Day 6

Well today Steve and Sue (mainly Sue) kept me busy!  After a quick breakfast and waving Steve off to work, Sue and I set off on a long walk that took us down the side of the Capilano River to the shore where we walked along Ambleside seafront all the way to Dundarave. Along the way there were little parks, various children’s play areas, art exhibits and gardens that are being reclaimed by the provincial government so that seafront land cannot be developed.  We raced back to see Steve for lunch at his workplace in East Vancouver before heading up to the Cleveland Dam which holds one of the reservoirs that provides Vancouver with its fresh drinking water.  The dam and reservoir are set in an extensive forest, access to which is restricted so that no water contamination can take place.  We hiked down to the bottom of the dam to see the falls and on the way saw a black bear munching on some greenery in the forest…my first, albeit very distant, encounter with a wild bear.  Many thanks to my trusty guide Sue and her excellent bush tracking skills for noticing – I would have been oblivious otherwise!  We carried on and saw the salmon ladder before hiking all the way back up to the top!   An hour later Steve returned home from his day’s work and suggested that we go mountain biking…so out we went!  It was a beautiful summer evening so we went up to Lynn Canyon Park for what ended up being a 13+ mile on road and off road cycle.  Some trails were more interesting than others!  However what was a former logging road has been closed to vehicles and so a perfectly good road is now used for cyclists, runners, walkers, roller-bladers, in line skaters and skateboarders.  Off that road there are many forest trails around the various lakes.  On one of those we can across a deer out eating her evening dinner – she was far away at first but we remained still and quiet and she came within 20 feet of us before we decided to back away and leave her in peace.  A very full but thoroughly enjoyable day!