Whistler

06.04.2011 - 08.04.2011

Aileen had very kindly arranged for us to stay in her friend's apartment in Greystone Lodge, Whistler. You may remember this as the place where the 2010 Winter Olympics took place.....

.....then again you may not, as the UK only won one medal....in the women's luge (the one where you slide downhill feet first very very fast)

Wow! What a pad. It was a beautiful place, perfect location and came complete with rocking chair (awesome), indoor and outdoor hot tub. Here's the indoor:

Naturally we sampled them both - views from both were excellent and when we got too hot indoors we would stand outside and rub snow on us to cool down. When I say "we" I really mean Katie, Tom just stood outside as he is not a hardy Scot and cries a bit when he gets cold (other Baughans can verify this).

Anyway, the place was fantastic and very relaxing.

As we didn't have the time, money, necessary competency, clothes, equipment or insurance to ski or do anything too extreme, we headed up to the peaks of Whistler and Blackcombe mountain on the special Peak2Peak tour. As the name subtly suggests, this involves gondola rides up and down and then one across the peaks.

The views were spectacular and we were lucky to have such a clear day.

After a few hours wondering between the two peaks and having consumed several hot chocolates, at both ends of the gondola, we headed back down to the village to sample one of the lesser known Olympic sports, tubing.

Tubing is where you sit in a rubber ring and get chucked down a steep track- kind of like really fast sledging. It was great fun, and we soon discovered the "black" run which had a smoothish start before a blind summit and a plunge to the bottom. Add to this no control as to whether you are going forwards or backwards or spinning wildly. Great fun.

Half way down the black run

Arriving at the bottom...in reverse

Deciding it was time to go and warm up a bit in the hot tub we returned to the apartment, over-hearing several stories of bear sightings on the slopes and feeling jealous but prepared as we had read our "bear smart" information sheet, but not sure how scaring them with a human pyramid would work with just two of us....

Whilst in the hot tub we got chatting to an American couple who later invited us to their apartment upstairs for a drink - very friendly of them and we enjoyed a nice evening.

Day 2 and we headed of for a walk around town and along one of the trekking paths before catching the bus back to Vancouver.

Back in town we were met by Howard, one of Tom's mum's oldest friends who lives in the south of the city. He drove us out to a lovely fishing village on the southside for a delicious meal before dropping us off, close to midnight, back at Aileen's.