Sunday 17th June

Today was the day that we transferred to Victoria, Vancouver Island for a two night stay.

We travelled light, taking only a rucksack and my leather cabin bag, leaving our two main travel bags in secure storage at the hotel in Vancouver as we would be returning there.

Ferry

 
 We were picked up at 8.30 as scheduled and then collected other passengers at various hotels in Vancouver. The coach took us to the ferry port of Tsawwassen, which is located on a 2 mile man made causeway off the mainland and is less than 550 yards from Canada's border with the United States. The terminal is also part of Highway 17.

The crossing from Tsawwassen to Swartz Bay takes around one and a half hours and then the coach completes the final leg of the journey to Victoria. The weather was glorious, very sunny and warm. The scenery was how I imagined it to be in Charles Frazier's book "Cold Mountain".
One passenger spent the entire crossing jogging around the deck and when we were getting ready for disembarkation asked me to take his photograph as he posed in a yoga position. He apparantly was a Sports/Geography teacher and told us that where ever he visited he had photographs taken to show to his students, proving that sport can be accomplished anywhere.
The coach station in Victoria was only a short walk from our next hotel:Chateau Victoria Hotel & Suites. As soon as we had checked in and taken our belongingns to our room we walked down to Victoria Harbour. This was a bustling place with boats, harbour ferries, sea planes and along the harbour wall artisan craft people were selling their goods.

Hotel Chateau Victoria & Suites

    We took an open top bus for a
tour of Victoria. The trip ended up something of a  Peter Kaye/ Victoria Wood  element as the driver/courier declared"Stop 1 - Chinatown", Stop 2 retirement apartments etc. and leaving us without any depth of knowledge. (yes we laugh about it now)   Afterwards we walked up Government Street, soaking up the feeling of colonialism. The buildings were grand and imposing but it was a step back in time after Vancouver.
The streets are tree lined and in the distance you can see snow capped mountains. There are a few Trompe L'oeil celebrating the 150
years of British Columbia. One one street corner is a metal sculpture tree.

Poem: Hide & Seek

The poem:Hide and Seek was written by Carla Frank who was Poet Laureate of the City of Vancouver 2006/08. it reads:
 You who lift a penny from the gutter, and with the same hand point out the stars, find me.


We just ambled around taking in more sights and had dinner at The Sticky Wicket.

A most enjoyable day and memorable for a variety of reasons.

 The Empress Hotel was built between 1904/08 in the chateau style, which emerged as a distinctively Canadian approach to railway hotel building.

Parliament

Empress Hotel, Victoria