Turtles, eagles, herons and geese..

huge moss covered trees

Today we walked around Stanley Park - some massive trees and beautiful woodland and views across the bay.  there are some seriously old trees here but apparently 10,000 were destroyed in a storm in 2006 which must have been a massive change tot he landscape. We saw a turtle sunbathing  and lots of Canada geese and even spotted two bald eagles swooping across the bay.  There were some amazingly zebra striped dragonflies and quite a lot of large stately herons.  Its a large area so although it was busy - sunny Saturday day out - it didn't feel crowded apart from the cycle lanes and it was a nice change to the non stop traffic and bustle of the city the day before.

turtle sunning itself

beautiful roots of a fallen tree

We walked right through the park and we wandered into town, walking through very varied suburbs but mostly looking quite affluent, we had lunch in a bar and found quite a few little street markets. We did a lot of people watching - and there are some interesting people to watch -  and then we thought we might go to the art gallery but the queue was massive and it was quite alot of dosh to get in so we went and got our hire car instead.... 

What a hoot - we booked the economy - cheapest car we could find for 60 days and believe me I did my homework, choosing to go with  reputable company as we needed the car for so long and across to the USA as well...  and have ended up with a seriously fat car Mercedes... its bigger and posher then anything we have ever driven before- I just checked the contract to make sure they gave us the right car!!!! I guess we are in the land of the plentiful..... except we went downtown on the bus this morning and went a different route to before and both of us were quite shocked at the rows of homeless people living out of shopping trolleys and boxes lined up all along both sides of the street for quite a distance.  It was like a shanty town ... it was very depressing to see.  I guess that's big city life these days, such evident poverty surrounded by such incredibly obvious wealth!! 

Back to the car scenario - it make us a bit nervous and slightly embarrassed to be driving something so large and grand esp when we are camping in a £40 tent (and people are living out of shopping trolleys) ha ha however we will try and enjoy it!  We can at least sleep in the car if we need to!!!!

Tomorrow we head into the mountains via Walmart to buy sleeping mats camp stoves and the accessories we need for wild living in the outback.. and then we head for wilderness leaving wifi and internet (and comfy bed) behind so I don't know when we will post next.. depends when we find a cafe!!!

just an after thought - I think Dr Freds getting desperate for rocks......