Margaritas & beers, Vancouver airport
A bit late but here is our final post from our Alaska & Canada travels...
We spent the first half of this glorious Sunday morning having breakfast with Lisa and Juliet, who are Canadian friends of Bryce and Jacquie. Very kindly, Lisa came to our hotel and picked us up and drove us all around to a popular harbour-side café where we enjoyed a pleasant breakfast in warm sunshine. Lisa’s recently acquired great-dane puppy joined us too but stayed in the shade.
It was lovely to chat with Lisa and Juliet and hear of their families, careers and how they established their very close friendship with Bryce and Jacquie.
After a very final packing and then checking out of our hotel rooms we wandered down to the market area before catching the ferry across to the city and then connecting with the airport train. Tickets from North Vancouver to the airport cost us each $1.75, a remarkably cheap fare for a one hour journey!
Once at the airport, the four hours before departing were filled in with coffees, beers and general wandering around the airport terminal. There had been some discussion about buying some duty-free XO cognac but the prices seemed a little steep. Most started at around a price of $300 per litre but our attention was especially drawn to a 750 mL bottle of 1956 Martel Cognac with an asking price of a mere $35000. Foolishly I thought there must have been a decimal point before the last two zeros but sadly there was not!!
We boarded the flight and left Vancouver at 2030 on Sunday night. The flight time was about 13 hours and we then landed at a cold and very wet Auckland airport at 0430 on Tuesday morning. What had happened to Monday 15thSeptember?
The “Awesome Foursome” now had to say farewell as Max and Sal had their flight down to Queenstown and we were off to Melbourne.
This separation was very emotional and after two months of near constant companionship it’s not surprising that there were a few tears shed as we went our separate ways.
We then had a three hour wait in Auckland before boarding our three and a half hour flight through to Melbourne.
We were met at Melbourne airport by Marcus and Elliott. This was an exciting end to our travels and it was particularly great to see how much Elliott had grown and developed during our two months absence.
Tomorrow we complete the final travel phase home to Hobart to see Jacquie, Bryce & Zoe and commence planning our next trip
Luxury cruiser, North Vancouver
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