On a balmy (well, balmy for Canada in March), sunny day in Vancouver, Stu avoided the assortment of homeless dudes, religious zealots and the cheap pizza temptation trap, and headed out to Stanley Park to get some forest fun in the midst of the big city.

Click read more for some pics and stuff.



Stanley Park is this awesome natural escape from the big city vibe of Vancouver, wedged at the top of Downtown, separated from North Vancouver via some body of water (it probably has a name, but I'm too lazy to Google it). The park has it all, big lakes, rainforest, open beaches and some sweet views of snow-capped mountains across the North Shore. You can walk, bike, or - awesomely - rollerblade around, or if you're an idiot you can get a tour bus through and miss all the cool stuff, but not burn any energy on the way (The Fatty Express).

With no other way to present the photos, they're on here in a vague order in which I took them.

First stop was at the Lost Lagoon, at the bottom of Stanley Park and the first thing you see as you cross the void between city and park. It's not actually a void in a Bill-and-Ted-in-the-phone-box sort of way, which is a shame because that would be cool.

Anyway, the Lost Lagoon:



And the customary self-takey:



Before we continue, a word of warning: there will be more self-takeys. I make no apologies, it's really an opportunity to show off my mad crocheting skills - check out that beanie.

Next stop was some birds.. Umm, there's not much else to say about them. They were birds:



Then a weird, mangled tree stump:



I saw the horse and cart cruising around (another means of transport for Those Who Are Too Lazy To Walk) and had a very unco moment trying to get the camera out before it (the horse and cart, not the camera) disappeared, then get it on black and white, work some settings magic and snap away. Sort of successful:



Surprisingly Vancouver (and Vancouver Island, for that matter) has a lot of cherry blossoms. Not a tree I would associate with Canada, but I'm no horticulturist (thank you spell check).



From there it was a trek around past the aquarium, the kiddie rail, through some rose gardens littered with couples doing.. couply things..

Self-takey in rose garden (and yes, I am aware those are cherry blossoms, not roses):



.. and to Beaver Lake. Canadians seem to like the name, there's a Beaver Lake in Montreal as well, but that one is probably still frozen. If this lake froze there'd be lots of angry ducks, and having owned ducks previously, I know you don't want to piss them off. They get nasty.

Beaver Lake with sentry duck keeping an eye out for trouble-makers:



Annoying give-me-some-of-your-cheese-and-bacon-roll-or-I-won't-go-away duck:



After the duel with the ducks (two dead, no human casualties), It was up to Prospect Point on the northern point of the island. It's a really cool spot with views out across the north shore with the mountains in the background, the ocean out to the west and more water to the east. Oh, and this tree:





Bridge out to the North Shore/failed attempt at time lapse photography (it was way too bright to do it, obviously...):



Then it was out along the west coast of the park, down to third beach, where I turned to the self-timer to get a ponderous pose:



The final stretch of the day was back through some rainforest to get back to Lost Lagoon, then back to the city and hostel goodness. On the map it had 'Big Trees' marked, this being one of them (suffice to say, it was big):



Bam. Done. Stanley Park is awesome. Next time I'm rollerblading.