Coloured Rails Iceland to Scotland

This is the start of travels to Iceland and then on to Scotland for Christmas 2016.

A short stopover in Calgary for the Spruce Meadows Christmas Festival.

 A somewhat different scene than when the rings are set up for jumping.

Checking out the Reindeer.

Live music in the riding hall.

Its not Christmas Eve yet so just a statue posted outside the reindeer stable.

So Kath gets a final look around and ...

... bid farewell to the Spruce Meadows Christmas Festival.

It is now off to Iceland on 21st November.

The start of travels to Ireland and UK in August and September 2015. Stopover in Vancourver.

Following the World Equestrian Games (WEG) in France in 2014 we attended Spruce Meadows Masters on the way home learning that 2015 was their 40th anniversary.  This prompted another equestrian tour.

Ireland had been on our wish list since the aborted WEG in 1994 when they were switched to Italy.

A stopover in Vancouver for a night and a day to break the journey enabled us to revisit the Capilano suspension bridge in North Vancouver.

It is a relaxing walk around the park with easy travel from our hotel in Richmond, near the airport, by rail then free shuttle bus.

The bridge has been a tourist attraction since 1889 although has been replaced several times with a span of 137m (450 feet).

Also a long way down to the river below. 70m (230 feet) down.

It was a public holiday and by late morning there was a solid stream of people crossing.

It is not only the bridge , it is where close to the city, the conifer rain forest can be viewed up close.

Real close clinging to the rocks above the river,

from the advantage of an engineered cliff walkway.

While other trees can be viewed along the forest paths.

The tree above is the tallest in the forest, referred to as "Grandma Capilano", standing 76m (250 feet) and over 1300 years of age.

Another tree was not so lucky and in November 2006 a very large Douglas Fir fell across the bridge, the top section breaking off and dropping to the river below.  The bridge however survived but the anchor at one end moved about 2 meters.

The remaining problem was to remove the tree laying across the bridge without causing further damage from a sudden release the weight.  The solution was to gradually reduce the volume of timber by cutting slices off the log to progressively lighten the weight on the bridge.  Shown here is lower section of the trunk with the bridge to the back of the photographer.

We leave Capilano and its various wonders and return to the airport to leave Canada for Ireland.