The oldest neighbourhood in Vancouver is Gastown, down on the waterfront dock area. It largely began its life with a certain fellow named “Gassy (chatty) Jack” Deighton arriving in the area in 1867 with a barrel of whiskey to his name, offering thirsty mill workers as much as they could drink in exchange for their…
Pounding The Streets of Downtown
Downtown Vancouver is tightly packed into just 3.7 square kilometres in a typical North American grid formation, with glorious Stanley Park at the ocean end, Gastown and Chinatown at the eastern end, with the financial district, Coal Harbour, West End, Davie Village and Yaletown in between. Downtown is a heady mix of glittering skyscrapers and…
Haida Heaven. The Museum of Anthropology, Vancouver
The Museum of Anthropology at the University of British Colombia, designed by celebrated Canadian architect Arthur Erickson, was opened in 1976 and is considered a masterpiece of modern Canadian West Coast architecture. It’s around half an hour’s drive south west of downtown on the beautiful forested Point Grey peninsula that looks out over the Strait…
The Stampede to Calgary
Flying out of Vancouver you get the most incredible view of the city and its stunning coastal geography laid out beneath you. The nearby snow-capped North Shore Mountains – Grouse, Cypress, Seymour and the iconic formation of The Lions (twin mountains called The Sisters by the native Squamish people), whilst further ahead lie the vast…
Rocky Mountain High – Alberta Bound
Lake Abraham is some 194 kilometres north of Banff towards Jasper along the Icefields Parkway, Highway 93, known as one of the most beautiful roads on the planet. And that’s no exaggeration, the scenery on this drive is out of this world with soaring snow-covered rocky peaks, snow-laden forests, frozen lakes, glacial valleys, vast icefields…
O Canada, At Last!
It’s our annual ‘Escape the FNQ Heat’ time of year. And this year our cold destination is Canada and, more specifically, Vancouver. A first time for us, so exciting to see a new country and a city we’ve always wanted to visit. Vancouver is often compared to Sydney (I’ve heard this a lot) – for…
A Very Sydney Kinda Christmas
Sydney in Christmas is a magical time of the year, made all the more iconic by the loud noisy chorus of Cicadas, the heavenly scent of Frangipani and the lemony Magnolia Grandiflora in the warm sunshine. The screeching of Rainbow Lorikeet squadrons overhead and, of an evening, the plumes of large Fruit Bats heading off…
A Taste of Port
We were gifted a 3-night ‘staycation’ in Port Douglas by family (thank you G&R), so we nipped up the Great Barrier Reef Drive (around 45 mins from Clifton Beach) – one of Australia’s most spectacular roads, hugging the Coral Sea with the rugged rainforest covered Macalister Ranges tumbling down to touch the reef itself. Cyclone…
Cassowary Capers
One of our ‘bucket list’ things to see and do when we moved up to Far North Queensland was to encounter a Cassowary in the wild. Well, we’ve been to the Daintree many times and sadly had no luck. We even live beneath the Macalister Mountain Ranges – a wild Cassowary protectorate… but since it’s…
José Paronella’s Dream
Paronella Park is a mystical rainforest wonderland around 130ks south of Cairns set in the foothills of the towering Mt Bartle Frere (1622m), the Wooroonooran National Park and the Wet Tropics World Heritage Area. José Paronella, an entrepreneurial and visionary Spanish immigrant arrived in the area in 1914, working hard yakka in the surrounding sugarcane…
Travels With My Ant 