Sr Music Tour - Day 3

Day three was setup to be a time of togetherness and fun. It was our chance to explore Vancouver and area and develop some memories before the stress of the festival was to begin.

Our day started with a more reasonable breakfast at 730 and bus time of 9am. We travelled to Granville Island in Vancouver and explored some amazing local artisans, shopping and a huge food and farmers market. Sitting on benches overlooking the waterways really helped put is in a calm mindset and there was a definite calm that started to settle in.

There is an amazing amount of awareness and bonding that happens on these trips and you can definitely see the students starting to create larger peer groups, supporting each other gently and really watching out for each other as the time stretches on and their bonds grow.

We headed over to the Vancouver Aquarium in Stanley park after our time at the market (and lunch) and asked the students to spend at least 45 minutes in the facility to ensure that they had some "brain stimulating" time. Unsurprisingly they wandered and talked and ended up staying there for about two and a half hours, with a few heading out to the beach with Mr V for a look out at the harbour.

Dont worry if you think we are being sedentary on this trip, our next activity was to walk the sea-wall back to a SeaBus ferry terminal that ensured that we all topped out our step count at about 15,000 for the day! It was quite a breathtaking walk along the waterfront and really helped us understand what gorgeous scenery (with amazingly awesome weather as well). We caught a SeaBus (ferry) that took us across to North Vancouver where we picked up a pre-ordered MacDonalds dinner and hooked up with our coach for the two hour trip up to Whistler on the Sea-to-Sky highway.

Arriving at the Listel hotel in Whistler we had time to unpack and head over to the "Welcome Social" at the conference centre where we were able to see the enormity of the festival. With over 3,200 students from 50 schools participating the welcome session was a bit crowded for most of us. We did a little poke around and headed back to our hotel for devotions and a good night sleep.... tomorrow is the festival day 1!