All the things she gets to do: hiking

So I finally got to do a proper hike! And by ‘proper hike’ I mean I wore my proper socks and proper shoes and it was a proper trail. Two tips for you: dont go on a big hike just after you have eaten fish and chips and make sure you remember to bring water with you. I’ll take those tips on board for next time! haha. I was unprepared!

Sophie was kind enough to show me this hiking trail, and it didnt disappoint!! The day was sunny and lovely, with just a little breeze (probably around 18 degrees celcius).

This was the start of the hike (after we’d walked up a huge hill) and I had no idea what to expect. Soph told me that there was an incredible view at the end, and that kept me going.

There were lot of people out – Vancouverites seem to make the most of the sun because they know it is often rare – and we were overtaken by many fit men and ladies! Most of them said hi, which was nice!

I wont lie to you, it was tough! There were some real steep hills and rugged rocky bits and all the ups and downs wore me out. I dont know if it had anything to do with eating right before (quite possibly). It was a beautiful walk.

And then, when my head was pounding and my feet were sore and my tummy was doing weird things Soph turned to me, smiled and then strode ahead. I grabbed my camera out as I knew that look meant we had arrived.

I turned the corner and BAM!

The sun was shining and everyone was sitting on the rocks to watch the view.

It was one of those moments I’ll always remember.

WE DID IT!!!

And so we sat and talked and watched the world go by for what seemed like hours. Deep Cove is amazing, and so are great friends!!

Finding some magic in the woods

I went for a hike through some hidden paths and into the woods. I didnt know where the path was leading me, and I felt like I was an explorer out on a lifechanging adventure. I walked past trees and shrubs and around corners until I came across something that stopped me in my tracks.

I found my new fave place, a place so magical that I didnt see anyone around. I felt so invincible and happy that words cant describe it. My imagination kicked in and I picked up some sticks that were on the ground and started to pretend they were swords. If only I had someone to challenge!

The trees whispered to me, and I lingered here, drawing breath as deeply as I could and taking it all in.

I tried to hone my senses to any forest creature that might be around and soon after I spotted a squirrel.

I had the feeling that everything in my life is as it should be. I am in the right place. I am doing the right thing. I am listening to my gut and making the right decisions. I felt amazing!

I wanted to write poetry, I wanted to write a story – the creative juices were just flowing incredibly! And maybe that adventure started the wheels turning and is part of the reason why I took up the 365 day flickr challenge.

All I know is that this place has gotten under my skin and into my heart. I am already longing to go back there. I wonder if it will be just as magical when I return?

Oh and I really need to make life easier for myself and buy a tripod for my camera! haha.

A bus, a ferry and a train to Van Dusen Gardens

What a beautiful day it was yesterday! The sun was shining, and it was quite warm out for Vancouver- possibly even 19 degrees! Hehe. So I made the most of it and headed out on an adventure!!

I caught the bus from where I’m staying to Lonsdale Quay, where I got lunch. For dessert I got the pavlova and thought I’d write my review of it here seeings as it’s an Aussie thing (although NZ claims it).

Ok so yeah it looks nice. The big thing about Pavlovas is the meringue – it has to be just right. It should be crunchy on the outside and really soft and melting in your mouth on the inside. This one was chewy. Chewy meringue doesnt work well with pavlova, it ruins the whole consistency. Ah well… it wasnt too bad and it reminded me of home. Speaking of.. I tried marmite. It’s weird. It does taste a bit like vegemite, but there is just something different that I cant name. Also, they have cheesymite scrolls at cobs bread. I wonder if they use vegemite for this? It tasted the same as the ones back home. I mentioned before that Cobs Bread looks the same as Bakers Delight in Australia and if you click on the link it says that they are Aussie franchises!! Awesome.

Anyway, back to the adventure! haha.

So after lunch I got the seabus (ferry) to waterfront station and from there I got on the canada line train to Oakridge station. I dont know where the drivers sit in the train because at the front it’s all windows, so if you sit there you can see a lot but there seems to be no room for the driver. On the seabus it’s the same, but I noticed they seem to stand in a room on the middle left of the ferry instead. Strange!
When I arrived at my station I walked!!

I took some photos of the interesting houses in the area as I walked along.

There was a huge field where some kids were playing soccer. You can see the mountains in the background.

It looked like fun!
And on I walked until I came to some steps and had one of those ‘oh I can put my camera there and take some outfit photos’ moments.

Dress – Thrifted
Cardi – Target
Top – Sussan
Tights – Myer
Grey Necklace – sample sale
Bambi Necklace – Diva
Boots – Easy Step

I finally got to wear my fave thrifted dress that I mended!!

It got so warm that in the end I had to take my cardi off too! Now thats a good thing, and rare so far! haha. Bring on summer!!

So after I finished my impromptu photo shoot I headed in to the gardens!! It cost me just under $10 admission for the day, not bad I say!

It was beautiful to just leisurely walk around, I had nowhere I needed to be and no-one to impress. I took so many photos of the gardens, I will load them to my flickr. There were different sections that featured native plants and trees from different areas and there were so many flowers!!

There were little hidden paths (I am in LOVE with these) away from the main paths that wandered through the bushes for a while. You couldnt see where they were going but that was part of the fun!

It’s hard to get perspective from the photos but literally only one person could walk along them and they would be hidden by foliage as they turned the corner. Magical!

It really was quite spectacular. You could spend the whole day wandering around, or just sitting on a picnic rug under a tree. It reminded me of home a little!

Lots more photos on my flickr! hehe.

On the way back through Vancouver I took a photo of granville st – right near the waterfront station and gastown.

Gotta love days like these!!

Capilano Suspension Bridge & Lunch

So Ed and I found a break in our schedules and managed to arrange another meet! This time we met up at Lonsdale Quay, and then went walking around to find somewhere to go eat some lunch.
Here’s his seabus coming in!

We ended up at Jagerhof Schnitzel House. The food was really good, it had been a while since I’d had a parma!
They had lots of stuff up on the walls like antlers and plates, creating a kinda homely feel.

This was my meal – a parmigiana special. The chicken was crispy and the sauce was really nice.

And here’s what Ed had to eat when he was taking a photo of my meal hahaha. It’s funny when two people who both blog meet up – especially with Ed as he takes so many photos. I take more of nature but he likes the people shots more.

And then dessert! We shared a ‘death by chocolate’ but it was a small piece so really we could have had one each.

So with full stomachs we headed to the bus stop to get the bus up to Capilano Suspension Bridge. It was pretty expensive, at more than $30! I have done the Lynn Canyon Bridge and I found it just as good and it is free!! But this is one of those things that you have to try out when you’re a tourist.

They had people dressed up in ‘old timer’ uniforms and were advertising the colonial days.
There were lots of totem poles around, I have seen quite a few now.

Then we found a bear that had stolen a mounties uniform! hahaha.

Thats me pretending to be dead.
And then the bear decided to nibble on Ed’s hand.

Ok so, enough with the silly stuff and onto the reason we had come. THE BRIDGE!

It’s hard to get perspective but it was a looong way up. Really high! And when you walk across it it shakes a lot!

They also have a treetop walk you can do, which is fun!

It looks really pretty down in the canyon but I dont know if you can get down there or not. Certainly not from where we were – it was way too steep!

After checking out a bit of the nature walk and watching some squirrels we walked back across the bridge and went to see what else we could do to get our $30 worth! I asked this guy for some help.

And he led me to this big checkers board, where I challenged Ed to a duel!
Round one featured us both being defensive with our checkers and that lead to nowhere to go. We hit a stalemate!!

What to do?

Start again!

We lined up all the checkers again and round two started off with a bang, and as the colors went around the board it looked a bit like this. And yes, I am red!!!

Another win to Alesha! hahaha yay! And another fun adventure with Ed. When we got back to Lonsdale Quay I got him to try a beaver tail and he LOVED IT! Hehehe. It’s always fun when being a tourist gets locals to try something new.

The seawall and the raccoon.

So today one of my dreams came true, but that story will have to wait for a little bit.
Today started with an unexpected text message from a friend of a friend, Ed. It turned out that we were both free today (and the sun was out), so he offered to meet me at waterfront station and show me around. I happily agreed – you can learn a lot about a place through talking with the people who live there.

We started the officialness at the site of the Olympic Cauldron.

I was surprised to see it still there, apparently they are keeping it there for good and will light it for special events. As far as I know we didnt get to keep the ones in Sydney or Melbourne – am I wrong?? Anyway, it was a beautiful area.

It was interesting talking to Ed, he has been a background actor for quite a while now and he has lots of cool stories. He has even been in Stargate – thats the ultimate for me! Haha. I might get into background work too, it seems to be something that’ll be interesting and as I have a few contacts I think I’ll use them.

Here’s Ed poking the new leggo orca artwork at the waterfront.

So we decided to walk the whole seawall of Stanley Park. I reckon I ended up doing about 12km’s, which is pretty darn good! haha.

Next stop along the walk was the totem poles!! I was very impressed with how tall this one was.

Ok here is the dream coming true part. So we are walking along and then I see a squirrel and do my usual “SQUIRREL!”. And then we laugh at myself…and watch the squirrel run across the road. So the squirrel runs near this log and then I look over and see something on the log and I go to Ed “whats that on the log!”. He goes “what? nothing!” I have this instinct though and walk a bit closer and realise as the shape jumps off the log that IT IS A RACCOON!!! So I think I may have squealed a little. Hahaha. And then it ran off into the scrub. So we cross the road and go over to look if we can see it in the scrub and then it’s on the edge – about to completely disappear. Then Ed goes “come here little raccoon” and makes all these noises and the raccoon turns around and starts to head towards us. At this moment all of the ‘rabies! DANGER!’ signs come back into my head and I say “is it going to attack me?”. Ed says “no, but if it does we’ll go to the hospital.” SO then the little raccoon comes so close so so so close and I get these photos. Heeeee!!

Oh my gosh it was the most exciting thing ever hahaha. And so I got to cross another thing off my to do list! Wooo.
So after I calmed down we walked on a bit further and saw some more really pretty things.

It was a long walk, but it was great to see the whole of the seawall and just be out in the sunshine! I had a fun day. Thanks Ed!

If you want to check out his adventure blog click here.

Take a walk on the wild side.

If you walk out the back door where I’m staying in North Vancouver, and wander down a little bit you come across a trail that looks exactly like this.

It is narrow and green, and lush and you almost cant see where it is leading you. That is half the fun!! If you follow it trustingly very soon you will come out to a much wider path and you will notice a field to your left.

I have been told that a bear was sighted around here, and also some deer. The only thing I have seen is a squirrel! Look, can you see it?!!

He wouldnt come down to say hi but I felt glad that I atleast finally got a photo! hahaha.

It was good to give my hiking shoes another little trial, and I look forward to really breaking them in soon!

I had to take a photo of this tree, you see how it looks like it was sprayed with green spray paint? That’s moss! Incredible. Gotta love nature eh?!! There’s really nothing like the smell of clean, fresh air and the spirit of adventure.

I have a few big trips on the horizon and I need to work out which one to do first! I really want to explore Vancouver Island – not just Victoria but around to Tofino and some of the other interesting towns. I am also keen to take a train down to Seattle and Oregon and explore all around there. Then there’s Banff and a trip to Montreal and Toronto. Wow, so many plans!!! I need to work out a schedule here hehe.

In the deepest cove, beauty resides.

I took a trip to Deep Cove yesterday. Wow. What a gorgeous place! I was greeted by a beautiful day outside and for once I didnt have my thick knit jacket or trench on, instead I opted for about 4 lighter layers and it worked. As I wasnt given any work hours this week I got to a point where I was actually thinking it’d be nice to go to work, so now that I have 5 days rostered on for next week I’m feeling better about it. They’re only from 3 to 5 hour shifts, so thats a good thing! I almost ran out of places to explore this week! What? Never! Haha.

Anyway, yes, deep cove!!

It was a real typical quaint little fishing village, a bit like a smaller Canadian version of Sorrento. It was so incredible to see the water and the huge mountains of trees. Thats the thing that always reminds me I’m somewhere else – the trees are so different from in Australia!! They are so deep green and thick and tall. I love it! Deep Cove is the ‘summer holiday’ place for a lot of Canucks and I can totally understand why!

If I had a sweetheart I could see myself doing something like this couple.

Just sitting, watching, listening and talking. That’s the ideal isnt it? What a perfect way to waste a few hours! Instead I wandered along to the waters edge and sat on some rocks for a while. I wrote in my journal and I contemplated life and its complexities.

I ate a chocolate donut at honeys (one of those things you ‘have to do!’) and then walked it off on a trail. Well I spose I walked off a quarter of it anyway hahaha.

I did my typical hiking thing of inner dialogue ‘I wonder if I’m gonna see any animals, oh maybe a bear will come over that hill. I wonder if there’s a wolf watching me. Why cant I see any raccoons? Come on raccoons! Ooh was that a squirrel? Nope, just a bird.’ Hehehehe. yes, for real. My senses go into overdrive and I try to tap into every sound and locate something. And I fail everytime but I WILL find them one of these days. You can count on it!

I decided that I’ll have to go back and visit Deep Cove in the summer to take a kayak and explore some more!

Before I go – two more things! I tried a ‘beavers tail’ today!! Another Canadian thing I had to try. Went to Lonsdale Market & Gastown. It looked like a huge potato cake but it was yuuuuuuuuuuum. You have no idea! It was like a thin donut and I got the maple butter one with chocolate. MmMMMMmMMmm.

Aaaand I wore my other new vintage dress.

And they call me a wanderer

I went on a thrifting mission yesterday! Very exciting! I actually came away with about 6 things too, so I’ll do a seperate post on them in the next few days. I also bought some hiking boots which I will cover in that also.

I started the adventure down at Lonsdale Quay, where they have a huge market that I found myself avoiding again.

Then I headed for the thrift stores I had seen when I went by on the bus the other day. They were on the main strip in Lonsdale Ave and very busy so although I tried a few things on I felt like the best stuff had gone. I asked the shop assistant if she knew of any other stores around the area and she gave me a tip about one several blocks away. I decided to go and see!!
On the way I passed several beautiful things.

After some more wandering I found a beautiful spot with wildflowers and falling blossoms and did a little impromptu photo shoot there. I cant imagine what all the people walking past thought I was doing in the garden but I didnt care. I was lost in my own adventure world! Haha. It was fun!




Dress – sussan
Tights – myer
Scarf – sportsgirl
Boots – easy steps

Then in the afternoon I got to sit and contemplate by the water and watched some harbour seals from far away. I love my relaxation and contemplation nature time, it is so important. And I got to go to my first Iyengar Yoga class in North Van. Boy did it feel good to get back into it! Iyengar is intricate and detailed and sometimes brutal but I find it’s worth it. It’s all in the detail! Gee it was a warm night last night for vancouver, I only had two layers on! Hahaha. I think it got to 20 degrees celcius yesterday.
Bring. It. On. is all I can say!
There are a billion more photos on my flickr as usual too, so check it out if you’re interested.

lynn valley: bridges and trails

The sun was back today and it turned out a lot warmer than I’d thought! That worked out well because I had decided to head up to the Lynn Valley Canyon Suspension Bridge & Ecology Centre. I have had a huge craving for some proper hiking, walking, exploring and wandering since getting here and it was time to satisfy a little more of that urge. When I left the house I had about 5 layers on, but I had to turn back and take 2 layers off and my scarf and gloves and beanie because it was hotting up!
Two buses later and a 1km walk and I arrived.

The great thing about the Lynn Valley Bridge is that unlike the Capilano one it is FREE! 🙂 The bridge was really narrow and when you walk along it it actually shakes and swings back and forth. Here was the view looking down.

The air was so fresh walking along with all the trees, thats definitely something I’ve noticed about Vancouver in general. Amazing trees = lots of fresh air.

I cant really explain to you how green everything is, there is moss growing ontop of moss and it’s so pretty. I was walking along the trails and looking out into the immense forests. I was imagining all the animals that I might stumble across, or that might stumble across me. I thought of bears and wolves and all of the animals that could eat me and the first nations tribes who used to live around here. If there hadnt been a pretty constant trickle of people around I could have got quite lost in those thoughts and my imagination.

There was a gorgeous stream where I sat and wrote in my journal for a little while. Yep, still thinking about animals hahaha.
After quite a while I noticed that there were several inukshuks on the other side of the river.

I tried to open my eyes up (and my mind) and really see what was around me.

Check out the moss on this tree!

Then I backtracked a bit and came along some stairs that went down, down, down.


I knew it was going to be tough on the way back but I thought it would be worth it. I also decided that I need to buy some proper hiking shoes as my basic sneakers dont really do much! haha.

So I walked for a while until my feet were starting to get wet through my shoes and I headed back. The stairs were tough on the way back up but I kept going and even ran up a set. Parts of the walk reminded me of some rainforests I’ve been to in Australia! That surprised me and made me smile.

On the walk back to the bus I fell in love with this blossom tree.

It was a really great adventure!

As always there are more photos on my flickr!

Hike on down to the stream

Step One – Park your car.

Step Two – Find the trail.

Step Three – Follow it to the stream.

Step Four – Hike along and try to spot some wildlife.

Well…. I did see a Robin! Thats a start anyway!