Beautiful BC

Beautiful British Columbia! That’s definitely an accurate description for this amazing province that we call our own. Addison and I took a trip out west in September of 2024 to visit with my friend and former colleague, Amanda and her almost 1 year old son, Lachlan. 

Our friends live in Victoria, but they met us on mainland in Vancouver and we took a road trip to Whistler. What a stunning ski town with a warm and vibrant village! We enjoyed cruising the village, hiking around glacier lakes, and checking out Olympic Village. 

Our trip continued down the breathtaking sea to sky highway to Squamish, an eclectic and chill town that has excellent coffee and great views! We took the gondola up the Chief Mountain and were awestruck by the 360 degree views of the mountain and ice blue glacier lakes. Throw in a few waterfalls on that tour of Squamish and area and we had ourselves a perfect day full of beauty and good company.

Next we toured Vancouver and checked out the highlights of Stanley Park, including the brewery and totem poles, drove some iconic neighbourhoods, like Gastown, and stayed close to the downtown at Amanda’s cousin, near Little Italy (aka Commercial Drive). We felt very grateful to have wonderful hosts. The following day we spent cruising around Granville Island on foot; eating Lee’s Donuts, artisan pizza, and baked goods. Next stop? Vancouver Island via the ferry!

This next leg of our trip was so special because we were able to live with Amanda, Kevin, and Lachlan for several days. They were such gracious hosts and we felt right at home. The babies got along so well and we meandered Victoria and surrounding areas on foot and bike. We climbed Mount Doug to get spectacular panoramic views of the city, hiked the perimeter of Thetis Lake for stunning landscape imagery, saw the sun set along the beach facing south with a view of the Olympic mountains in Oregon, enjoyed some seafood chowder at Fisherman’s Wharf, admired the marina with a chai latte in Oak Bay, walked the sea wall and other trails along the ocean with delicious artisan coffees in hand, admired the downtown and parliament buildings, drank craft beer at the Drake, toured U Vic, biked some cute neighbourhoods, dined with friends, saw sea stars/bull kelp/sea jellies along Ogden Point, marvelled at the plentiful and tame city deer, and did a dip in the cold and exhilarating Pacific Ocean! Addison and I were so lucky to be invited to stay and were treated so well by our friends, their friends, and basically everyone we encountered. I was grateful to spend some 1-1 time travelling with Addison (as I did with Everly in California when she was a baby). Cheers to many more family adventures and learning opportunities! 

 

 

Newfoundland

NEWFOUNDLAND JUNE 2024

Addison took her first airplane ride from YYZ to Montreal to Deer Lake, Newfoundland. She did an amazing job with her sister and mommy by her side while daddy drove from home to Deer Lake (via the ferry) to get us! We decided to save some money on rental and use the space of our van to load up on kid “stuff”. 

We began our journey of “the rock” at Gros Morne National Park and fell in love with its beauty and diversity. From Western Brook Pond boat trip with its fjord appearance to mountain waterfalls, lighthouses, and the tablelands - we felt like this vastly sprawling park was well worth the effort to get there, the hikes, despite the unpredictable weather. 

Our next venture was the Twillingate area. It was a fairly long drive (4.5 hours) on the TCH with really not much to see. We stayed in Moreton Harbour to save a little bit of money and enjoyed the quiet and tranquil harbour front from our windows. Twillingate is usually home to icebergs this time of year, but the wind was pushing them north so we weren’t fortunate enough to see them (*James saw one on his drive back across the island after dropping us to St. John’s*). We enjoyed some fish and chips (cod) and famous Iceberg beer at Annie’s restaurant, attempted a cliffside hike in the wind and settled for a rocky beach, and then checked out a big polar bear in the Durrel Museum. Mommy enjoyed her non-grape wine at the Auk Winery, sipping on partridge berry and blueberry wine. The following day we enjoyed a long, warm hike along the coast and checked out a big, old lighthouse. 

Enroute to our next destination, we spent one night in the famously kind-hearted and generous, Gander, and mostly spent time at a local park for the girls to move and have fun.

Likely our favourite spot to on the trip to stay was in Bonavista. On our way to this peninsula, we stopped by Port Rexton for the day to sip on Two Whales Coffee Java, hike Skerwink Trail (beautiful vistas of the rugged coastal line), have icecream in picturesque fishing town, Trinity, and wet our whistle at the super rad, Port Rexton Brewery. We loved our ocean view house along the Bonavista Cape and spent a few days there to make it feel homey. Here we celebrated Father’s Day and checked out Ragged Rocks gastropub for lobster rolls. We need to make a shoutout to all of the local Foodland grocery stores, the only reliable place(s) on the island to fill our bellies in between adventures. We had our first sighting of puffins on a rock island at the tip of the Bonavista Cape and we all instantly fell in love with these little “clowns of the sea”.  We saw the John Cabot statue where he first came across the “New World” and checked out the replica Matthew’s Legacy ship museum that showed the size of the actually vessel that made it across the Atlantic from England. In the following days we spent some time at Elliston where there are heaps of puffins and root cellars as well as the large rock formations at Dungeon’s Provincial Park and spiral rock/chimney formations. We made sure to visit the puffin sites several times before leaving the area so that we could watch them take their short flight from their rock colony down to the ocean to go fishing.

No trip to NL is complete without saying you’ve been to … Dildo. Jimmy Kimmel has given this place a shoutout on his show and is now apparently the unofficial/honourary mayor! We enjoyed a beer and seafood chowder at the brewery overlooking the bay and snapped a selfie in front of the hillside “Dildo” in white letters like Hollywood.

We headed east, so far east that we were the most eastern point in Canada at the Cape Spear. Again, another windy adventure as we explored the lighthouse and rough coastline of our amazing country. We finished our day at Bannerman’s Brewery and indulged in pride month cookies at Craig’s Cookies before settling into our downtown condo. In the following days we checked out Terry Fox’s monument where he began the Marathon of Hope, loved our time exploring the cannons and vista of the city at Signal Hill and the jumping whales was a definite highlight of our trip! We were the first in line at Quidi Vidi Brewery and enjoyed a flight of beer and some fish & chips on the patio. Later we perused George and Water downtown streets; mommy got screeched in with screech rum and a kiss of the cod - yes b’y! We ate delicious wood fire pizza at Yellow Belly Brewery and walked the insane hills along jelly bean houses back to our condo for our final night on the rock. 

Everly and Daddy celebrated her 3rd birthday a day early with some red velvet bake at a bakery and he dropped us off at the airport ready to embark on a long journey westward. We feel fortunate to have experienced life as a “bayman” in the remote west and the hustle bustle of the “townies” in the capital. Newfoundland is a beautiful, quiet, and kind province and we would recommend the visit to anyone who enjoys the great outdoors and doesn’t mind a little wind blown hair!