June 19 25
From Vancouver to the Seawall
Today we went further. We were really going to another area. Leaving the building we go and catch the Skytrain towards downtown from the Patterson stop. It’s fairly quiet because its morning now. I watch the mountains hove into view. There are ever present. We manage as far as Grenville and get out to catch a bus that goes past Stanley Park. I have heard of this from ages ago. It is closer to the mountains here.
So we join a path that goes under the road and into the park itself. We walk beside lake and there is a rhododendron garden which has pink bushes still in bloom and some white. It is quite splendid with the huge blooms at this time of year, mauve, white and cerise, organised around grassy spaces. Then I notice a very large tree but it turns out to be just a series of huge tree trunks, the trees are no longer there, they’ve been logged out many years ago. But we do find one that despite being logged has grown another two main branches and survived and then coming closer to the sea itself is a tree that has not been logged and is growing very tall and I can see the sea.
It’s the Pacific and we sit on a park bench and just look at it and eat our home- made lunch of egg sandwiches. There are ships moored in the bay and containers and to one side there is a green spur of land and to the other the eternal Rocky mountains.
We spend all afternoon just walking and looking at the mountains or the birds in the sea . I try the water by paddling and it is not as cold as the sea in the West. It is easy and full of bright green seaweed…
There seems no way across these mountains, they are solid and seem to stride on. There is a road to further inland but there aren’t real passes as such. The Rockies stretch for miles and miles. And sit and watch.
Next: Vancouver Museums
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/22455871-thiel-by-lynne-pearl
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Thiel-Sea-Journeys-Lynne-Pearl-ebook/dp/B0DGLV3BJX
Art by Cath Whitehead