Two wheels and two wings

Trip Start Dec 06, 2006
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Flag of Canada  , British Columbia,
Monday, March 31, 2008

As promised in my last entry we headed straight oot in to the Vancouver sunshine to make the most of it. The hostel had a deal with a bike rental place near Stanley park so we got ourselves some cheap wheels for a few hours and did some riding. There's a one way trail that goes right around the park with passing views of the city, the north shore and its mountains, under the Lionsgate Bridge and around to the beaches on the west side. All very pleasant except the nippy west where the arctic breeze was cutting though my winter woolies.

After the loop we headed along a few of the trails inside the park and other than Beaver Lake, not complete with beaver, there wasn't too many sights to see. It was nice though and these trails included a few small hills so it turned in to a bit of exercise which is always good. We grabbed some grub and then returned to the eastern side which overlooked the city and the sun went to our heads a bit when we watched a few seaplanes taking off in to the blue skies. If we were going to go for a scenic flight, today was the day.

We scooted back and dropped off the bikes and headed along the waterfront to see if we could get ourselves on a flight. They hummed and harred a bit as it's not exactly peak season and there was no one else booked in, The minimum number is three so it was looking like we were going to miss oot when they decided that they'd take us up in our own personal floatplane. Excellent news, we had a bit of time to spare and a couple of cheeky clouds rolled in to the tops but it was still looking good when we took off. Another first and it was amazingly smooth. It was hard to tell that we'd taken off, if I wasn't sat right behind the pilot and could tell. The flight itself was brilliant, we went past the mountains, around the corner to have a look at a lot more snowy ones, then right over the city. I wasn't expecting the bonus snow peaks so I enjoyed it. I also didn't suffer from the disastrous wrong side of the plane problem that I'd suffered in the helicopter at the 12 Apostles. As it was just the two of us we had a row each so could look oot of both sides. The landing was pretty smooth too, I think I'll add a seaplane to my list of boy toy wants for when I win the lottery.

We then headed back to the hostel and hatched and plotted some plans for the next week or so. It meant we had to change and cancel hostel bookings. As ever, plans are always changing. Perhaps making more wasn't helping, but it needs to be done otherwise days will drift.
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