One week to go

During the week leading up to the date of departure I was kept busy:
I visited the Bar Convent at York with a group of friends from my local W.I.
http://www.bar-convent.org.uk/
The Convent is England's oldest and was founded in 1686 and to this date still has a resident religious community.

The day after was Knaresborough's Great Bed Race,http://www.knaresborough.co.uk/bedrace/
This event sees the whole town come together to witness the mayhem and fun which is the day that Knaresborians have come to embrace.

Friends came to take me out and generally helped in some of my personal last minute preparations, others telephoned to wish us both well. Inbetween it was routine pre-holiday groundwork.

We travelled to Rossendale and stayed the night with family to be near to Manchester airport in readiness for an early start on the day of departure.
Arrangements had been made to seek whelchair assistance at all the airports that we would pass through and everything went according to plan and without any glitches.
The flight to Vancouver was around ten hours and we flew over Denmark, Iceland, Greenland, North of Winnipeg, Edmonton, The Rockies, Kamloops, Kelowna and Jasper - some of the places that we would visit,
We landed at 11.05 local time and airport staff were waiting to greet me with a golf buggy and to transport me through passport control to the baggage reclaim. A taxi took us to our first hotel in Vancouver where we had an 18th floor suite.

Rosedale on Robson

View from Suite towards Grouse Mountain

After some lunch in the hotel's bar/bistro, whilst watching England v Sweden in the World Cup, we took a bus to Stanley Park, here we had a horse drown tour through the park and were fortunate to have the company of a knowledgeable guide. The weather seemed perfect, sunny and a comfortable 18degrees.  On returning to the hotel we showered and had a meal of nachos and ribs and went to bed at around 10.00pm - meaning tat we had been up and on the go for around 23hours.

Stanley Park

 

Off-shore filling station for Sea Planes

Totem Poles at Stanley Park