Living like a local in North Vancouver …

So while I was trying to do my post yesterday, we lost the internet! It was patchy all day – I got some coverage on my phone, but not my iPad … so I took it down to the little PC man and he assured me all was well?!? Then we couldn’t get TV and then it went down completely. Horrors … we had three days of rain, and scheduled some much needed planning and then no internet!!!! I was able to send my last post from my phone. Fortunately we are all on-line again now 😊

We are loving having an apartment with a view! This ever changing vista is so novel to us … there is always something happening, float planes taking off across the way, ships of every kind, log-trains on the water and the sea-bus coming and going all day, every day. And we can see the rain coming!

There is a trail running along North Vancouver called the spirit trail. We have walked quite a lot of it. This part is along the marina (with those neat house boats) and flash boats. The trail is part of the great Canadian trail, which I suppose is a bit like the Sir Edmond Hillary trail throughout NZ.

Most days while out walking with Skye, we cover off some more km’s – I am not sure if she was allowed on the marina part, but otherwise dogs are fine, and some parts are off-leash areas, so that is great as well.

We visited the Lynn Valley reserve and spent the afternoon walking on all the different trails and across the suspension bridge. It really was beautiful. There is another suspension bridge here (Capilano) that is 140m long, but this 40m one (50m above the gorge) was just fine for me! We had amazing weather again, although it was cool. This park is truly beautiful, and we did a lot of tracks before catching the bus back to the apartment (to walk the dog again!)

There are signs all thru this gorge telling you not to get in the water, as it is freezing … Colin boulder hopped to get this picture! Apparently lots of people have died in here while jumping off the cliff faces into the river!! 😲

The twin waterfalls, are very beautiful. We are only 7km’s from the city so having this park on your doorstep must be amazing. It is dog friendly (but too far to walk her / us there, around and back) and unlike USA, Canada does not allow dogs on buses.

How the trees here balance their lives between a rock and a hard place is beyond me … they grow huge! The forest is made up of Douglas-fir and Redcedar and they grow so tall, and really straight.

The colour of this deep pool was emerald … the photos are ok, but in reality it is spectacular. It is called the 30ft pool, as I assume it is because it is 30ft long?!?

I reckon that there was approx 500 stairs in this park! 😮 Chelsea, I couldn’t help thinking about you going up and down all of these!

Colin sorting out the directions! And relaxing in an old stump. Our little brochure told us that the trees were milled in the late 1800’s and some of them reached 11m in diameter and up to 90m tall.

Some of the stairs we really good and some of the stairs …..

Our little brochure also told us that we might be lucky to see squirrels, black bears, cougars, deer or giant banana slugs … we lucked in and found the slug (it was about 100mm long) 😂

While we are out walking [and yes it does seem that is all we are doing!] I love looking at all the houses – it is lovely here on the North Shore of Vancouver and there is an eclectic array of house, apartments and town houses. The little yellow one has a sign saying circa 1904. A lot of it is just like home.

Just as well those hideous apartments, have these beautiful trees!!!

There are so many parks around, some with play equipment, some with sandpits and toys and this one with a putting green ⛳️

Ice hockey here is a huge sport, so of course we had to go to a game. A groupon deal came up for a pre-season against the LA Kings, so we got our tickets went along to our first game ever. Rogers Arena is an amazing venue, easy to get to and super helpful staff. The game, well I never understood the rules – there seemed to be about 15 players per team but only 6 out at a time, and they came and went from the sideline constantly – like bees from a hive! Anyway’s it was a long game with the clock stopping constantly (it was taking 40mins for a 20min play!) and plenty of ‘biffo’ happening when the tensions got high. Great entertainment 😊

The security at the venue was insane! These guys outside and you have to basically go thru airport type security to get inside the venue. The black-ops dudes, said they are proactive to counter-terrisom 😧 I suppose I felt safe!! We did have a ridiculous conversation about their big guns, super friendly guys BUT serious about their work!

I loved the national anthems, and all the pomp that went with it.

So that is us done and dusted for another few days. I hope that you are enjoying these posts. If you can’t message us on Facebook or WordPress, send us an email – we love getting them. We have been gone for 110 days – I am sure you haven’t even missed us 😘