Vancouver

Auckland airport, it is now 7.10 pm and the flight leaves in an hour. It has been a long day already but great to get a ride to Timaru airport and see friends there to see us off. A quick turnaround to our flight to Auckland which was boarding as we got there. Unfortunately, and contrary to what we were told, our bags didn't move as fast as we did and we arrived in Auckland to discover that we had no luggage! Frantic few minutes to try and get that sorted, and eventually they turned up on the next flight from Wellington! We were met by my sister Shirley and Donn and great to catch up with them briefly. Then to the international terminal where the drama continued with confusion over our seat numbers and what had been pre-booked for us. We didn’t get what we wanted in the end but compromised with what we were offered.

Bags found!

I realised that my shoes were no good for security as the metal zips set off the alarms and I got checked out fairly thoroughly by security each time I went through! 13 hours to Vancouver and we did manage to get some sleep during the night. Arrived on time to brilliant sunshine, warm weather and it was quickly into some more appropriate clothes and a dip in the pool at the hotel. A quick walk  to familiarise ourselves with the locality and back to the hotel for tea, and so ended the first day.

Barbara 

Lovely to have been farewelled from Timaru & Auckland in style - maybe our friends were worried we weren't actually going! As B said the woes of travelling hit us earlier than we expected, I thought at least we would get out of the country before anything went missing.  However, hats off to Air NZ who recognised a stressed pammy when they saw one, and remedied the missing luggage and did their best with our seating.  Good service, nice friendly staff and good food.

 The taxi drive into Vancouver city was pretty slick, although the driver needed to be cajouled into being  a tiny bit more friendly.  Won him round in the end, and he dished out a few facts - at this time of year there are up to 800 taxis waiting (in some mysterious holding lot somewhere at the airport) to be summoned to take passengers to the city as it is one their busiest seasons with cruise ships, and students returning.  He said Vancouver was an expensive place to live with the latest lot of apartments selling for $2 million CAD each.  We saw petrol for $1.38CAD ( not bad by our standards).

It still feels quite unreal that we have indeed started this wee adventure.
Pam

Monday 21 August

The big event of the day here was the solar eclipse! People were out in their droves with special glasses, pin hole contraptions, and cereal boxes all being used in various ways to ensure a safe view of the eclipse. We saw it in double vision as we passed someone who was using inverted binoculars to direct the image on a dark piece of cardboard!

We were on our way to the ferry that takes people across the water to North Vancouver. We sat in the sun and had some lunch before exploring the Lonsdale Quay Markets. It was then back to downtown and we walked to the Vancouver Art Gallery where there was an exhibition of Monet’s works on. We wiled away a couple of hours there and learnt quite a bit about the man himself and how impressionist painting came into being. We finished the day out doing some shopping and browsing in the Hudson Bay Company, a large department store.

This evening has been preparing for the train trip to Toronto that starts tomorrow night. We are restricted to a “small” bag that we can take on the train with us, and our suitcases need to go into the luggage hold so having to decide what we will need for the next four days. Interesting times!

Barbara

Found Post office, Info centre, a number of homeless people waiting for the sky to fall in, and the city in its Monday morning mode, as we made our way to where the Seabus ferry departed. Just like everything else in this small city this service was quick & efficient, and gave excellent views looking back over toward the city.  It is a ship watchers’ paradise, plus the added excitement of a heli-port and float planes means it’s a busy harbour.  Only one cruise ship in today.

The Monet exhibition was the first of our “cultural” visits and it didn’t disappoint.

We dined tonight at Original Joes which is a combination Irish/sports/family/you-name-it kind of place.

Haha – downsizing into smaller bags for the train trip!  Very strict controls on the size, weight and number of bags allowed into cabin.  We knew this so came prepared.  Yes I have my moose/bear binoculars ready.  Really looking forward to the next stage of our trip.

Pam