Victoria B.C. Time to Explore!

Whenever I travel now I book my accommodations on Airbnb. So far I haven't been disappointed. Victoria was no exception. The things I look for are: close to downtown but not TOO close, separate quarters from the owners, doesn't cost an arm and a leg, wifi,  a fridge and a corkscrew :)

This lovely setup met all of my requirements. It had a nice living area with a patio...

...a full size kitchen with all the needed appliances... (I stocked the fridge with yogurt and blueberries for my 3 breakfasts...)

...and it was on the main floor of a house with the owner and her two very quiet young boys living upstairs...

...a very comfortable bed and a brand new bathroom...no tub, but a really nice shower!

The location was St. Lawrence St. which was just a few blocks away from "downtown" Victoria. On this particular trip I needed a parking space too and there was a short driveway that was just the right size and was conveniently located next to the patio and patio doors so it was easy to carry things in from and out to the rental car.

It was a nice street with attractive Craft style homes with loads of flowers, shrubs and trees. The section of the street I was on was one way and very quiet.

At the end of my street, two blocks away, was a park that I walked through arriving at the Fisherman's Wharf. I could see clear across to the other side of the bay and watched the activity of the many boats and pontoon planes.

The harbour contains a "working wharf" which is very colourful and full of different kinds of businesses, not just the usual fishing boats.

This became my favourite place in Victoria and my friend Troy and I ate there on my birthday - I had seared tuna for the first time with a lovely chardonnay - it was so fresh and tasty.

It's a very busy place!

 

What I loved the best were the "floating houses"! There are 33 of them occupied year round. There was one for sale - if only I had a spare million lying around! Small living appeals to me very much, and living at the wharf year round sounds ideal.

Some are one story, most are two and many have a rooftop patio and garden. Some people operate businesses from their floating house.

This very colourful one appealed to my artistic side...

Piers become streets...

Most floating houses show the characteristics of the owners...

The green one has a nice rooftop patio.

There were many water taxis to help people get quickly to the other side of the bay...

 I continued on to explore downtown Victoria seeing a well-occupied fountain...

The HUGE Empress Hotel which I would have loved to explore but we weren't allowed...

The Parliament buildings were quite beautiful I thought...

A closer view of the Empress Hotel. If you book far enough in advance you can enjoy High Tea for about a million dollars.  (Now I need TWO million dollars!!)

Here's my high tea :)  After strolling the streets and taking in the sights I found a pub called "The Local" where I enjoyed a cold beverage and a quesadilla.

This is my view of the bay from "The Local" ...

...a different view...

 Remembering the dead in both World Wars...

 

A Sequoia tree that was planted in the late 1800's - it grows about one foot per year! Every Christmas it is loaded with lights.

You can see tiny people on the sidewalk beside the tree which shows how huge it is!

Parliament and First Nations going head to head - saving sacred land is an ongoing battle.

I saw this in a window of someone's home business - I couldn't resist!!

Lots of plants and flowers that I'd never seen before - beautiful!

And that was my first day - I travelled 3700 kms by Uber, plane, rental car and ferry and safely arrived at my first destination. Tomorrow I'll head to the west coast of Vancouver Island for hiking and exploring. The weather forecast looks great!

Ferry Life - Still Day One

"Hello my lovelies" (stealing a line from Lena) - I miss her!

Kazi booked a rental car for me at Enterprise where she currently works which is why I flew into Vancouver airport instead of Victoria. Vancouver having an Enterprise location while Victoria doesn't.

 However, it turned out Enterprise wasn't at the airport after all - I had to find and then hop on board a shuttle to the off-site Enterprise location. It wasn't far, and I found the shuttle easily after getting excellent instructions from the wonderful old guy at the info desk.

The young fellow at Enterprise gave me directions to get to the Tsawwassen ferry depot which I followed meticulously but still ended up going north on Hwy. 99 instead of south. If there was one thing I knew for sure (and one thing was about all I knew at this point!) it was that I should be heading south! So I got myself turned around and found Tsawwassen with about an hour to spare.

If I go out again to B.C., which I would love to do - I may reconsider flying into Vancouver. Another reason for that is the additional price I had to pay to take the B.C. Ferry from Tsawwassen to Swartz Bay on Vancouver Island. It was definitely more expensive than I thought. It was around $50 for my rental car, $20 for 1 adult, and fees and taxes bringing it over $80 one way! Though I do enjoy a ferry ride.

A huge part of this ferry location is the OOCL - Orient Overseas Container Line which the Tsawwassen First Nations people helped to construct.

Orient Overseas Container Line

It was a beautiful day for a crossing. 

 It was cool and windy but there were areas where the sun shone warmly and those who braved being outside gravitated to those.  I caught my reflection in a couple of photos.

We could see the Olympic Mountains on the Olympic Peninsula of western Washington.

And periodically we'd see another B.C. Ferry chugging away.

I wish I knew why the water changed suddenly from a greeny grey colour to a blackish blue colour. Does anyone know?

The journey took about 1.5 hours and eventually we got close to a number of islands.

I didn't get any photos of Swartz Bay as we had to head back to our cars in preparation to disembark. I always get into a bit of a panic at this point as there are about 2,000 black cars and I'm just looking for ONE!  And that is why I memorized my license plate number, well, the first 3 letters anyways!

Once we were off the ferry I was caught in a huge swarm of cars heading to Victoria. The going was slow but on the bright side it was impossible to get lost!

Have you ever gotten lost on a holiday?

Header Issues

The header photo and the one above are photos from my first UK trip when I walked the Cotswolds area. They post properly. When I try to use one of my photos from my BC trip in the header it only goes 2/3rds of the way across. I tried a number of photos with the same result. Blogger is giving me a headache.

If anyone knows why (is it because I've done some editing to my BC photos (cropping, straightening etc)? please let me know.  Grrrrr! Anyhoo until I figure it out I'll be keeping my old header photo. It shows me swapping out suitcases when my pink/black flowery case had its wheels broken during the flight from Toronto to Halifax. Haven't even left the country yet and I'm spending $100+ on a new suitcase.

The photo in this post (previous old header photo) shows me taking a breather while wandering the streets around Piccadilly Station waiting for my train to Moreton on Marsh. I stowed my suitcase in one of those places that charges an arm and a leg for the service. It was worth it so I could see a little of London with just a big fat purse and a stuffed backpack! I've learned a lot since that little adventure :)

Here's the photo I tried to post as my header:
Is that not an amazing reflection? I take no credit - all credit goes to the creator!  And to the person working for the Dep't of Transportation who was smart enough to put a pull-off spot just there :) Of which there are not nearly enough!!

Jane in Wonderland

Hi everyone - I'm back :) Truthfully, I've been back for a few days but I had a wicked case of jet lag to get through and since then I've been editing and deleting photos - I only took 1497 of them! I take a lot of duplicates from various angles and distances, then keep the best and delete the rest. I'm not finished yet but thought I'd get started on some new posts anyways.

Wed. May 24th saw me rise at 4:00am in order to get to London, Ontario's International (yes, truly) Airport to board an early flight to Toronto and then on to Vancouver. My daughter hooked me up with an Uber app giving me a $15 credit which was just enough to get me to the airport. Lucky huh?

Below is a photo taken shortly after my arrival - that's it - the whole airport. It doesn't really operate like an "international" airport - I left my suitcase inside while I went out and took this photo - then I realized I'm not supposed to leave my suitcase unsupervised incase someone wanted to turn me into a drug mule...or worse! But when I went back inside the security folks seemed quite unconcerned. Welcome to London!

I'm hoping this isn't my airplane...

No matter the time of day or night a Timmy's somewhere is always open :) A shot of caffeine was exactly what I needed at 5am. And again I left my suitcase unsupervised while I lined up for a dark roast. I did keep my eye on it though.

Pretty spiffy huh? I like it because I don't have to look very hard for my gate.

Of course there is the usual pathetic corporate nod to our First Nations people. I'm sorry, I just think those in power could do so much better. And then...everything went to sh-t!!

I thought I had everything under control! I signed myself up for notifications (delays and cancellations) of London to Toronto flights because lately there have been a LOT of delays and cancellations due to construction at Pearson airport in Toronto. But I didn't receive any notifications and we boarded promptly.

However, once they had us trapped on the plane they announced a 20 minute delay. That doesn't sound like much but the whole flight to Toronto only takes 20 minutes. Then the 20 minute delay became a 40 minute delay. My heart rate went up with each increase. Finally we took off - at the same time as my Toronto to Vancouver flight was boarding!

First sight of the Rockies

 Once we landed I chomped at the bit wanting to get off of the plane to see if I could still make my connection. Well, you know how long that process takes! I sprinted into the airport and asked an employee which gate I needed - she yelled out Gate D34 and I raced down several hallways suitcase whacking at my heels. I found the gate and the last couple of people in line. Thank God!! I was in quite a lather but managed to make it to my seat before I collapsed.

The fabulous Canadian Rockies.

The flight was uneventful (thankfully!) though I have to say as we started to descend I was a bit worried about the mountains that were poking up through the clouds.

But I guess the pilot knew what he was doing as we broke through the clouds with the mountains at a safe distance.

I travelled with just a carryon and a backpack so leaving the airport was easy peasy. Finding the Enterprise car rental depot wasn't quite so easy but a lovely volunteer at the info booth gave me directions (I'm sure he's done it 10,000 times before) and within minutes I was on a shuttle and then in my rental. A Hyundai Veloster which I never quite got used to. Never thought I'd say I missed Dougie the Dodge but I did. I mean, if my foot even got near the brake pedal I almost went through the windshield!!

Stay tuned for the rest of DAY ONE. It gets better :)