I enjoyed Vancouver more this time. I think cause we weren’t trying to buy or sell a car.
Monday we slept in late, and eventually got up and went outside. It was quite nice, even occasionally sunny. Must be awsum type weather for Vancouver though, as we saw at least 3 convertibles with their tops down. I guess they have to make use of the sun when it comes out.
We wandered down the road towards Stanley Park, and hired a tandem bike. Much hilarity ensued, and we cruised around the waterfront, checked out the totem poles, and the views along the waterfront.
We then went to Beaver Lake, then through all the red cedar trees. It was pretty. Near beaver lake, some birds sat on our hands. We talked to the park rangers, who were digging out a drain in the lake. Turns out they have to dig it out every day, due to the beavers that live on the lake. Every dawn and dusk, the beavers are out, filling up the drain and anywhere else they can hear running water.. We could see the beaver lodge out on the lake, but no beavers.
I wanted to see beavers. Even though it meant we would be up late packing. So we zoomed off around the rest of the park, then home, spent a wee bit of time planning our next city.
At about 6.30pm we caught the bus down to Stanley Park. There were already two people waiting, one with a MASSIVE camera, and one older guy on a bike. They were staring at the lake intently, so we joined them. With quiet conversations we learned that the beaver had poked his head out 10 minutes before, but had gone back inside. We were super excited. After 20mins of watching, no beavers. I was disappointed, but not particularly surprised. The moose didn’t come out when I wanted to see him either. We started talking to the guy, and suddenly I saw a little head bobbing in the water – Thats not a duck!! with his little nose poking above the water, and his body floating along behind, he took a lap around the front part of the lake near the drain. Very cute. He duck dived over by some reeds, and we didn’t’ see him again fro a bit. He came out again as it was nearly dark, took another lap, then cruised over to the far side of his lodge, and sat there digging up roots and eating them. So cute. Once it was nearly full dark, we could jsut see him on the other guys camera screen, even though he was just a black blob in reality. Amazing camera. The photographer was nice enough to offer us a copy of a photo he had taken. I personally didn’t get any photos of him, as it was pretty dark, and our little point-and-shoot just didn’t cut it.
We were just in time to catch the bus home again, where we quickly made dinner, made a variation of trifle for breakfast the next day (muffins, chopped up, mixed with jam, and then the whole lot smothered in custard…it was all left over food we were trying to eat), packed everything in our bags, and planned to get up at 4am the next day.
Dale and Becca 