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......

RubyStarrs in Paris...

Finally we have made it to Paris. It was a bit of a long travel day - we decided to come by train so we could experience the full glory of British Rail or whatever it's called now which actually delivered perfectly on time... and then the Eurostar which was incredibly disappointing! All that beautiful St. Pancreas Station and the Eurostar is sited in the dungeon... overcrowded, dark, lousy facilitated space... and then the train was an hour late it felt like a long time before we got any fresh air - but eventually we wound up in gay Paree... We navigated the metro and found our airbnb gaff. A mere 70 steps to the fourth floor on a rather lovely winding wooden staircase to a very nice roof top flat which is comfortable and gives a view across a lovely Courtyard with some obviously much posher flats. It's located really centrally about two minutes away from the Opera Garnier so a very good location for getting everywhere...

Funchal

So after three days at sea we finally hit Funchal in Madeira. An escape from the ship, and I have to say it was very pleasant indeed. First of all the weather is really splendid. Especially when you know that everybody else in the UK is suffering grim storms and vile winds.. Over here it is between 22 and 25 degrees is really quite warm. Funchal is a pretty city. It's built on a hill it with lots of lovely white houses with stunning red roofs. In order to get the best of it we walked along the sea front until we got to the cable car and we took it up the hill. It was a really good ride much longer than we imagined and it's quite weird because it goes right through the town - completely over everybody's house... So not only do you get a lovely vista of the bay but you can view the beautiful rooftops and get to look in everybody's gardens and to look at their picnic sets.. clean washing nice plants... scratty backyards.... We got off th

Another Day in Norway where our Trusty Traveller finds Tromsø, Trolls and Totally misses Aurora....

Tromsø - the most northern city on the planet... Its quite a pretty little town with lots of wood fronted shops, but of course like everywhere like this, it is just one big tourist hive and every shop is selling 'indigenous' gifts- didthe Sami make aurora themed mugs and fridge magnets? Nearest I'll get a polar bear (i hope) Although I have to say I did like the big stuffed polar bear and black bear and I am presuming that these are either not real (unlikely) or culled as they sometimes have to be. But most of the stuff is just northern lights tat or Troll tat. Peer Gynt.. famous worldover To be fair the best bit of Tromsø for me was the Troll Museum! We went to the art gallery which was quite interesting (see instagram account) but not astounding, but I always like to look at the local art. We had a mooch around town in the snow and then we went to find the Trolls. This museum was absolutely crazy daft... it was totally dedi

Planet Ruby Starrs

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