Two Months Living in North Vancouver
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We have ticked off a few things over the past couple of months while living in North Vancouver. I’m also going to post a seperate blog for our little trip to Vancouver Island.
The thing I was most excited for about moving to Vancouver was getting to try Dairy Queen Blizzards again (I had them whenever we visited America and Canada as kids). So yum and a must try. The servers tip them upside down before handing them over to show how thick they are haha.
We did a couple of the classics when we first moved here like Grouse Grind, Deep Cove, and Stanley Park. Grouse grind is an 800m walk up to the top of Grouse Mountain (one of the local mountains in North Van). Literally straight up. There’s a big bear enclosure at the top which has two old grizzly bears in it. We only saw them from a distance but it will be cool to see then when they are a bit closer to the fence.
We did an easy 1-2hr walk at Deep Cove out to a lookout point. Deep Cove also has a delicious sandwhich shop (Dip Co.) that is well worth the long queue.
And of course Stanley Park is pretty famous for having plenty of trails in pine forest to explore. We walked around the Seawall. We also visited Kitsilano Beach while over that way. Kits is where all the young and hip people live, lots of smoothie bowls and matcha lattes there. The beach gets absolutely packed out in the warmer months, and I wouldn’t even say it’s even that nice of a beach.
Susan, Lucas and myself hiked up to Mt Harvey peak, one of the many peaks you can climb along the sea to sky highway. It had great views of the harbour as well as out over the mountain range. Like most of the hikes in the area, it was straight up. And busy!
We also hiked to Blanca Lake with Viv and Jeff. This was a nice walk up to a lake which we all swam in. Unfortunately we had to park 5km down the forestry road on the way to the start of the track because it was too rough and steep for the car we had. It sounds like a lot of the roads to hikes around BC are similar quality.
We went up to Squamish two weekends in a row to mountain bike. The riding is so so fun! The first time we stayed with Robin, Sophie, and James. And the second time we went up with Viv and Jeff for the day. Both times we biked at Diamond Head and Alice Lake.
I had my mid year work party recently and we went to a Friday afternoon baseball game. We watched the Canadians team (2nd division down) play some other team I never actually got the name of. It was a cool atmosphere but reasonably uneventful game, which sounds quite common for baseball. It seems similar to our cricket where you go to a game and spend half the time chatting and drinking beers. We then went to Cactus Club on the waterfront for dinner and drinks.
Geo and Hawkin invited me to join them, Josh, Shaun and Liv to do Saint Marks walk, up from Cypress Ski Village. That took about 4 hours round trip, with lovely views of the hardbour. We then got pizzas and beer from the cypress village pop up which was a vibe. Meanwhile Lucas has been living it up in Morocco.
So far living in Vancouver has been eventful and beautiful. The weather has been nearly blue sky and sunshine the whole time we’ve lived here - we came at a good time! We have already made some new friends (mostly kiwis), done some cool walks, and plenty of biking.
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