Tandem biking with Lachy and Cathryn

At the end of August, we had an fun and action-packed less-than-24-hour visit from our friends Lachy and Cathryn from Redcliffe, Qld. They had 3 weeks in Canada, during which they came to our convention before spending 2 weeks on Vancouver Island with Lynelle and her family, which was the reason they had come to Canada. Lynelle was their bridesmaid, and she is now the younger worker in our field. :) After their fortnight on the Island, they came back to the mainland and stayed with us for a night before flying off to Europe for the holiday of a lifetime - 3 months with a camper van and no set plans!!!

Anyway, back to the Saturday in question... We picked Lachy and Cathryn up off the ferry and headed into Vancouver to go tandem biking around the Stanley Park seawall (this is becoming our standard welcome-to-Vancouver activity to do with our visitors!). We collected the bikes and off we set...

At one beach we rode past, there were hundreds of little rock statues all the way along it. These are called inukshuk (singular) or inuksuit (plural). They are a cultural symbol of the Inuit people, and a man-shaped one (called an inunnguaq) is the logo of the 2010 Winter Olympics:

Further along, we came across a man who was making them. The ones he was making looked different to the first ones we saw, and required much more time and skill. His consisted of up to four single stones, each balancing upright on another stone with no extra support. During the few minutes we watched him, he spent most of the time painstakingly maneuvering the rock below to try to get it to balance on the big stone!! It's an amazing skill, and must really build patience!

After our ride, we had lunch at an Italian restaurant, before heading home to prepare for the trivia night we were hosting that evening!

To be continued...