We spent the full day in Whistler today. If anyone is considering going to Canada, head over to whistler. It’s everything in one lovely little friendly village.

We got up and rode our bikes down to Tim Hortons for breakfast. It was all downhill yet my legs still felt like lead. And after cycling for a while downhill, I never wanted to leave because I knew we’d have to go back up the way. We had maple syrup & savoury bagles and warm drinks in the chilly morning air.

Eventually, we cycled to the village (I was struggling) and bought tickets for the Peak to Peak Experience (P2P) where you get to go to the top of the mountains via a glass bottom gondola. First, you had to get a smaller gondola. Once up there, you have the option to go even higher up before getting the P2P and of course, Ali needed to do that. Like I earlier mentioned, I hate open chairlifts and spent half of the ride up with my eyes closed. We were hanging over a dramatic cliff drop and I felt if I looked down at all, I would fall as well. Finally we got to the top and when my legs stopped shaking we hiked around for a little bit, took some photos and just stared in awe at these amazing views.

I’ve grown up not really caring about nature and the world around me. Whenever my mum would point out the mountains or the sunsets, I’d be very open about how uninterested I was. But now, as I’ve grown up, I appreciate all these things so much. I would rather wake up every day and open my windows to the sea or the mountains or something more exquisite than a city. I have taken a thousand photos of the same trees. I just felt so carefree and blessed up on the top of the mountains, today.

Afterwards, we waited 15 minutes in line for the P2P which gave us incredible views of the mountains and Whistler. When we got to the other side, we realised we didn’t have that much time left if we wanted to squeeze in some water activities, so we took some photos and got the chairlift back down.

I bought us some sausage rolls and we cycled over to Alta Lake. It was pretty windy but we bought some ranch pringles and two paddleboards and set out on to the water. Paddle boarding looks very relaxed and chilled out but the wind was pushing us one way across the lake. We paddled against the current and for once, I was better than Ali at something (hehe) and I managed to get pretty far ahead. (maybe he let me but still felt good) it took us about 15 minutes to go against the wind and with the wind, it took us about two. Our arms were aching so we tied our boards to a dock and lay in the sunshine.

The people are so lovely. One guy came over and asked us if paddle boarding was fun. Then we got chatting. People here don’t make small talk to be polite, they all genuinely want to help you or get to know your story, why you’re here, where you’re going, where you’re from and then they give you tons of recommendations on what to do. It was so cool. Every time the conversation dipped, he would ask more questions. We sat talking to him for a while before he had to ‘swim back to his girlfriend’ whatever that means.

We paddled around for another wee while and then got out the water, paid for them and then we had about 40 minutes before we had to head back to the village so we lay in the grass and soaked up the sun. it was the first time, all trip, we actually got to sit down with nothing else to think about. Our first little spot of time that we had to relax. Every day since we got here we’ve gotten up before seven o clock to embrace whatever adventures we might have, which has been totally the best thing to do but to have that little time in the grass and warm weather was pretty sweet.

We waited until our swimsuits were dry and cycled back to the village to return our bikes. We went to a little shop and got a jumper each that says ‘Whistler’ on it… you know, just in case we forget about this weekend.

Then we got ice cream which was definitely well deserved and so delicious. I had vanilla bean and raspberry sorbet. Then we got a taxi back to the hostel, picked up our suitcase, and walked down to the bus stop where we were getting a greyhound back to Vancouver. While waiting, we went to Tim Hortons (again), had another bagle; I read my book and Ali sorted through some of our photos that we’ve taken so far and then the bus arrived. It was sold out so we were both sitting next to strangers. We were due to get back in at 9:50 but didn’t get there until 11:00. We got stuck in really slow traffic. The wifi on the bus was pretty slow, I was too tired to read, I had no shoulder to lean on and the journey just kept dragging and dragging and dragging. But eventually we made it in, Margaret came to pick us up (thank you so much) and we went home for a midnight snack, exhausted from our jam packed weekeend.