Travel Day and Castle Rock

Good bye for now Blue. We’ll miss you.

The day dawned a bit foggy. This is a view of the harbour as we left the house.

Waiting for the bus to the airport you could see the sun trying to burn through.

At the airport it seemed to be clearing, but they made a late flight announcement anyway. DH took it in stride.

We got to Vancouver about 15 minutes late. Lots of time to go through to International and have lunch before our flight. Along the way we met this guy. He’s in the window of the tug boat.

While we were eating lunch we saw him again. This time scaling a mountain.

He looked like he was the adventurous sort, so we decided to bring him along.

Vancouver International Airport is beautiful. Tons of art. Travelling with someone I have a tendency to visit (Okay, maybe it’s more bickering) instead of taking pictures – so there are no pictures of most of our day.

Our flight to London left a little late, but not enough to make us worry. Arriving in London we had to change terminals (from 2 to 5). There’s a shuttle bus and it was easy enough to find. There was a lovely lady standing where you wait for the shuttles. She was giving helpful hints and plastic bags for liquids. The ride was fun – bit of a cross between a carnival ride and the Grande Prix. Then we went through Immigration (just a passport scan) and security again. They’ve done a pretty good job of doing away with most people. Machines scan everything.

By London we were pretty tired. I don’t sleep on a plane. Landing in Edinburgh it had become windy and the landing was quite exciting (though not really – compared to most flights to Prince Rupert).

Our luggage arrived, which was unexpected given the distance since we had seen it, and the shuttle to downtown Edinburgh (100 Airlink) was easy to find and user friendly. Once we got downtown we headed up hill and almost directly to our hostel. A little rainy. We checked in, went out and found a bit of food, rented some towels, showered and crashed.

It’s now 12:30 am on Saturday and I’m wide awake – wishing I’d taken more photos after Vancouver. Apparently there are people who lose their hearing at this time of night and have to shout to each other to be heard. I think alcohol may be involved. Some of the singing is lovely though.

We really lucked out with our room at the Castle Rock Hostel. We have a room with three beds and an incredible view!

Our window opens. One of the walls is stone. There is a locker for each bed.

The view.

One of the perks of staying here for several days is free breakfast. Ordinarily it costs a pound and a half. The breakfast room is surprisingly full for early morning. There are a lot of industrious young people after all! All those rumours to the contrary are false.

The Castle Rock is decorated on a definite theme. There are plenty of showers etc. and everything is for all genders. Very fair.

We have nicknamed our room The Garrett, and are going to do some exploring. Edinburgh has lots of hills and will be excellent training for our great Wall Walk of 2019.

Keep smiling.