October 23, 2024 Vancouver Day #2

October 23, 2024

We were awake before Cat left for work just after 7:30 a.m. She had made extra coffee for us which we enjoyed before walking to breakfast at the Breka Bakery & Café on Denman Street close to Stanley Park. The 2 km walk along Comox Street, which is treed and has older three and four storey apartment buildings and 120 year old houses, and then Denman Street was quiet.

We approached Stanley Park from Alberni Street to Lost Lagoon. We followed the path west around the western end of Lost Lagoon onto the Rawlings Trail, which runs parallel to Park Drive until near Prospect Point. At Ferguson Point we could see the cargo ships anchored in English Bay. We checked the posted park map and chatted with a park maintenance worker, who went to his truck and gave us a map of the park. It was helpful to find the other side of the Seawall Walk. The Teahouse is located here, it didn’t open for another hour. We went down to the Seawall Walk at Third Beach, but only walked 200 metres before encountering a detour sign. It was closed for the next 2.5 km until past the west side of the Lions Gate Bridge. We took the path up to the Merrilee Trail and stopped at the Siwash Rock viewpoint. It had a great view of the freighters in English Bay. George Vancouver was here in 1792 mapping the area and encountered two Spanish ships that informed him they had mapped the area the previous year. Beside the path we noticed red holly berries and blackberries in varying stages of ripeness as we got closer to Prospect Point.

We followed the path through the forest to Prospect Point where from Lowden’s Lookout there was a good view of the Lions Gate Bridge. It was a terraced lookout which had 65 stairs to go closer to the water.

We then switched to the Avison Trail to go under the approach to Lions Gate bridge. The path wound down to sea level near the First Narrows and came out about two kilometres north of Brockton Point, on the eastern side of Stanley Park. The leaves are changing and dropping. There was a beautiful red leafed oak with sun shining on it near a children’s playground. Nearby there was a replica of a figurehead of the S.S. Empress of Japan which “Carried commerce to the Orient” between 1891 and 1922. On a rock in the water was a statue called Girl in a Wetsuit which was installed in 1972. As we were admiring it, the open air horse drawn park tour wagon stopped on the road for people to photograph the statue. We walked toward the Brockton Lighthouse, but detoured to the Totem Park before returning to the path.

As the path led to the city centre we went through Devonian Harbour Park and marinas on the water side. We walked as far as Harbour Green Park, just a few block west of Canada Place. Then walked up to W Cordova Street at Bute Street. A short walk and we found the Green Leaf Salad Bar for lunch after our 3.5 hour walk that covered more than 16 kilometres. It was a short walk back to Cat’s apartment. We had dinner at one of the Cactus Club Cafés.

Steps 27,343