Fri 17th Dec - Tues 21st Dec 2010
After taking a Greyhound bus from Vancouver to Whistler on Friday 17th December (took approximately 2 hours) we arrived to a very snowy and beautiful village. We grabbed a taxi and headed over to Matt, Phil and Rick's apartment at "The Vale." We were hoping to stay with them for the four nights we planned to be in Whistler, however it didn't quite work out that way! Perhaps we could have fit if we didn't bring any luggage whatsoever, but we could barely even get the ski bag in the door! Sorry guys, but I think it would've been a bit too squishy if we had stayed there.
After catching up with Phil for a while we found a room at the Aava Hotel in the village which was really nice, however we could only stay for one night because they aren't allowed to let people under 25 check in there! We found this odd, but it is quite common at many places even if we are over 21 and have a credit card!
We took a quick walk through the village to find some food as it was already about 11pm and came across our first experience with "Poutine". Not a great word to say but it's delicious. Fries with gravy and cheese curds...it all melts together and its yummy and very popular over here. One of the things I loved was that you could just walk to the end of the village and get on the gondola to go skiing, its all in the one area. Same for if you want lunch just ski down straight into the village. Its very pretty and just what you imagine a cute little snow village to be.
The next day we found our second hotel for our whistler stay, The Crystal, which was really nice and right in the village. It had an outdoor hot tub which we made use of. Your feet would freeze on the way out there and burn when you put them in!! We spent most of that day just walking around the village which is all snowy and christmassy and lovely. And in the afternoon we went snow tubing at blackcomb mountain. Shaun had done snowtubing before but it was new to me and the track was really long! We did it about 3 times and it was so fast but really fun :D After that we met up with Phil and had dinner with him, matt and rick at their place. We also discovered "Growers" an alcoholic cider that tastes like lemonade and was only $8 for 2 litres!
Our 2nd day in Whistler was spent skiing at Whistler mountain (next to blackcomb). My first time skiing in Canada and I could definitley feel the difference between Australian snow and Canadian snow and the easy runs in Canada are equivalent to intermediate runs in Aus, so that was a bit harder for me.We had lunch in the village and then went skiing with Phil for a while, and Shaun and Phil went off and did some harder runs while I decided to be safe and sound down in the village instead. That night we watched the "Fire and Ice" Show held in the village where they had a big ring of fire on top of a jump and some pro-snowboarders and skiers jumped through them. It was a pretty good show and we watched it from a bar that was up high so we had a good view. We also ate at the "Old Spaghetti Factory" a very very popular and canadian-renowned italian restaurant. It was very yummy and a good night!
On our 3rd morning we had a late breakie (as I wanted a sleep in!) at White Spot, which has been said to be a nicer, diner version of McDonalds but we just thought it was like a nice little restaurant. We spent the day wandering around and trying to locate a cheap car we could use for our roadtrip. We emailed heaps of people but didn't get any replies :( So we went to the crystal lounge, a popular bar for people to go after skiing and had some drinks and some wings (wings are ridiculously popular over here!) and then we went out for Japanese to a nice restaurant with Rick which was great. We all tried Sake and have learnt never to make that mistake again, it was gross!
On our last day of Whistler, we managed to get a car - a 98' Pontiac Sunfire. The lady we bought it from was selling it for her son who was our age and she was really nice. The car has new winter tyres and a good engine and has been running really well. During that day Shaun also did some more skiing at Blackcomb mountain and I took the gondola up with him and then we took the Peak to Peak across to whistler. The Peak to Peak is the longest continuous unsuported span gondola system in the world. Great views and a good experience. Once we got the car and got all our insurance sorted out we packed our stuff up and drove about 300kms to Kamloops, where our roadtrip began! We loved Whistler and were sad to leave, but exciting things awaited.
Read next for Kamloops and Revelstoke stories. See below for Whistler Pics.
Love Hayley and Shaun
Whistler Village
Blackcomb Gondola, Ski Hill in Background
Village
Shaun & Hayley in the Village
Tube Track
Village at Night
Fire and Ice Show
Peak to Peak Gondola
Hayley & Shaun at Olympic Rings
Our hotel, The Crystal
