Days 50 - 51: Victoria

After six nights - the longest time I have spent in one place since April! The time has come to relinquish our paradise on the beach! Sara and I took the free shuttle bus into the village of Tofino for the last time to get one more cinnamon bun at the Commonloaf Bake Shop before boarding the Tofino Bus to Victoria.

The bus makes several detours on the way - starting with Ucluelet, at the other end of Long Beach - and stops for a break in Port Alberni and then again at the Nanaimo ferry terminal, so it actually takes 6 hours to travel just over 300 km. But it conveniently dropped us off right outside our hostel in Victoria, the Ocean Island Inn. We went for the "mini twin room" which turned out to be only a little bigger than an average broom  closet! Luckily neither of us suffer from claustrophobia, and the lounge and bar next door doesn't seem to be particularly lively tonight; we shall see how we sleep!

After checking into the hostel we went for a walk around the historic neighbourhood where the hostel is located, Chinatown and the Inner Harbour. We stopped to watch a free concert featuring indigenous women performers in Centennial Square, and then the buskers in the harbour.

Hangin' in there in Centennial Square

Victoria has Canada's oldest Chinatown

The Inner Harbour, with the Empress Hotel on the left and the Legislature in the background

Our broom closet bedroom! Goodnight!

***

Didn't sleep too badly, but woke up with a rivulet running through the room as we had unplugged the mini-refrigerator because it was making noise, and ending up defrosting it! Only water, no harm done...

We had been to Victoria before, and though Sara didn't remember much about it we did decide she was too old to go back to the Children's Petting Zoo or even the Bug Zoo. So we spent the day shopping, listening to traditional Irish music at a free concert in Beacon Hill Park, and wandering aimlessly around Victoria, stopping to check out my old haunts from my high school days when I used to come down for flute lessons every other Saturday. We did NOT take the classic tourist pictures of the Legislature Buildings, the Inner Harbour and the Empress Hotel, but here are some of the totem poles outside the Provincial Museum!

The tallest totem pole in the world - in Beacon Hill Park, Victoria

In the late afternoon we took a double-decker bus to the ferry terminal and then the scenic ferry route from Schwartz Bay through the Gulf Islands to Tsawwassen, on the mainland, where we had arranged to meet Claire to head on down to Point Roberts for a weekend gathering with her (and our) friends. Back to the US of A! Or at least, a little bit of it!

Let's go upstairs!!!

Ferry through the Gulf Islands