Today was a public holiday and the weather was dry, so Audrey, Nico, Anais and I caught two buses over to West Vancouver and spent the afternoon in Lighthouse Park. Located on a little peninsula with the Burrard Inlet to the east and the Strait of Georgia to the west, it was named for the Point Atkinson Lighthouse and covers nearly 190 acres, almost all of which is old-growth rainforest. Point Atkinson was first chartered and named by Captain George Vancouver in 1792, so is a National Historic Site, and because of the lighthouse, which needs a dark background, the trees in what is now the park have never been logged. Therefore the park contains some ancient Western hemlock and Western Redcedar, and the city's last remaining stand of first-growth Douglas fir.
We left the house around 1pm, and on the overcrowded bus journey I noticed that, while the particularly pretty ones I pass on the way to the supermarket are now bare, some trees of the same species in other areas of the city still have a lot of their leaves. So my eyes stayed happily fixed to any vivid splashes of coral-pink, apricot and dark raspberry we passed, for as long as possible - which was usually only a few seconds. Mount Baker was visible as we crossed the Lions Gate Bridge.
We spent a couple of hours roaming some of the trails, pausing at a few viewpoints for a while; we saw an eagle at the one by the lighthouse. None of us had been there before and didn't know what the trail conditions would be like so I'm glad I wore my hiking boots: it was damp and slippery in places, but thankfully not too wet or my socks would have gotten damp too. We reached the last viewpoint just after sunset, and sat on the vast, smooth granite boulders to watch the lights of Vancouver slowly blink on in the deepening twilight. Returning through the now-dark forest was interesting, and quite cool, but not difficult. We only had to wait a minute for the bus.
It was 6pm by the time the bus arrived back in Downtown. Nico and Anais went to meet some friends, so Audrey and I decided to find something to eat before going back to the house. Wanting something savoury, warm, quick and fairly cheap, we walked along Robson Street, the main shopping street which I've never been down before, for five minutes before coming across a diner-style burrito place. Perfect! I ordered a pulled pork traditional burrito (slightly spicy rice, beans, lettuce, salsa, in a tortilla), it was made fresh straight away and it was yummy, and filling :) Back at the house, the rest of the evening was quiet.
No comments:
Post a Comment