Vancouver

Friday 9 Dec 2011

Day one of my Canadian adventure with my friend Robyn (former work colleague from Telstra days).
I woke before the alarm which always takes off some of the pressure of transport timetables. In spite of that, I just made it to the station as the train arrived. I didn’t quite have time to finish purchasing my ticket so the next person to use the vending machine would have found a paid for ticket ready to collect. As it turned out I needn’t have bothered because the barriers were open anyway at Southern Cross Station. I finally started feeling excited on the train – we’d been planning this trip for so long it just seemed that the planning would continue and that the actuality was still some way ahead.

All went well with my flight to Sydney and I met Robyn when her flight from Brisbane arrived about 20 minutes later. Our baggage was booked all the way to Vancouver so we just had ourselves to hurry over to the international terminal. And there we thought we had reached an impasse. Air Canada had a seat for Robyn on flight AC34 but no seat for me. Unbelievable! We had booked and paid for our flights in April and were supposed to be linked at travelling companions. I had to go on standby, along with about a dozen or so other unhappy-looking travellers. Finally we received good news and a ticket for express boarding. One more hitch – Robyn temporarily mislaid her boarding pass – and we were in the queue to board our flight. Our seats were about 8 rows apart, however the woman next to Robyn was happy to swap my aisle seat for her interior seat.

Vancouver was fine and clear – we kept saying to each other ‘no rush’ which meant we were a little behind the others going through customs and quarantine and Robyn was pulled aside and pointed in another direction. I was allowed to go too. It’s still a mystery to us because nothing happened other than our passports were taken, the customs/quarantine officer consulted with a colleague, then returned our documents and waved us through. Perhaps they have a quota for examining a number of arrivals from different demographics.

Public transport was the order of the day. A Skytrain ride followed by a C23 bus took us right to the door of the Best Western Plus Sands hotel, just a short walk from English Bay. By this time we were starving, and it was still too early for check-in. So we had a deliciously filling brunch of traditional pancakes with maple syrup. We got a room with a view and right across the street we saw English Bay Bike Rentals. Stanley Park is at the end of the street so what else would we do but hire a couple of bicycles and do the 9 or so km round the park with frequent stops to admire the scenery, photograph the wildlife (I still think squirrels are cute) and birdlife.

Next stop was the pub on the corner to sample the local drinks menu. I tried a very tasty organic beer and we shared a plate of asian style ribs. We could have skipped the ribs because our dinners later were huge – still not used to the larger portions over here. In addition we had a two for one dessert deal and we were both struggling at the end.