Breakfast at First Nation Squamish and Lil'wat peoples cultural centre and museum, followed by tours, talks etc. and a chance to look around. In the interactive section there was a dress up box - see photo below (with apologies to the Squamish and Lil'watt people) . One of the waiters was from Valentine. Lots of young Aussies working here!
Greg had booked a nature trail walk and Bob a treetops walk but both were cancelled due to lack of numbers. Greg very reluctantly transferred to the snow cat ride to Mount Whistler which had been one of the venues for the 2010 Winter Olympics. Anne & Bob were on the same trip. They all really enjoyed it -the views, playing in the snow,and claiming their medals on the Olympic dais etc. Then they found out that on the same tour that afternoon the group saw a mother bear with two cubs!
Thanks to some encouragement from Kristen I put my name down to do the Black Bear Zipline. There were 5 of us in the group, all from Newcastle. The women all admitted to being nervous but the two men were cool about it. I volunteered to go first and from the moment I stepped off the first platform it was great. There were 5 ziplines mainly back and forth across a river and by the last one I was zipping upside down. Great fun - thanks Kristen! The zipline company believe in and practice sustainability principles so it was interesting to learn about how they apply these to their business.
Greg has finally been able to satisfy his withdrawal symptoms from not being able to do any ("bush") walking. Todays activities were part of a free-choice range as part of the tour. Greg had originally put down for a nature trail hike ..... but because it was listed as 3 to 4 hours, no-one else on the tour was interested. So, Greg being the only one it was not viable and that activity was cancelled and he opted for the snow cat up Whistler Mountain. However, that was over by 1.30pm so, armed with a tourist office map and his trusty GPS apps on the tablet, took off for a self-guided 9.20 km hike to Lost Lake. Very well defined trails (some even sealed walkways) with several people always about, but well and truly into possible bear sighting country. Great adventure.
Dinner at the Irish pub in Whistler was very enjoyable and popular with our tour group. Could have been the 20% discount they offered to zipliners and snow cat riders! Bob's hot chip rating 7 out of ten.
Our visit to the cultural centre involved "audience" participation. Our native host divided us up into groups representing an animal or a bird. We were shown the traditional poses for each of these creatures and at the beat of the drums each group had to do their traditional dance. Thus Anne, Bob and Greg became prancing ravens ....
Dress up time for the young maidens of the village
Olympic rings atop Mt Whistler. Three worthy winners.
And there's always one rebel in the crowd that has to be more adventurous -Val on the zipline over the Fraser River.
The end of a long, hard day .... two locals relaxing in the Irish Pub.
Glad you loved the zip line Val. Not for me I'm afraid.
ReplyDelete