My family, kids and adults, is very much into hiking. We often head over to Vancouver's north shore to hike in the woods there, especially in
Lynn Headwaters and
Lynn Canyon.
However, in the winter, the trails can be too wet, or snowy, to hike easily with kids. So, like many other residents in and around Vancouver, we sometimes head to Stanley Park in downtown Vancouver to go for a nice long walk there instead.
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| Our "hike", in red. |
That's what we did one recent beautiful January weekend. Even though this "hike" too place in the park, meaning the terrain was not exactly challenging, it was quite a long outing, and there was lots to see along the way.
We started off in the parking lot near the gardens, across the road from the parking lot for the Aquarium. From there we headed down to Lost Lagoon, and proceeded to the Seawall near Second Beach.
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| Playing around near Second Beach. |
We then followed the Seawall all the way past Third Beach, Siwash Rock, and under the Lion's Gate Bridge. At the Ravine Trail we turned into the woods and up towards Beaver Lake, and from there followed the trail back to the parking lot. This hike with the kids took almost 3 hours, and they were quite tired but also quite happy at the end.
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| Siwash Rock. |
Along the way we saw beautiful views, lots of nice dogs, an ambulance on the Seawall (very exciting, and a relief that no one seemed to have been too seriously injured), and we also got a close-up look at some of the destruction the last storm combined with high tide caused in the park (some pretty severe damage to the Seawall itself in a few places).
Best of all, near Beaver Lake, an older gentleman let the kids have some of his bird seed and we got to feed the tiny little birds there: they were so bold that they actually flew over to take the seeds right out of the palms of our hands!
All in all a wonderful day out, reminding me once again that Stanley Park is truly a Vancouver treasure.
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