Being a Travel agent you get to travel to a lot of places around the world, but none have been better than Vancouver and Victoria in British Columbia.
Vancouver is the spectacular gateway to the amazing natural beauty of British Columbia. The hotel that I stayed in was the Fairmont Pacific Rim hotel in downtown Vancouver which is an excellent quality hotel and ideal base for exploring the beautiful city.
In the room that I had was a huge king sized bed, a 42” flat screen TV, and an IPod which can be used for wake up calls and to order room service and the docking station can also be used to charge your iphone if you have one. It even had a TV in the bathroom!
Vancouver is a very safe city to go and explore and for coffee lovers there seems to be a Starbucks on every corner!
I visited the following places in Vancouver which I recommend seeing if you have the time.
North shore rainforest, they have long rope bridge to cross and tree top walks
‘Edible Canada’ a food tasting tour through Granville market
Vancouver lookout a 360 degree view of Vancouver city and mountains
Flyover Canada a 4D ride flying over all of Canada, Very worthwhile doing
You must take a Ferry to Victoria an hour’s drive from downtown Vancouver to the Ferry and a crossing of 90 minutes.
Places to see and things to do in Victoria
Victoria much like Vancouver is a very safe city to walk around and I visited the following places whilst I was there.
Butchart Gardens, if you like plants and flowers then this is for you!
The Royal BC museum
Robert Bateman museum
I also went Whale watching on the Orca Spirit, well worth a trip as we saw a family of killer whales. Whatever the time of year take a warm coat as can get very windy whilst travelling on the boat.
Victoria has a very good choice of restaurants and they cater for all tastes, you won’t go hungry in Victoria.
After Victoria we drove to Campbell River which is roughly a 3 hour drive from Victoria, from here we took a sea plane from Campbell River to Knight Inlet to see the Bears.
Having lived for a short while in Australia I thought I would never top the wildlife I saw whilst I was there but boy was I wrong! I was lucky enough to travel by float plane to a place called Knight Inlet which is a floating lodge, the only thing you see when you land is forest and water, but that’s when you realize that you’re in Mother Nature’s hands.
We took a boat over to the other side of the lake where we took a short drive to 2 bear viewing stands, and it was salmon run time, before we got out of the truck we could see grizzly bears catching the salmon, and to make it better we were no further than 10 meters away from them in the viewing stands. This is a photographers dream.
On the boat trip back we stopped by a pole to take photos of 2 bald eagles just sitting there, they were not even camera shy! Add on top of this seeing a family of otter seals and black bears walking no further than 100 meters from the lodge, if you like wildlife at its best then look no further than Knight Inlet, and the beautiful cities of Vancouver and Victoria, both places I will endeavor to return to in the coming years.
Travelling on British Airways in Club Class – travel tips!
I was lucky enough to travel club class with British Airways, however a couple of tips for you if you’re travelling club for the first time, the seating configuration is 2 4 2, but you are in pods and if you’re sitting in a window seat you will be travelling backwards and the person in the seat next to you will be travelling forwards, so you can see and speak to each other, there is a partition that you can raise if you don’t know that person, so you can have some privacy.
If you are in the middle 4, the two isle seats face forward and again have the partition between the middle 2 seats, but the 2 centre seats face backwards and are ideal for couples as you are partitioned off from the 2 isle seats and have privacy as all the seats recline into flat beds you virtually have a double bed to sleep in for the long journeys.
Visit October 2013 – PAUL LANE – LUTTERWORTH