To Vancouver

The journey from Auckland to Vancouver went smoothly. Our flight on 17th December departed a little later than the scheduled 1510, but nothing of significance, and the 12 hour journey to LA was uneventful, though I've never watched so many movies in such a short space of time!

We found LA airport (where we arrived at 0635, still on 17th!) very friendly when compared with out experience some years ago at Chicago, and although the queue for immigration was significant it moved quickly and was painless.

The three hours between flights soon passed and then it was on to Vancouver. The latter part of this flight gave us views of some rather large looking circles on the ground which appeared man made in the middle of a largely uninhabited area in Oregon. A web search since has suggested that these are large crop fields and the circular appearance is given by the irrigation systems which are based on a rotating arm. Our view showed these a brown concentric circles and the view on Google show them as green, so this would fit, though the kilometre long spray arm must be a job to handle!

After we had sighted these we started seeing the mountains, the early ones being snow topped and some of the larger ones further on (Mount Saint Helens, Mount Rainier, Mount Baker) looking like mounds of icing being covered pretty well from top to bottom in what appeared to be crisp snow.

On landing in Vancouver we joined a long queue for immigration control and this one moved less slowly. However, there was no hurry though we were looking forward to reaching our hotel and relaxing! Once out of the airport we soon found the Skyline railway station and a thirty minute journey followed by a short walk saw us at our hotel. It had been nearly 24 hours since we left our hotel so it was good to be greeted by a smiling and friendly receptionist who checked us in earlier than the 'official' check in time. Our room is a good size and has excellent views of the city - excuse the reflections butteh windows don't open!

The temperature in Vancouver is currently just above freezing; a sharp contrast to the temperatures enjoyed in NZ!