I heard the Stanley Park Seawall has a dedicated bike path that only travels in one direction so I thought it would be nice to ride it as a family. We had to do a pick-up in Delta in the late afternoon anyway, but it did mean our ride would be time-bound. I found lots of potential routes – while the Seawall path itself is clear, finding an accessible starting point with parking is up for some debate. Some I found started in the streets of downtown Vancouver, and bike lanes or not, I knew I’d have an easier time selling it by avoiding streets. I found this map, and parked at Denman and Georgia as suggested.
There were 2 public lots, and since I’ve had my car broken into in Vancouver before, I was a little leery. I picked an Indigo lot where people complained about being ticketed in spite of having used an app to pay for parking. Sure enough, I saw someone get ticketed while I unloaded our bikes and arrive shortly thereafter. Spoiler alert: Luckily we did not have the same problem.
On a Saturday the trails were crowded, especially at first. Whenever you’re at a standstill, it’s difficult to merge into the traffic, especially since traffic contains not just cyclists of all levels, but e-bikes, e-scooters and inline skates which all have wildly different speeds.
There were many sights to enjoy so we did stop often and had to deal with that merging challenge. Still, I wish we had even more time to really explore them. We were also blessed by the presence of public washrooms, which I didn’t know I could count on.
By far the nicest site with the biggest potential for stealing your day away was Third Beach. I didn’t go in the water but the Lightning Kid said the temperature was OK, and it was certainly a beautiful blue. We held off on getting ice cream or drinks from the nearby stand/restaurant, but maybe next time.
All three of the “June Firsts” were adventures that could have been all-day affairs. Maybe next time!