Tag Archives: Nature

A Bridge Too Wobbly

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Friday 19 August 2022 – Today’s activity combined two recognised Tourist Must-Do attractions in the Vancouver area – Grouse Mountain and the Capilano Bridge – pretty much an all-day outing. Because we were being taken round these attractions by coach there was the usual milling about worrying about whether we would be picked up OK. Jane got chatting to another couple (from Bracknell, as it happens) who were also in possession of a piece of paper and a worried expression and we agreed that they were unlikely to miss all four of us. In the end, it was all smooth, although not particularly swift; we were led to our coach, we boarded and then… waited until a couple of last-minute stragglers eventually turned up. Whilst we were waiting, it became clear that, while driver Jimmy was a considerably more experienced tour driver than Theresa had been on our Photo Safari in Ketchikan, he was even more garrulous. He kept up an entertaining but ceaseless stream of tourist information, philosophical homilies and moaning about the local government for the whole time he was on board the bus. He definitely knew what he was doing and only one passenger was heard to complain that he spoke too fast, but she was French, so what do I care?

Grouse Mountain is a popular local resort which offers skiing during the winter and just the general benefits of altitude (fresh air and a decent view, ideally) the rest of the year. It all starts with a ride up in a 100-person cable car. I noticed that its maximum load was 98 passengers plus an operator, and a maximum weight of 16230 pounds. This means that the designers expected an average weight of 164 pounds per passenger. I don’t wish to be rude, but I just hope there’s some contingency built into the cable strength given the increase in the overall population’s weight since 1974 when this cable car was opened.

The journey to the top raises you 2800 feet in 6 minutes, and is exactly like cable car rides familiar to anyone who has ever been skiing except that this one has a bit of a tourist commentary from the operator (delivered, as far as I could tell in this instance, in a Yorkshire accent). At the top, you reach “Peak Chalet”, a destination which I’m sure would get Courchevel reaching for its lawyers. Peak Chalet offers a couple of viewing decks and many retail opportunities. It also has an atrium with some great carved pillars.

We had coffee there, admiring what we could see of the view, which, in traditional Walker, erm, tradition “would have been better if it were clearer”.

The area reached by the cable car offers many entertainment possibilities, such as a lumberjack show

ziplining, a raptor demonstration and a grizzly bear enclosure (we didn’t get to see the two resident bears who had wisely disappeared into their forested fastness; but the bear enclosure gave us some useful scale info).

There is a loop trail which has several sculptures hacked out of tree stumps beside it.

The eagle, particularly is a fabulous piece of work. One can take another chair lift to go even higher, so we did. My God, it’s slow. (I bet they run it faster in ski season.) It rises just 400 feet in 15 minutes, over a distance of about 2000 feet. I bet you could walk it faster, but we weren’t in a hurry, so we took it.

At the top you get a view of the middle plateau over what I assume would be a piste were it covered in snow.

They helpfully indicate viewpoints with rather fetching coloured seats.

There’s a wind turbine up there

with a fetchingly illustrated base.

We rode down chairlift and cable car to get back to our coach and Jimmy took us to our next stop, the Capilano Suspension Bridge Park. It’s too easy to assume that this bridge is the big blue suspension bridge you see extending north from Stanley Park. That would be wrong – that one is the Lions Gate Bridge. The Capilano Suspension Bridge is a pedestrian-only (you’ll see why soon) bridge across the Capilano River, which feeds Capilano Lake, which I would love to say is formed into a hydro reservoir by Capilano Dam, but it’s not, dammit – it’s Cleveland Dam. The Capilano name refers to Joe Capilano, a leader of the Squamish from 1895-1910, who fought for the recognition of native rights and lifestyle. The bridge is in a park which has a whole host of tourist delights. To get to most of them, you have to cross the suspension bridge

which is a bit wobbly.

It’s great fun to walk over, and it feels a bit like trying to stay upright walking along the length of a rowing boat in a reasonably severe cross swell, say, about force 6. It was also really quite crowded when we arrived (less so later) which added to the fun.

Once on the other side, there is a very well-engineered forest boardwalk

leading past a raptor demonstration area


(that owl has got the eye roll down to a fine art, I think…

and the Harris Hawk looks pretty unimpressed).

There’s also a high tree walk.


(Actually, I think it’s more extreme physics and engineering, but I’ll cut them some (catenary) slack on that.)

There’s great emphasis on implementing all of this as sympathetically as possible with the environment – traditional building methods, no damage to trees, no major machinery, just pulleys and ropes. It maybe somewhat confected but it’s a seriously impressive setup, and great fun to walk around.

There is one more adventure to be had, which is the cliff walk, to get to which you have to cross the main suspension bridge once more. It’s not as wobbly as the others, and is very nicely bolted on to the cliff. Just as well, really.

All in all, the Park is an entertaining place to spend a couple of hours.

The final call of the day was to the Capilano River Hatchery, which is dedicated to salmon breeding. From a single salmon pair’s clutch of fertilized eggs (which may number as much as 1,000) where six young salmon would survive in the wild, the work of the hatchery means that instead some 300 will make it through the full breeding cycle, which, as well as keeping fishermen and bears happy, has significant environmental benefits.

Beyond educational information boards (which now mean I know the difference between fry, alevins and smolts) there wasn’t much to see at the hatchery, but they did have a salmon ladder the depths of which are visible through windows. Looking at the lower levels, one could see the odd occasional salmon making its way up (normally) the ladder. Strikingly, there was something of a traffic jam at the top

and outside in the river you could make out large numbers of salmon who, one hopes, would soon find the entrance to the ladder so they could get upstream and have a jolly good spawn.

This was the last stop on our tour, and all that remained was to fight our way back through the traffic to our hotel, which gave Jimmy a whole lot more time to dispense his folksy wisdom and undoubted expertise about the city.

Tomorrow we leave Vancouver for some ten days, whilst we travel on to Vancouver Island and beyond. Victoria awaits us tomorrow (coach and ferry permitting) and then we move on to even more excitement before coming back here for a few more days. Please keep your eyes on this site and you can find out what we get up to.

Day 5 (II) ….and Slap

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Our journey towards our next overnight stop continued towards the Krka National Park, about 90 knee-crunching minutes in the rather cramped tour bus that was ours for the day. The National Park has many attractions, but probably the best-known feature is the waterfalls. To get there we had a 50-minute walk along a flat, stony and dusty track in the scorching heat, which was surprisingly taxing. However, the track led to an area where there was shade and seating for lunch. One could also have bought beer, but that thought never crossed our minds. Oh, no. Not at all.

Lunch consumed, it was time to go to see the main act – the waterfalls (“Slap” in Croatian). Željko stressed that although it was offically possible to swim by the falls, in practice this was not a worthwhile activity, as you couldn’t actually get near to the falls themselves and also you had to share the space with several thousand people. There are, however, trails around the falls – wooden boardwalk or paved track – which enable one to experience the whole area. The trails stretch for a couple of kilometres, and it’s best to allow an hour to potter round them, particularly if one of you is a fanatical photographer.

Right at the start, you get a great view of the lower falls. I guess they’re more cascades than falls, but still it’s an impressive sight.

and you can see how popular it is as a bathing area. As you go round, you go higher and higher on the trail and get more views of the cascades

as well as various exhibits, such as this impressive piece of ironwork, which formed part of a hydro-electric generation facility that first opened as long ago as 1895.

As you get to and round the higher trails, the scenery changes from the dramatic cascades to a quieter, more gentle vibe, with boardwalks taking you through areas with pools,

streams full of fish,

gentler babbling brooks and smaller cascades.

We even saw a froggy who, from the sound of him, was a-courting.

Towards its end, the trail takes you to probably the best viewpoint over the major cascades.

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Fortunately, after our Krka visit, we didn’t have to retrace our steps along the hot, dusty trail, but could take a shuttle bus to where we could continue our journey – some 75 more knee-crunching minutes – to Starigrad Paklenica. Our hotel there was the “Biker-Friendly -10%” Hotel Vicko, and we were in an annex called Villa Vicko. Our room was more a small apartment, with balcony and kitchenette; more to the point it was up only one flight of stairs. We were to be here for three nights, so could unpack some stuff and relax a bit – very welcome.

The group had dinner in the hotel restaurant that evening, and reports of the food varied: Jane’s seafood risotto was very humdrum, but my tuna steak was superb. The service was a bit erratic at first, but we eventually adjusted to the style of our young waiter, Josip, and the day ended very pleasantly. We even had the promise of a relatively relaxed start the next day – 0830! – and you’ll have to stay tuned to find out how all that went.

Galapagos 7 (Saturday) – Gad it’s hot! Must be the heat.

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7th April 2018

For various reasons involving the untimely departure of one family on board (in order to get back to Blighty for the start of school term!), our first activity of the day, a walk around an islet called South Plaza, didn’t start until 0930. The consequence was that we ended up walking around a small fragment of volcanic rock in the blistering heat, which ended up being a little too much for everyone, but especially me; by the end of our time on the island, I was more interested in finding a small patch of shade than doing any photography. That said, it had some interesting features, the main one being land iguanas, which we hadn’t seen thus far in the Galapagos. The first thing we saw, though, was a plethora of Swallow-Tailed Gulls

including a chick, which was being fed by its mother.

These gulls are unusual in that they feed at night – the red ring round their eyes indicates that they can see infra red light, which aids their hunt for food.

Then we realised that there were quite a lot of (surprisingly well camouflaged) land iguanas around.

These have many different characteristics that mark them out from the marine iguanas which make the Galapagos famous, not least of which is the mouth. The land iguanas were described by our naturalist/guide Natasha as having a “Mona Lisa smile”. It’s a bit of a stretch, but I guess I can see what she means.

There were also some ancient cactus trees, which made for an interesting landscape

and also harboured Cactus Finches

which feed on the flowers when they can find them. In fact, we even saw a finch’s nest among the spiny bits.

and also the bud of a new cactus growth.

Moving around the island through a remarkable patchwork landscape

we got to a point where we might have seen Sheerwaters, or Noddy Terns, but all we got was this Frigate bird

and by this point everyone was so overheated that we were all glad to get back on the panga to go back to the Origin.

A welcome rest from the scorching heat came in the shape of the next activity, which was a snorkelling expedition. Natasha hoped that we might see hammerhead sharks, and many of the group actually did. Also, flying overhead we saw a couple of red-billed tropicbirds, which Jane had wanted to see. No photograph, I’m afraid – my underwater camera is no good for fast-flying birds! No photograph of the hammerheads either – I was not in the lucky group to see these bizarre creatures, though I did get one or two sharp photos, including some of the white-tipped shark and others of some of the colourful and abundant sealife to be seen.

Frankly, I found the snorkelling to be less than entirely satisfactory, as there was a big conflict between my desire to get nice photographs or video footage and my also being able to stay with the group from our panga. It takes time and multiple attempts to get photos that are of acceptable quality, and I found I couldn’t give the photography the attention it deserves without getting separated from the others. Hence, I missed seeing hammerhead sharks, but Jane did see them. I will include photo/video content from one of the other snorkellers when I can get my hands on it.

The final expedition of the day was another excursion into the scorching heat, on to North Seymour Island, though calling it an island somewhat bigs it up. The principal wildlife interest for this expedition was to see Frigate birds. Again, Jane had a specific interest to see the males with their distinctive red chest pouch inflated.

The island’s landscape is pretty desolate, with dry-looking trees poking through a rocky terrain

But Frigate Birds have a colony there

(note the land iguana creeping out at the bottom – they were on this island as well). You could see females and young

(white breast = female, white head = young). But it was the males that Jane specifically wanted to see, as they attract females by inflating a remarkable red pouch on their breast.

And then it was time for the farewell cocktail as the following day would see us having to depart for Quito.

Our week in the Galapagos was an intense experience – early starts in the morning, few opportunities to rest and relax without missing out on parts of the programme, huge amounts of information to absorb and try to remember. But the opportunities it presented – a superb way to see unique wildlife at close quarters, brilliant photographic scenarios and, best of all, a chance to meet and share the experience with a bunch of really nice people – made our week on M/V Origin a truly extraordinary passage in the already remarkable trip we’re having in South America.