Ireland day 1311. Thursday 01 May 2025- To Vancouver

Today’s summary	Left Covent Garden at about 10:45 and had a straightforward journey to Heathrow in the Elizabeth Line. Arrived almost three hours before the flight(!) Met James and Katie at the airport and took the Air Canada AC861 flight to Vancouver, scheduled to leave at 1410 but actually a few minutes late. Good 10 hour flight to Vancouver, where we were met by Rob. Had pasta dinner at his apartment before checking in to our AirBnB just down the road where we’re staying for the next few days
Today’s weather	Warm dry and sunny in London. Light southerly wind. Appx 26c

Today’s overview location (The blue mark shows the location of our route)		Close-up location (The blue line shows where we walked) (No GPX today)

Commentary

Today we started out on our journey-proper. Following a comfortable night in London, we re-packed our bags and made our way, after a leisurely breakfast, to the Elizabeth Line tube station at Tottenham Court Road. We just caught a train heading to Heathrow, which was lucky as the next one to Terminal 2 wasn’t for almost half an hour. In passing, I should say that I’m a real fan of this new super-slick tube line – the only thing that I’ve found I don’t particularly like is the enormous trek you have to make once you arrive at Heathrow, to get from the Underground station to Terminal 2 itself. It feels like you have to go up and down countless escalators, not to mention walking for miles through endless tunnels.

Anyway, eventually we made it and had plenty of time to do a bit of last minute shopping and get a light snack to eat. We also met up with James and Katie, who are travelling with us on AC 861, destination Vancouver. Our Boeing 777-300ER left about ten minutes late, but other than this slight delay, the transatlantic flight was entirely uneventful. The cabin was comfortable, the crew were helpful friendly and attentive, and the food (chilli chicken) was much better than the average airline offering. And Captain Jen Nicholls, who was flying us today was retiring after 43 years piloting for Air Canada, at the end of this flight. We gave her a round of applause and there was a guard of honour from the fire tenders in Vancouver when we arrived at 4:20 local time (8 hours behind London and ten hours after setting off).

Exiting the airport through immigration and customs was straightforward enough, though there was the usual “ArriveCan” bureaucracy to deal with. Once again, we were relieved not to have to hang around baggage reclaim for hold bags. Travelling light is so much better!

We were met at the airport by Rob, who drove us all downtown – through heavy-ish traffic. The weather in Vancouver was sunny and mild – pretty much like London. The evening was spent at Rob’s apartment enjoying pasta before walking round to our AirBnB – just a block away. So a very good day – and as straightforward as it could be, considering we’ve come a quarter of the way round the world in the space of an afternoon.

Today’s photos (click to enlarge)


Covent Garden bright and springlike today. Looked like it’s going to be really warm	We must have gone up and down twenty escalators today!

On our way – Elizabeth Line to Heathrow from Tottenham Court Road	Getting into the Canadian mood midway across the Atlantic

On the approach to Vancouver. Plenty of snow on the mountains, still. It’s been quite a good ski season	Customs hall in Vancouver airport

Our plane after arrival in Vancouver. Captain Nicholls’ last flight