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......

Alesund

Our final destination stop was Alesund. This is a very pretty town in southern Norway built on a peninsula. All the houses are painted pretty colours and a lot of the architecture is all very Art Nouveau based. This is because the town itself was completely burnt to the ground In 1904 by a fire for which they never found the original cause. The whole town had to be rebuilt and this became a huge National Effort and a lot of prominent and up and coming architects flocked to the town to stick there 20 pence in. Consequently the town is very heavily Art Nouveau which was very fashionable at the time. There is this wonderful Museum just off the harbour which is a very beautiful Art Nouveau house. It has amazing panelling, doors, wallpaper, and it's all furnished with beautiful art Nouveau Furniture. It also house a collection of of enameled Art Nouveau Trinkets,boxes, spoons, jewellery, very very beautiful. There is an interesting collection of old books and paintings a...

Isle of Bute

Another Landmark Trust tick - this time Ascog House on the Isle of Bute - stunning as always... a very comfortable warm accommodation for the usual 8 suspects. This time we had a wee tower house for Dr Fred and myself - a lovely bedroom up the stairs with a big window and a bathroom al to ourselves - having said that all the other bedrooms in the big house were large and serviced by two bathrooms so there was no hardship for any visitors! The grounds of the house were very extensive with ponds and secret passages - hidden paths and we even spotted a deer late afternoon - there were lots of old features - ornate staircases and a lovely hidden door which I did a quick sketch of. Bute provided quite a lot of entertainment as well - the weather was kind and we did a a muddy wander down the south of the Island taking in St Blanes Monastery and Kilcannon Bay. The views were spectacular and it was fabulous to be out in the fresh (and it was fresh on the tops) air and we...

The Blue Dot

Excellent evening spent at the first Blue Dot festival held at Jodrell Bank. Clever use of the radio telescope as back drop for the main stage... there were some major teething issues which hopefully will addressed if this event happens again - mainly access and parking.. it was a nightmare approach to the festival and fortunately as we were only doing one night we decided to ditch the car and chose to walk the last mile and half into the site... what a relief as if we had queued we would most certainly missed Public Service Broadcasting which was one of the reasons we were going.. anyway we caught them and then enjoyed fantastic set by Underworld - danced much of the night away in the rain - my trusty solfest poncho almost kept me dry.. it was a splendid evening and the telescope looked brilliant when lit up when it got dark. There was a rather fab "installation" called a luminarium, lack of site information - another hiccup meant we were really lucky to catch it just ...

Planet Ruby Starrs

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