MISSION TO WHISTLER

The hotel included breakfast so we joined the other guests which were mainly men involved with some kind of racing in the breakfast rooms. The 2 servers were definitely western country cowboy women and one delivered a mean hit on unsuspecting mosquitos with a fly squasher!

We set off back to Hope then along the Fraser Canyon through Yale up to Hell's Gate Airtram. It was a scorchingly hot day. Fortunately we arrived just before a French coach party and made it through the ticket office and across on the gondola before them. The raging Fraser river narrows to a 33 metre wide passage at this point and 800 million litres of water per minute thunder through below the airtram. There are railway lines on both sides of the gorge. There are salmon ladders to help the spawning salmon through these challenging rapids. One can only imagine what a daunting scene this section of the river must have been to Simon Fraser in 1808 when he first caught sight of it. For us latter day travellers we can easily walk across the bridge to get great photo, enjoy the cafe, gift shop, locally manufactured fudge and informative areas depicting the history and ghostly spirits that linger through out the attraction.

We set off up highway 1 following the Fraser River. We had a brief photo stop in Lytton to observe where the Fraser and Thompson rivers flow into each other, more mountains scenery and the odd goat, then on to Lillooet to sit under a cafe's shady canopy for some refreshment. Gemma face timed whilst we were in the cafe to show us their Postman Pat themed rooms at CBBs Land - very cute! We didn't get to talk to Max as he was sleeping as it was late at night in the UK.

Lillooet is billed as being scenic like Banff and as we left the town the mountains were more imposing, the rivers gurgling more blue glacier water and the road winded its way upwards giving us some great scenic views.

As we were approaching Pemberton, a keen spotter in our car saw a black bear by the road, we could not stop but as we looked back we could see her walk across the road with 2 cubs.

We arrived in Whistler, mountain bikers Mecca (!), sort of Disneyland for bikes (!), the town was buzzing and baking hot. We checked into our hotel, Mountainside Lodge, did a little unpacking and headed into town. Our Whistler map seemed to confuse us all but we eventually found Ellie and Ross's friends who had arrived earlier and had supper in one of the many restaurants. There were still a few bugs around taking a nibble out of us but only outside not in the hotel with AC.Read more