Flying from Heathrow, we landed late in Vancouver, and taxied into town to our Airbnb apartment, managed by an absent Brazilian student. Let’s say it wasn’t the best!

Vancouver is a clean attractive city that we explored mainly on the tourist hop on-hop off bus. It consists of a large bay (Vancouver Harbour) with the city on the southern shore, industrial docks on the northern shore with houses on the slopes rising above the docks.

Some observations on the Canada we traveled through:

• The people are very helpful and friendly, you only need to look lost at an intersection for 30 secs before someone volunteers to help.
• Supermarkets were excellent with lots of organic produce at similar prices to ours, although meat is very expensive. Like the UK, VAT is not included in the price. VAT varies by province from 5-15%
• We were surprised to see so many homeless people on Vancouver's streets.

• The roads are excellent, including in the Jasper Banff National park – they should be, as it cost us $70 dollars each to get in (Albeit for four days).
• The accommodation in tourist spots is very expensive. A strange quirk is that wall plugs have no switches?
• There are numerous large utes, mostly Fords and GMS, some GMS with four back wheels.  Some were pulling impressive sized RVs (recreational vehicles) and often towing a smaller vehicle on the back with bikes attached
• The one dollar coin is called a looney (after the bird imprinted on it)
• The drivers are polite but tend to exceed the 100 k speed limit a fair bit
• We saw very few traffic cops on our travels

We explored the area where the Alaska bound cruisers dock, and watched the tourist boat planes taking off from the bay.

The 2010 Winter Olympics Cauldron lies on the shore close to the docks. Snazzy boots! We caught a glimpse of a few shops selling medicinal marijuana and found a number of historical photos illustrating Vancouver’s history – how about this tree?

Some random city pics. Those cars are the Trans Am Totem.

We visited the extensive Chinatown area.  Initially Chinese labour was used during the mid 1800 gold rush while the Chinese were contracted to build the Canadian Pacific Railway.   The curved Central Library as well as the distinctive office blocks are impressive.

There are plenty of cheerful houseboats in the yacht basin. The interesting building, bottom right, houses the Vancouver Science Museum.

Probably the most visited area by tourists in the city is Gastown, with its tree lined cobbled streets. Here we saw the steam clock, powered by a steam engine and electric motors, producing a puff of steam every hour. Gastown was named after 'Gassy' Jack Deighton, a very chatty Yorkshireman who opened the area's first saloon in 1867.

We encountered a bridal photoshoot in the main street and a bagman with electric shoes.

Stanley Park, from where the bridge to North Vancouver emerges, is the most northern section of South Vancouver. The bus takes visitors around the edge of the park where you have an excellent view of Vancouver City across the water; we saw another bridal shoot, the bridge, a reclining statue al la the little mermaid in Denmark and a number of First Nation totem poles.

We visited the Granville Island Markets seeing smoked Salmon and Bison as well as colourful berries and triangular cake. I spotted what were possibly some Tibetan nuns taking a stroll.

After a couple of days in Vancouver we ferried across to Vancouver Island and hired a car.

We spent four days there, me driving on the ‘other side of the road’ again for the first time since our Italian jaunt. We stayed in Victoria the capital, again in an Airbnb. Our host showed us some of the area where we discovered some quaint pianos dotted along the coast line, there for anyone to play. The wood on the beach has drifted down local rivers until finding their way onto the beach.

The ferry from the mainland. A deckhand works hard on one of the yachts for hire.

Like the mainland, Victoria docks have interesting house boats.

Probably the highlight of our Island visit was to the Butchart Gardens, a photographic smorgasbord.

And a different view

James Cook was everywhere! He discovered Vancouver Island as well the south east coast of Australia. The British Columbia Legislature building is impressive and we discovered Russell’s, Canada’s largest second hand book store.

And finally, some local wildlife