Woohoo! Freedom!

Sorry for my long absence guys, but I was totally absorbed in my exam preparations... =)
Finally we've done our exams and I think it wasn't too bad. I hope I passed them... :S
Now I'm waiting for the arrival of my two swiss friends on Saturday and then finally setting off with our RV and hit the roads of Canada and the USA!! Can't wait for it!
I'll try to keep you up to date with my travelling experiences, but please don't blame me if I'm not to active in bloging, I might haven't wifi on all of the campgrounds! :D

Grouse Mountain / Grind

Here comes another one for this weekend! Today was the third nice day in a row, unbelievable! Because of this we decided to go to Grouse Mountain and take the well known Grouse Grind, a quite steep way up to the top of the mountain. The trail has a length of 2.9 kilometres and a total of 2.830 steps making an elevation of 853 meters. The way up there took us about 1 hour and 15 minutes of exhausting and steep trail, but we finally made it and the view up there is amazing!
We had a good time up there but unluckily we had to take the gondola down the mountain because it is forbidden to hike down the trail cos of the steepness and danger. =)

 Burnaby

Vancouver Downtown

Kayaking Deep Cove

Here the second post like promised!
Today I went with Claudio a nice guy from my class kayaking in Deep Cove near North Van. We rented a kayak from 5.00 PM till 7.00 PM and rowed around some small Islands and made a short 15min break at a picnic area. Unfortunately, the whole area around Deep Cove is populated and there was no spot with less or even no people like we've hoped to find. However, we had a good and cheerful time and even nice weather!

Spanish Banks

Hi guys!
Sorry for leaving out the last weeks blog, but the weather was just too bad and I hadn't anything to blog.
But this weekend I've got two things for you! Yesterday, friday, afternoon we went to Spanish Banks. Thats a beach at the coast of UBC and well known for it's view on Vancouver Downtown. It was a beautiful day with blue sky and the view was only disturbed by some freighter, which were waiting offshore to get unloaden.
After checking out the beach we wen't into a park near the beach to find some slipstream in the trees and to play some frisbee. To sum up, we had a great afternoon with much sun, fun and good view on VanDownTown.

Road trip Vancouver - Banff - Vancouver

Sorry for not writing my blog this Sunday, but I was with three guys from class (Yannick, Claudio and Martin) on a road trip to Banff and back. We had a long weekend, Monday was a holiday and we took off school on Friday morning, so we decided to make a road trip to Banff to enjoy the whole country side, like Martin would say. =)

Day 1 – Vancouver to Refelstoke 649km

On day one we set off quite early to the Vancouver Airport to pick up our rental car. After a felt hour of waiting we finally got our car, a perfect sized Hyundai, and hit the road in direction Revelstoke. On the way we’ve seen the typical landscape of Canada, trees all over the place. But we’ve also crossed a kind of a desert with only small plants and nearly no green stuff.

After about seven hours of drive we finally reached Revelstoke. Revelstoke is a small village with around 7000 inhabitants which lives from the tourism and the railway. 

 our car

 Trees and road

 "desert"

 a lake =)

 Revelstoke

Day 2 – Refelstoke to Banff 283km

The second day started with rain, quelle surprise… (Attention that’s French) ;) But we’re now since two month here and we don’t care anymore about a little rain. The rout to day was not that far and we had time to stop in Lake Louise, a lake called Louise near Banff. Unfortunately the lake was frozen and couldn’t see the blue clear water. The next stop was at Johnston Canyon, a Canyon about 8000 years old. It was fascinating seeing the water running through the canyon and hearing the force this water has.

We reached Banff in the late afternoon and had to search our hostel. It was a small and old hostel, just made for young party people like us =). In the evening we went out to make party. It was incredibly funny.

 Lake Louise

 The crew

 Johnston Canyon

Johnston Canyon - small waterfall

 Banff

Day 3 – Banff to Kelowna 483km

This day we set off a little later than the two days before. The ride took us again nearly seven hours and we reached Kelowna at about 6 o’clock in the evening. On the way there we could see some pretty nice small farmer villages, lakes and for sure a great many trees.

Kelowna itself is a city at a lake with about 50’000 inhabitants and is known as a party city for the youth of Vancouver. Unhappily we were all quite tired and we went only for a short time out.

Three valley gap

 Kelowna - from our balcony

Day 4 – Kelowna to Vancouver 399km

Only a “short” ride to deal with, we nearly overslept this morning. Before moving off we made a short walk through downtown Kelowna to see how it looks like by daylight. On the way to Vancouver we made several short stops to pee or to eat something. At about 5:00 P.M we reached Vancouver airport a gain and returned our car at the rental station. Our 1’800km road trip was finished =(

 Kelowna

Kelowna lake side

 Kelowna lake side

 

Canadian car tuning

Deep Cove

Today was another sunny day! WUUUHUUUU! We decided to go to Deep Cove, a small village eastern of NorthVan, to enjoy this rare phenomenon. Deep Cove is known for its cove, surprise surprise, and for a rock from where you've got a great view across the Burrard Inlet to Burnaby. For those who lost now the thread, I made just for you a map where you can see what I'm talking about. =)
Back to the story - We went to Deep Cove and made the 1.5h "hike" to the mentioned rock. The way runs thru a kind of rainforrest and is very lovely. Due to the fact, it was a sunny sunday we were not the only people on the track and we felt like on a pilgrimage. But it was great and we had definitely our fun! After returning to the village we went to drink a beer in the sun and afterwards we went to the seaside to unwind.

 

Legend:

Blue - Deep Cove Village

Red - well known rock

Yellow - view to Burnaby

Red - my homestay

Green - my school

Deep Cove seaside

On the trail

Deep Cove and on the horizon Burnaby's skyscraper

Skyscraper in Burnaby