of varying varieties, an enormous Croque Madam, and avocado on toast. We needed our energy for what came later in the day. The route from Banff to our next hotel in Field, a very small town (we’d call…

Big day of walking today. In summary – very early start; walking; cloud; helicopter; no cloud; helicopter; lunch; more walking; owl; more walking; insert lots of little wildlife; amazing dinner. We headed out of the hotel, picking up breakfast and lunch on the way, for the ROAM bus which took us to Lake Louise –…

An amazing day for wildlife today! Not a great variety of birds today, but I did spot a juvenile great horned owl at the side of the path. It was snoozing on a branch and even treated us to a few head bobs while we watched it. We shared our spot with a few other…

Today was a pretty good bird day. Merlin (bird identification app) did a great job at hearing tiny well hidden winged things in conifers. I got very annoyed at one point today as it kept telling me it didn’t know what a very loud chirruping was. Pretty sure in retrospect that it was a ground…

Today was split between resting after a supermarket breakfast, and taking a trip on a cable car (they call it a gondola, but it was definitely a bog standard cable car) up to the top of Sulfur Mountain. Once at the top we were really lucky to see the spectacular view. Unfortunately we’d picked the…

Today was another travel day, into another time-zone, and the chance to double our jet-lag! With an early afternoon internal flight to Calgary, we started the day with another breakfast venue – Egg Club. The first rule about Egg Club is don’t talk about Egg Club. The second rule about Egg Club is don’t talk…

Our only whole day in Toronto and we’d planned a busy schedule. But first, breakfast. Flippers are famous for their soufflé pancakes, so we headed there for breakfast. Note fries for breakfast. After breakfast we wandered towards the CN Tower and Rogers Centre, and found Union Station and an impressive old railway roundhouse (now shops…

Apparently related to the grey not the red, the black squirrels in Toronto have adapted to retain more heat when it is cold. I imagine they suffer a bit when it is 27 degrees like today. Although shy of the dog that really wanted to chase it, they were not at all bothered by us…

The trip to Toronto was quite unremarkable and straightforward….with a few exceptions! The first excitement was at Manchester Airport. They have the new scanners in terminal 2 meaning you don’t need to unpack your bag. However, I always have my bag searched, probably not helped because it’s stuffed full of camera equipment and electronics. This…

This will be our first holiday with both children being at least 18 years old. This means two things. First, they can both drink alcohol….in theory. But Canada has different rules depending on which province you’re in. For example in Ontario the minimum legal age is 19, so Danny could drink, Amelia couldn’t. Second, they…

Our official itinerary and tickets have arrived, marking the end of the planning for this adventure. For the first time our agents, Audley Travel, have provided our itinerary and other travel details in their app. This includes flight information and prompts, and details, maps, and weather for each day – we’ll see if the app…