Victoria and South Vancouver Island

Victoria and Sidney

Victoria, reputed to be “more British than the British” didn’t disappoint. We used public transport to visit the city centre, we found a Highland Piper at the Harbor (see movie below), sailboat racing at the Royal Victoria Yacht Club, drank a real pint (imperial size) at a city centre pub, and to crown it all, we watched a cricket match between the University of Victoria and a team looking like a part of the British Empire at Beacon Hill Park. Our first impression, however, was made by the abundant floral decorations all over the city. We visited the Maritime Museum, learned more about Captain Cook and Captain Vancouver’s exploration of the Island and saw some original art by Jim Horton depicting some of the events of their voyage.

Cricket match at Beacon Park

Colin noticed (when looking at the many scale models) that many of the ships put into service in the Pacific North-West  were built by Swan Hunter from Newcastle, where he was born and which had a thriving shipbuilding industry until the 80’s. We visited the Royal British Columbia Museum which was having a ‘Wooly Mammoth’ exhibition and particularly enjoyed the Native American artwork there (see below).

View from Sidney Harbour

We drove up the Saanich Peninsula, north of Victoria, to Sidney, where we looked around the town and harbour and stayed for a (very rainy) street market, purchasing some local smoked cheese and fig tart. We drove the South Island Pacific Loop to Port Renfrew on the Coast and back over the mountains via Duncan (see below). Last but not least, we visited Butchart Gardens (this will be its own future post).

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Royal BC Museum

Totem Gallery

Situated in the downtown Victoria Harbour area, this is a world class museum covering many different topics. We combined visiting the special ‘Wooly Mammoth’ exhibit with an IMAX movie on the same subject. Our greatest pleasure, however, was in the First Peoples Galleries where we particularly enjoyed the face masks, totem poles and the amazing Haida Argillite Carving (argillite is black slate) showing  some beautifully ornate carved pipes (both smoking and music kinds).

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South Island Pacific Loop

We spent another day away from Victoria to drive the ‘South Island Pacific Loop’ which took us first to Port Renfrew to visit the Botanical Beach Tidal Pools. Colin took a wrong turn and ended up in a Pub parking lot (no surprise there) surrounded by British Columbia Hells Angels. It was one of those easy-to-get-in hard-to-get-out spots. With a bit of audience participation, we squeezed into a spot between two cars and were treated to applause from the ‘Angels’ who were very interested in our ‘rig’. We stayed a while, enjoyed the view over the estuary and eventually found ‘Botanical Beach’ a steep hike down from a crowded parking lot. The Tidal Pools were a disappointment, not much marine life compared with the childhood trips to the lighthouse Colin used to take with his Dad. However the views of the coast and over the Juan de Fuca Strait back to Washington were magnificent. We carried on along the shore, and took the loop trail through the coastal forest, climbing back to our van, ready for a rest. We continued the drive around the loop, which took us inland through the mountain pass, through a torrential rainstorm, over countless narrow one-way bridges, over the top and onto the East side where the rain stopped, and back to Victoria via Duncan. The views gave us a good feeling for the dramatic Mountain, Forest, and Lake scenery typical of Vancouver Island.

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This clip should show how much more of an exciting fast-paced game cricket is then baseball. So what if some of the games take up to five days.

Colin had a long chat with this Highland Piper (not the kind that Colin plays) ranging from how hard his reed was today, his demonic Pipe Major from Lewis (Outer Hebrides Island off the NW Coast of Scotland) and American Politics. He played this tune for Colin that started out as a Liverpool ditty and ended up morphing into ‘Scotland the Brave’.