Capilano Suspension Bridge (North Vancouver)

Now this was quite an adventure.  The Capilano suspension bridge is 137 metres long, and sits 70 metres above the river below.  It is anchored to massive pillars on either side of the canyon and otherwise moves freely — so with minimal foot traffic it bounces quite a bit.  On the other side is a temperate rainforest home to 1300 year old Douglas-firs, with a 30 metre high tree-top boardwalk.

Also, (as clearly demonstrated below), I have managed to master the art of the DSLR-selfie.

Lions Gate Bridge

Yahoo! Weather is no longer my friend.  Gave me the hourly forecast of clear skies — made it a third of the way on my 10 kilometre round trip from downtown Vancouver out to Lions Gate Bridge (connecting North Vancouver), and it began bucketing down.  Had several layers, waterproof and all, but ended up absolutely soaked.  Finally got there and part of my tripod wouldn't work, so I put together a caveman-esque construct with some branches which seemed to do the trick.  Couldn't keep the rain off my lens, but came away with these photos so I'm pretty pleased.  On the way back I accidentally pocket-dialed 911, which led to an interesting call-back shortly after with a question or seven, but I got back alright in one piece.  Some good night practice shots for when I track down the Aurora Borealis further north.

Downtown Vancouver

As I've been so slack, thought I should clear the backlog and upload a few assorted pics. Had the first Vancouver snow, with a 4am walk to the park with Sovereign the Samoyed, and cats in tow. No considerable snow yet or since — just a light dust here and there. We had temperatures of 8°/14° C one day, then -9°/0° the next which I find rather peculiar. A hop, skip and a jump away in Calgary they're having lows of -25°C, so there is definitely snow to be had. Over a few occasions I've essentially covered all of Downtown Vancouver on foot, and all of the photos below were taken along the way. Visited the Granville Island Brewery with my drinking companion Chase, and a great effort went into sampling each of the brews on tap following breakfast which included a litre of Gelato. I've also been to see John Wick at the local picture theatre, which was everything it needed to be, as well as Interstellar which was excellent as expected — another Nolan film with a physics discussion to follow on the trip home, as well as a beautiful Hanz Zimmer score. Favourite movie I've seen though in a while was Boyhood, which (along with 6 other films) I saw on the 14 hour flight here from Sydney.

Stanley Park Seawall

Test drove the SkyTrain this morning early-afternoon; a 30 kilometre journey departing every 6 minutes, above the traffic, arriving in 40 minutes at Vancouver's waterfront.  Bought myself a shiny day-pass which I pocketed and forgot about, and made my way to Stanley park, following the sea-wall.  Managed to snap a few neat pics; with the tripod and different exposures, and found a pretty reasonable mix of the intense autumn colours against Vancouvers blue haze.  Walked a good 15 km's on a dodgy knee among a shocking number of roller-skate enthusiasts, ending up on the opposite side of the park forgetting the 16:27 sunset which tends not to muck around.  Somewhat dampening my planned pièce de résistance — a daytime long-exposure directly overlooking traffic on the Lions Gate bridge, through a 'welding glass' filter attached to my cameras lens.  However I thought it best to cut this short and head back through the middle of the park, before the horde of Squirrels, Racoons and Geese, now carrying my scent, have me bludgeoned now that they lay in the cover of darkness ready for ambush.  Stopped into a nice Italian cafe (the first building with lights on) to thaw my extremities, chisel off the frost bite, dust the frozen grit from my light day-jacket and finally made my way back (after a Granville Island Lager or two) with much of the city's outskirts now etched into the map with concrete plans to bring gloves next time.