Today Flat Katherine and I went geocaching around Burnaby Lake. Along the way, Flat Katherine stopped to play with the fishies on the fence. In Burnaby, the chain link fences of parks and playgrounds are often decorated with fish, birds, people playing and the like. It’s a very neat art project and makes the playgrounds and parks look so much friendlier.

Then we walked along the trails of Burnaby Lake and found 49 geocaches (I have to head back some other day to finish the rest off). Along the way, we stopped at a place called “Piper Spit”, where we watched ducks and admired the views.

Here’s what we saw:

There were plenty of wood ducks. Here are two males:

And here are a male and a female:

There are lots and lots of nesting boxes in the nearby marsh. I counted and gave up at around 45:

Wood ducks are funny creatures, as they perch in trees. Have a look:

This one was watching me:

There were several of these ducks swimming around, too. I’ll have to look up what kind they are.

Further down the lake, near the dam at the end, there were men fishing. The reflections in the water were lovely. As it turns out, those men in the photo are standing about 10 metres from a geocache that I found. I’m not sure what they thought I was up to, skulking around in the bushes nearby. They were speaking some slavic language, too, so I couldn’t eavesdrop properly.

Flat Katherine and I spent a lot of time looking at trees. There are the remains of decaying old trees everywhere and many were tremendously large in life. Flat Katherine was fascinated by this one, which is a young hemlock growing out of and over the decaying stump of an old tree. The roots stretch right down the old trunk and reach into the ground. Pretty neat.

Tomorrow it`s supposed to be sunny, so Flat Katherine and I are going to Granville Island and Pacific Spirit Park.

After 30k of hiking today, my feet will enjoy a slower day tomorrow!