Late Autumn in Vancouver

Hello From The Sunshine

We decided to make a short, late autumn visit to the west coast of Canada to visit my youngest sister Diane who lives in Port Coquitlam. Although we expected it to be pretty wet for our entire visit, so far we've been blessed with absolutely brilliant weather which has allowed us to get out and enjoy this wonderful coastal environment.

On our first day we dropped our niece Hilary at her morning class in nearby Burnaby at Simon Fraser University - which occupies a beautiful setting surrounded by forest -  and continued to Burnaby Mountain Conservation Area.

At the top of the park is a collection of totem poles and this beautiful topiary sculpture ...

I got Di to take a picture of me with Diane ...

... and then I took one of the two of them ...

As you can see from the photos above it was cool but stunningly sunny.

We spent a couple of days hanging out with Diane before heading over to have the weekend with our friends James and Cathie Newman over the bridge in Surrey. I've known James since we played basketball together a zillion years ago and we went to Australia together when we were pups. James runs a company called Fitness Town and Cathie is a high school physical education teacher and basketball coach extraordinaire. On Saturday we went for a nice long walk through woodland close to their house, starting at the Elgin Heritage Park ...

Yes! It was a cool morning! Here's a photo of Cathie at a spot where the sun has not yet had any effect on the frost ...

Our walk started along past the waterfront and we enjoyed watching some Canada Geese cruising about ...

... and an American Widgeon paddling about in the shallows ...

 I thought Cathie and Di looked so cute together I asked them to pose for a photo ...

We were able to walk for about three hours through parkland with only a few road crossings. Lovely, and very autumnal with frost still on the ground late in the afternoon where the shade prevented  melting ...

After a slow start on Sunday morning we bade Cathie and James - and Tazo - goodbye ...

... and drove to a cafe in Coquitlam to meet up for lunch with our friend Izabela. Dianne was particularly excited to see her old friend ...

Iza was on her way to Quadra Island, where we will rendezvous with her and her husband Konrad next weekend. After lunch Iza had a bit of time to spare before she had to catch the ferry so we headed to nearby Colony Farm Reserve for a walk. There were lots of Blue Herons hanging around including this one ...

We were back at Diane's place in time to organise dinner with a little help from Murray (Diane's husband is a chef so we had a go-to guy). Happily, Diane and Murray's elder daughter Gillian, who lives independently, was able to join us for a meal and I took the opportunity to get a photo of the whole family together ...

and then one of us with them ...

We've got another couple of days here with Diane, Murray and Hilary before we head off to Comox to visit with my mom and dad.

Cheers for now

Doug and Di