08/27/25 - On To Australia - First Stop - Vancouver BC

We like to fly to Australia via Vancouver. The alternative is via Los Angeles, but that means flying down to LA and dealing with LAX in both directions. YVR in Vancouver is a much smaller, calmer airport, and, for us, it's easy to get to Vancouver.

We always spend an extra night so we get to eat dinner at Le Crocodile which was in top form as usual and to walk the loop along the shore in Stanley Park. One isn't really in Vancouver until one sees the bright yellow mound of sulfur across the water. It's one of the city landmarks. The featured bird on this walk was the heron. There were lots of them perched on rocks and enjoying the waterfront much as we were.


Flying in to Vancouver BC

We had no idea.

Nothing says welcome to Vancouver like its huge mound of sulfur.

One of many great blue herons

The Lion's Gate Bridge








Return to civilization

Keywords: australia, flying, vancouver

Keywords: australia, flying, vancouver

08/26/25 - Flying in to Sydney

It's a fifteen hour flight from Vancouver to Sydney. Australia is pretty far away. Mostly, we slept. The scenery over the Pacific is pretty dull especially at night. Dawn, however, was something else, and we did get a nice view of the city on our approach the airport. Excuse the poor image quality. Airplane windows are not as transparent as one might like.

Dawn light

Daylight

Sydney with the harbor bridge top right

Keywords: australia, flying, vancouver

Keywords: australia, flying, vancouver

09/12/24 - Stanley Park in Vancouver

Our flight to Australia left late at night, so we had the day to explore. We headed to Stanley Park, one of Vancouver's gems. We took the tour along the water, so we had a good view of the heaps of sulfur across the way and the Lion's Gate Bridge. We made it almost all the way around. Then, we had dinner. The setting sun found us at Vancouver Airport waiting for our flight to board.

Sulfur

A hawk

That hawk from a distance

The coastal walk

More along the walk

The Lion's Gate Bridge

Low tide

A little seastack

The airport sunset

Keywords: australia, vancouver

11/04/19 - Why are we in Vancouver?

We are in Vancouver, BC, because it is our first stop on our way to Ethiopia. We arrived a day early so we don't have to worry about missing our flight.

There aren't a lot of flights to Addis Ababa from this hemisphere, and some of them only run every other day. We wanted a minimal number of stops and to avoid flying out of our way, for example, via Dubai. We chose Lufthansa which code shares its Ethiopian flights with Air Canada, United Airlines, Ethiopian Airlines and several others. It's ten plus hours to Frankfort via the polar route, then another seven hours or so to Addis Ababa, so stay tuned.

The view en route to Vancouver

Vancouver, BC

Some kind of steampunk festival? Eh?

Hotel window view

From Stanley Park, past the Lion's Gate Bridge

Another Stanley Park view

A cormorant

A wood duck

Great blue heron

Keywords: ethiopia, flying, vancouver