You can take the girls out of Cambridge......

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Geo: 49.2605, -123.114

Making the most of having facilities to stretch out in rather than a cramped tent, we spent the morning relaxing - swimming, enjoying the hot tub, watching the Olympics and catching up on some reading. Then, lunch packed, we decided that we needed a little slice of home and so it was cycling time! We walked through the city in the blazing sunshine, enjoying the cleanliness and lack of crowding on the streets, and hired bikes at the entrance to Stanley Park - a vast rainforest just outside the heart of downtown and another reason this place is so appealing to live.

We took the bikes around the sea wall, a 22km long barrier that separates the city from the sea and that is laid out perfectly for people to enjoy the outdoor lifestyle, with clear walking and cycling tracks on it. It seemed like the whole city was out on this sunny afternoon and we enjoyed the scenery as we whizzed past - yachts bobbed in the pretty harbour, trees from the rainforest loomed above us and the rocks to our left were multi-hued. We stopped for lunch on one of the three beaches around the sea wall and enjoyed watching the sun bouncing off the waves.

After our ride, and a brief moment where we completely lost one another, we managed to return our bikes without incident and then wandered along the sea front, lusting after the yachts moored there, and enjoyed beers in the sunshine in the bar we had found on our first day. On arriving back at the apartment, we were contacted by Karen, a girl we had met on a tour in Morocco. She was in Vancouver and so we met for a drink, only to find that she is on the same tour we had done of the Rockies! Small world! After catching up with each other, it was time to go home and pack for the next leg of our trip up into Alaska.

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