30/10/2019 to 31/10/2019 - Vancouver / Canada → Spokane / USA (670 kilometers)

30/10/2019

Once again, we had to get up early. We drove to the ferry terminal and crossed over to Vancouver Island. The island is the largest North American Pacific island, with a length of 450 kilometers and a width of about 100 kilometers, but only the eleventh largest island in Canada. One day was definitely not enough to explore everything. So we chose the most beautiful places. We visited The Butchart Gardens, a 22 hectare flower garden. The blooming property has been family-owned for over 100 years. Nearly one million people visit every year to see the world-famous garden consisting of the Sunken Garden, the Japanese Garden, the Rose Garden, the Italian Garden, and the Mediterranean Garden. We took our time to discover everything. There weren't many flowers left, but the autumn had magically colored the trees. Afterwards, we went to the southern tip of Vancouver Island to Victoria. Victoria is the main town of the island and the capital of the Canadian province of British Columbia. We strolled through the city center along the Inner Harbor in the best weather, past the parliament building to Fisherman's Wharf. At Fisherman's Wharf, we found many small colorful houses that housed restaurants and souvenir shops. There were very few people around and unfortunately almost everything was closed. But we were lucky because a restaurant with fresh mussels and smoked fish was open. So we enjoyed a very good meal with a view of the harbor before we arrived back in Vancouver on time for the sunset with the ferry.

31/10/2019

Unfortunately, we only had one day to explore the city of Vancouver. We started our morning on Granville Island. Until the 1950s, the industrial plants on the landfill peninsula were flourishing, but then it became an industrial ruin. In the 1970s, new life emerged on Granville Island. Artists, craftsmen, fishermen, and tour agencies settled here. We strolled through the streets. We were so early that most of the shops were still closed. But we caught glimpses of the island's harbor, Vancouver, and live marine animals in a fish factory. The next two neighborhoods on our agenda were Chinatown and Gastown. In Chinatown, we naturally encountered typical Chinese flair, colorful dragons, Chinese music, and characters. The classical Chinese garden Dr. Sun Yat-Sen Park is particularly worth seeing. Unfortunately, there were maintenance works today and we could not visit it. So we will have to come back another time. In Gastown, we were in the oldest neighborhood in Vancouver. The district is named after the British settler John "Gassy Jack" Deighton, who opened the first pub here in 1867. Gastown is now considered one of the most beautiful neighborhoods in Vancouver. The steam clock, the world's first steam-powered clock, is particularly worth seeing here, but also the old townhouses, small shops, and beautiful restaurants invite you to stroll and explore. With a short stop at Canada Place, a docking place for cruise ships, and the Olympic Cauldron, which was built for the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver, we continued to Stanley Park. This huge park is Canada's largest urban park. You can spend a lot of time here on a total of 200 kilometers of walking paths. We didn't use the walking paths, but drove around the entire park once by car, enjoying the greenery in the middle of the city and the last views of different parts of Vancouver. Now it was time to say goodbye to Canada and return to the USA. We would have liked to stay a little longer in Vancouver, but we also wanted to go to Yellowstone National Park, which closes its doors to visitors on November 4th. So unfortunately, we didn't have any more time for this visit.

The change from the USA to Canada was intentional and planned because our USA entry stamp is only valid for 90 days. Our return flight from New York to Germany is on January 11th, but we arrived on October 3rd. So we had to leave the country, re-enter, and get a new stamp for a 90-day stay. Or at least that's what we thought. So we were at the border with the USA. The first officer didn't give us a new stamp, he sent us to a separate building. We waited. We explained to the second officer that we had actually left the country, re-entered, and our return flight is not until January 11th. He examined our case for a very long time. Then he told us that we wouldn't get a new stamp from him because ours is still valid until January 1st, 2020. We explained to him again that we are flying back on January 11th, but he absolutely refused to give us a new stamp. So we took our passports with a stamp that is not sufficient for our stay and drove in a gloomy mood for another 6 hours until we arrived in Spokane for the night.