Day 8: Bowen island day trip

another breakfast in the hostel basement of granola and bananas. We had bought some fresh blue berries at 2$ a lb yesterday at the market that were amazing as well.

Kate took the morning off of running, but we stopped in Stanley park on our way to the ferry so I could get mine in. This park is awesome. I remember liking it last time I was here and it didn't disappoint. The outer loop along the seawall is probably close to 6-7 miles. The middle is a maze of dirt paths under dense groves of 120 ft tall trees. There's a lot of people clustered around each south end on the edge of downtown, but otherwise, you can have decent stretches of seeing no one.

We cut it close, but made the 12:10 ferry to bowen island just a couple miles off the mainland. It's a decent sized island, maybe 9 miles long, with a population of 4,500 or so. The ferry was proportionately enormous. You could probably fit the entire population on it if you had to. Though it was amazing how many cars were transferring between the 2. I'd estimate they crammed 40 cars on it plus foot traffic. And the ferry runs on the hour. People must just ride it back and forth all day.

Bowen island is a great network of hiking trails to explore. I really wanted to get to mt gartner, and at 2400 feet, it didn't seem hardcore, but it proved to be quite the undertaking. The first couple miles were relatively flat, then some pretty rugged/crazy up hills after that. We ended up throwing in the towel maybe a half mile from the top, eating lunch, and heading down again. The last mile was almost scrambling up super steep switchbacks to this point of hoisting up over rocks. Despite the set back of not finishing it, we considered it a decent day trip. Very cool to get outside of Vancouver and checking out how those people live. Dinner was good again and the banana leaf- a Malaysian place in our neighborhood. We got the 8 course tasting menu and I'm now stuffed, but we ended up both enjoying it. A few apps, followed by 4 types of curry, with a coconut dessert wrap in a crepe. Another good dinner in the books. Loved our time in Vancouver, but I think we're both ready to move on and do something different.

Big, but not that big. That one was headed for Victoria.