Vancouver (Days 57 and 58)

It was a long, hard slog from Kerikeri to Vancouver.  I left Mike and Blanche’s place at 7am for a four-hour drive to Auckland airport, in time to catch my flight to Vancouver, via Los Angeles, at 1:30pm.  I finally arrived in Vancouver an hour before I left New Zealand, but with a sixteen-hour time difference!  Thankfully, my old friend Rich was waiting for me at Vancouver airport and he promptly whisked me back to his place.

Rich and I were at Imperial College together way back in 1963, when we were good friends.  Although both he and his wife Barbara were at my wedding in 1969 (??), we lost touch with each other after our lives took totally separate paths.  Whilst I moved to Scandinavia, to Portugal and to a divorce, Rich and Barbara stayed together and migrated to Canada.  It wasn’t until about five years ago, when Rich was in England, that he made contact again and, as is so often in such cases, it was almost as though it had only been a few days since we had been drinking together.

That first day I did little apart from eat Barbara’s delicious food and sleep.  The following day, we walked along the south shore of English Bay to Spanish Banks, where there are lovely views across  to the North Shore Mountains, which include Cypress Mountain, home of the skateboarding events at the recent Winter Olympic Games.

For lunch, we met up with my brother Bill and his wife, Judy, at an Indian restaurant.  Although Rich remembered Bill quite well, my geriatric brother had no recollection of Rich at all, but pretty soon they were chatting like old friends.  After lunch there was just time for a quick trip to Queen Elizabeth Park before it was time to say goodbye to Rich and Barbara as Bill, Judy and I left for the ferry to Victoria, the next stage of my odyssey.