Mileage today: 37 miles Total miles: 5,601

Such an enjoyable day today because we got to meet up with our close friends Stuart and Fi, who arrived in Vancouver a couple of days ago prior to departing on a fantastic trans-pacific cruise on Monday.

They motored up to Whistler this morning in their Turo rental car. They are Turo fans like we are.

It was such a shame today was very grey, rainy and a bit chilly. A drop of 7C from yesterday. Macs and trousers came out of the case!!! The clouds were so low, the mountains were invisible. Ruled out quite a lot of activities.

But first we had a big catch up over coffee in our place. We told them our traveller tales from this trip and they told us all about their plans for the upcoming cruise and stays. Sounded amazing.

Then we headed out for a hike at Nairn Falls about 19 miles north of Whistler at Pemberton. We had been recommended to this one by another mutual friend, Nick, who was here with his wife earlier in the summer. It proved to be an excellent suggestion.

Nairn Falls is within a provincial park. We parked in the day use area and the trail lead off from there. It was a really nice trail 3km rtn and gently rising and falling through nice woods along the bank of the Green River. Which is an extraordinary turquoise green colour and extremely fast flowing.

The track was in reasonable condition but quite a few tree roots and cobbley rocks so you had to watch your feet. It was quite busy.

The Falls are amazing. They burst through a little narrow shoot and then drop down into a pothole and well up again a few feet lower to reform the wider river. Very pretty and exciting. The boys walked down lower than the platform but it was a scramble and the rain had started so Fi and I stayed at the higher level.

Walked back through the woods and drove back to Whistler in quite a drenching drizzle. We really can’t complain as it’s only the second day of rain since we arrived at the beginning of August.

Had a walk all around Whistler village. Its a pedestrianised centre, very attractive and manicured – lovely flower borders everywhere. It’s manufactured of course like a lot of modern ski resorts but at least not ugly and I can imagine with snow on the ground and full of young skiers enjoying the restaurants and patios, it would be jumping. The summer proper is amazing too with the variety of outdoor sports available.

Oh. A funny story of the day. Yesterday when we arrived, we chose to park the car in the hotel parking and Bob left the car there with the hotel pass on the dashboard. Except he didn’t!!!!! When we arrived at the car this morning, a parking officer was examining it and announced he was about to ticket us. But we have a pass said Bob and showed him it displayed on the dashboard. Not my business. Said the officer. Your parking is in that underground car park over there!!! Our jaws dropped but the man was nice enough to say that as he hadn’t issued the ticket, we had arrived literally 10 seconds in time to escape. Which we did. We told the hotel desk when we got back, not to complain at all, because it was totally our mistake, just to laugh about it really. We could have been towed away!!!! They were nice enough to then phone the room and remit our parking fee for yesterday. The staff here are very very nice.

After our village walk we had an early dinner at an Italian restaurant. It was massive and came with garlic bread. Soup or salad and ice cream and coffee to follow. Really very nice.

We walked to the village centre and bid our fond farewells to Stuart and Fi. We will see them again in December. They will have been around the world by then.