The Vancouver used camera sale was last weekend and I always attend.

This time I thought it would be fun to go a day early to do some night photos of the city.

We had chosen the locations that we wanted to go at day’s end. But we would have a whole day to do photography and the first daunting question we faced was, what to do with our morning?

Jo was looking at “places to visit” as we sat at a seafood restaurant the evening we arrived. It was overcast and raining so we decided stay out of the weather. She found an advertisement for the Bloedel Floral Conservatory. The info said that the conservatory is “a lush, domed tropical paradise at the top of Queen Elizabeth Park — the highest point in the city of Vancouver”.

The next morning we ate breakfast at our hotel, (I always try to find hotels that include breakfast) jumped in my car and followed the GPS through Vancouver’s busy traffic to what I assumed would be just a big garden overlooking the city.

We arrived at Queen Elisabeth Park, that park was so much more than what I thought, wandered around the photographing the city below, the narrow winding paths, the beautiful ponds, fountains, and rock bridges that were spread out around the grounds. What a photogenic place.

What I had missed reading in the advert was, “Bloedel Floral Conservatory is a conservatory and aviary at the top of Queen Elizabeth Park.” So after nearly an hour wandering the grounds we walked over to the large dome that sat at the top of the park, paid the admission and entered into “the lush, domed tropical paradise” described in the advertisement.

There were birds everywhere in the exotic greenhouse. Flying high in the air, zooming past our heads and hopping everywhere at our feet. Then I saw a colourful parrot, and then another and another and another.

We photographed the plants, colourful small birds, and big parrots in the humid dome.

I had fun talking with other photographers and people sitting with their dogs as we roamed around the park. I am pretty sure we were at the park for over three hours.

How had I missed that place in all my visits to Vancouver? It seemed to be made for those of us that like to carrying cameras.

That was part one of our October Vancouver adventure. We were yet to photograph the crowds of Granville Island, take long night exposures of the lights across the bay and spend Sunday at the Vancouver Camera Sale and Swap.