Jericho Beach
Jericho Beach Sunset
The rapid descent down to the West Coast left me with an ear infection. It affected my balance and everything seemed to be leaning to one side.
We stayed in a beautiful old backpackers on Jericho beach, just outside the city. At night you could see the distant, twinkling lights of down town Vancouver. Next to the hostel was an equally old wooden theatre, we attended a shakespearean play where the audience had to wear masks.
This was probably the best hostel for making new friends. I ended up working there changing beds for my nights board. There were a few truly weird people staying here. I had to refuse cleaning one mans bed as he defecated at night and left it in a tied up plastic bag on the window side. I lost interest in bed cleaning duties around this time.
It started to feel like I was working in a prison block, rolling my little troly past all the blokes in the morning “new pillow case please mate”, and “have you got an bog roll there” and so on. One bonus was being given ‘first dibs’ on lost property, something which was to haunt me later on.
I remember a small party on the beach. We sat around a camp fire underneath the blanket of stars, burning autumn drift-wood, and drinking Kokanee beer. The crackle of our fire, accompanied the gentle sound of the cold Pacific waves against the shore, a great place to get pissed without a care in the world.
Vancouver
Wreck Beach
My partner and I made the lengthy treck to Wreck nudist beach. It was all a bit hippyish with live music and naked people selling hot dogs at sun down. I remained clothed, however my partner went topless and soon attracted other “nakeds”. I later signed a petition to keep the beach free from commercial development and to keep the ‘bare bummed’ hot dog sellers in business.
One of the highlights of Vancouver was a trip up Grouse Mountain. The cable car takes you high above the city, with panoramic views of forest filled Pacific islands beyond. Wherever we went, we seemed to have these locations to ourselves. It was late in the evening and the lights of Vancouver were beginning to glisten miles below, you just felt so tiny amid the vast forests and huge horizon.
On the way up we had already found a $20 note on a park bench, being tight for money we took this a sign of luck.
Grouse Mountain, into the Pacific
We were sitting in the restaurant overlooking the urban patchwork of Vancouver, when a lady from the opposite table got up and placed something into my partner’s hand, she clasped her hand tight and muttered a few words. She had overheard our conversation about spending and placed a $20 note into my partners hand, two $20 notes in one day.. We ate well that evening with a feeling of fate being on our side.
Vancouver was very modern, and busy during the day. The music scene seemed slightly hindered though by early licensing laws. One evening we were salsa dancing in a jazz bar and some guy invited us to a break-dancing competition. We accepted his offer and were enticed by the prospect of a T.V. network who were apparently covering the event.
Vancouver
It soon became evident this was not the case, we had to walk into a Caribbean takeaway, and then down a ladder through a hatch in the kitchen floor, into a small concealed basement.
There were no camera crew, just a painted circle on the floor with a DJ playing hip-hop. The break-dancers were good but the atmosphere was moody, my partner didn’t feel safe so we left after a few bottles of Budweiser with one guy trying to block the door.
I also walked down a dodgy part of the infamous ‘Hastings Street’ for a dare, taking pictures as I went. It was full of beggars, drug dealers and other shady characters and I met a scar faced man from Luton who, after realising I didn’t want to buy his dope, advised me to “be careful man, yeah!?”.
Vancouver Island & Home
Fan Tan Alley, Victoria
After a couple of weeks in Vancouver we set sail for Victoria, navigating our way through the Strait Of Georgia.
Victoria was a funky little city, some great shops existed amid the tourist trail, such as the psychedelic record store in Fan Tan Alley (a place I could not resist).
I think I ate some of the finest pizza in my life in this little city. We were interviewed live on Canadian T.V. about the whale watching and how it was becoming commercialised.
We went out ourselves one day, a tiny boat sped us right out into the Pacific and we were lucky enough to get ahead of an Orca whale pod. They were magnificent and very lively, breaching the surface with leaps and splashes, they were so huge and our boat so small in comparison – they came really close and we were all treated to the creaks of their communications via a small receiver dipped into the water – seeing them in their natural habitat made the Aquarium in Vancouver seem a bit cruel.
Pod of Orca whales, north Pacific
We had accumulated a small rabble of friends in Jericho who accompanied us to the Island, all really good folk and some brilliant times were had, from playing volley ball on a hotel roof, to eating chocolate covered insects, not to mention being accused of stealing cookies from a cat ridden hostel.
Upon returning to Vancouver, my partner and I decided that home was calling and money was thin, so we embarked on the long journey back to England.
Canada was an epic 7,000 mile journey, on highways and through prairies, in endless redwood forests and up Rockie Mountains, with a great ending in the Pacific north west, a journey best made with a backpack and a shoe-string budget!
