Victoria Day: Thursday, 7/25/07

After my big day on Wednesday, I let myself sleep in a little later on Thursday morning. I was planning to spend the entire day in downtown Vic, so I parked my car in the "parkade" (they don't call them parking garages in Canada) on Broughton Street - centrally located so that I could drop off my parcels as the day went on and then go back out again.

My first stop on Thursday morning was the Victoria Harbour Ferry tour. I'd been wanting to do this for years but never had the time. So I paid for the combo Harbour & Gorge tour, each lasting 45 minutes. I boarded one of these adorable tour boats with a family of 3, who were from Sacramento. I felt really bad for the woman though, because we hit several boat and float plane wakes so we were rocking from side to side quite a bit, and she kept having to get up to spit out the window. It didn't appear that she was seasick, but, obviously embarassed, she was apologizing profusely to me. I felt so bad for her discomfort so I offered her a mint sucking candy which she gratefully took. They had to disembark at one of the stops so that her stomach could settle down. Some of my pics have the glass reflection, which I couldn't help because there were only 3 open-air windows, and the family from Sacto was sitting on that end of the boat so that she could get the benefit of the fresh air. The flowers spell out "Welcome to Victoria". Artists set up along the promenade below the flower sign and sell their wares. There are musicians, and people that stand still like a statue till you pitch a "Looney" or a "Toonie" ($1 and $2 coins, respectively) into the kitty, then they'll do robot-like moves and change position.

This is the Johnson Street Bridge, or as Victorians call it, "The Blue Bridge". It's a drawbridge an the big cement counterweights lift the bridge when a tall boat needs to travel underneath. In all the times I've been in Victoria, I've never seen it open. The thing that surprised me a lot is that the tour boat driver said that Joseph Strauss designed this bridge....Mr. Strauss' other claim to fame is his design of that beautiful bridge we know as The Golden Gate Bridge.

These are some of the delux "float homes" built on the Esquimalt side of the Harbour. The steel pilings keep them from moving around too much in a storm. Aren't they beautiful? One of the houses had a cute sign that said "H2-ome".

After we cruised around and crossed the main shipping channel, we went over to the funky float home area called "Fisherman's Wharf", which is a lot different than the one in SF. Over here are the more artsy homes, which I liked better because they were more colourful and fun.

This is a popular stop for people at lunchtime because you can get off the Harbour Ferry and have fish-n-chips at one of the stands, then get back on the ferry later on when one comes by. I liked this sign, "Grilligans, Where Buoy Meets Grill". Cute play on words, no?

After we left Fisherman's Wharf, our ferry driver decided it'd be cute to try and race the Coho into the harbour. It was coming in behind us at an alarming rate of speed, blowing it's horn.....I was laughing so hard because I'm sure the Coho Captain is used to the harbour ferry drivers playing chicken with them. Our driver said, "well, I guess I should let him have the right of way, eh?" and we moved off to the side, where I was able to shoot the Coho from water level. The opening is where the cars will disembark once in to port. But of course, being the silly tourist that I am, I had to wave enthusiastically to the people on the Coho looking down and laughing at our little putt-putt ferry chugging along merrily beside this massive ship.

L'Oreal - I took this one just for you. You might have mentioned that you had your very own delux hotel in Victoria! lol

My next venture after the harbour tour was the Gorge Tour. This time we crossed under the Johnson Street Bridge, up past the industrial area and into the gorge which was very pretty with lovely homes on the water, private docks and boats. There was no shortage of birds to watch, including huge herons.

This photo is of the least expensive float home in all of Victoria. Apparently one of the industrious local homeless people cobbled this together from discarded gas pipes and other flotsam and jetsam that washed ashore. When he goes in for the night, he erects the tent on top. He uses the top of one of those "Yakima" car carriers as a canoe to get from shore to the float home. He spends his days fishing or panhandling downtown.

My water tours ended at 11, so I stopped at Sam's Deli for a tuna sandwich on wheat. I'd read a lot about Sam's Deli, that their sandwiches are fresh-as-can-be and delicious. They were right. After lunch I started walking around and shopping at my fave stores. I apologize for the lack of photos of downtown. I've been to Victoria so many times now that I have had to force myself to stop shooting pictures of things I've shot on past trips - like the Empress, Chinatown, Market Square, Fan Tan Alley, Parliament, Trounce Alley, etc.

But I did luck out when I was on Wharf Street, and heard sirens going off. When I looked toward the sounds, I finally saw the Johnson Street Bridge lifting to let that sailboat pass under. There are 2 sides of the bridge that need to lift - the train tracks side and the vehicle/pedestrian side. I have several shots of the bridge in black & white in various lift positions. I'll blog them later on.

This is the most amazing Christmas decorations store I've ever seen. 3 stories of nothing but decorations from all over the world. Because we have run out of room to store decorations, I have had to exert willpower to keep from going in this shop because I know I'll come out with stuff we don't need and for which we have no room. Still, the Santa on top is cute.

This pretty scene was in an alley off Johnson Street, across from Market Square.

Johnson Street is just one of the many reasons that Victoria reminds me of San Francisco.

I shopped till I dropped this day. I visited my fave store in Trounce Alley and got some a beaded basket and beaded amulet bag, both made in Nepal, and a beaded card by a local First Nations artist. I collect her beaded cards and buy one each time I visit the city. I got some souvenirs at my fave souvenir shop, Nootka Traders, including a t-shirt designed by a Vancouver First Nations artist. It's called "Wolf Moon" and is in the style of the Pacific NW Indian art. Do you know how hard it is to find a t-shirt actually designed by a local artist and made in Canada?! I also visited Woofles: A Doggy Diner in Market Square to pick up homemade doggie treats for the furkids. They love their Woofles!!! I did not venture into Chinatown & Fan Tan Alley this time, preferring to stay around the waterfront.

The Gardens: Butchart & Butterfly

I'd read a travel tip awhile back, that said Butchart Gardens is best visited later in the afternoon, once the crowds have thinned out. Being one of those "have to get there and see it when they open" people, this was a strange concept to me. But I figured what the hell, I'll tack it on to the end of the trip to Chemainus. This gave me a great excuse to take the Mill Bay Ferry, from my previous post.

Butchart Gardens was lovingly created by Jennie Butchart, after her husband moved his gravel mining operation to the Saanich Peninsula. My first stop after arriving was in the cafe for a veggie sandwich on wheat & lemonade. With my belly full and my bladder empty, I entered the beautiful gardens.

The photos seen here are just a tip of the iceburg of what I shot. It's really, really hard to take a bad picture. This is the sunken garden. Can you believe it used to be a gravel pit?

Ross Fountain. My original plan was to stick around the Gardens till it started to get dark because I hear the place is magical all lit up at night, but my feet were in danger of falling off by the end of the day, so I only stayed for a couple of hours.

The travel tip was right; I encountered far less people and that enabled me to take a lot of quality photos of the flowers.

Butchart Cove.

I walked over to the Cove just in time to watch a Harbour Air float plane come in for a landing. Float plane travel is as common as boat/ferry travel.

Italian Garden.

Just down the street from Butchart Gardens is The Victoria Butterfly Garden. It was 4:30 and my feet and ankles were killing. In fact, I was thinking about a photo of Tess & Diane, that they posted from their trip to NYC last year, of the 2 of them standing in a tub of water soaking their poor, tired feet. But I couldn't resist the lure of the butterflies, so I stopped in to have a look. I wasn't disappointed.

Blue Clipper.

There were exotic birds & ducks roaming freely.

The Butterfly Garden is inside of a large greenhouse-type building and is kept very hot and humid with misters. There's a lot of natural light from the windows; at least from those not covered by thick, tropical foliage.

I bought a postcard of all of the butterfly species in the garden, but I can't find one that is exactly like this one....it appears to be a "Julia".

Yes, the flamingoes are real. They make the funniest honking sound. I wasn't sure what they sounded like, but I wasn't expecting a honk.

Brown Clipper.

I followed this guy around for quite awhile till he finally landed long enough for me to get off a shot. The wings were the most amazing shades of blue; it looked like he had sapphires set into his wings. Again, this one doesn't seem to be on the postcard either.

This is the closest I could get to the Blue Morpho, who would not open his wings no matter what. You would not believe the inside colour of his wings, based on seeing the camoflage on the outside. Later on in the giftshop, the woman there said that professional photographers will stay there for hours and hours and leave empty handed too.

So I ended up taking a picture of the fake Blue Morpho magnet in the gift shop.I climbed on a bench and moved a great deal of foliage to get this shot; I was surprised I wasn't admonished by a garden worker. Val, can you identify this bird for me?

Jo's Excellent Wednesday Adventure, Pt. 1

Up at the crack-o'6:45 a.m. on Wed., 7/25. I had a very ambitious itinerary and didn't have a moment to spare! I was on the road, headed north on the TransCanada Highway to Chemainus. It's not terribly far from Victoria, by U.S. standards anyway, but Hwy. 1 isn't exactly a major freeway either so it took about an hour or so to arrive. But first, I had to stop at the scenic turnouts at the summit of Mt. Malahat. I really like the way the rays of the sun were captured. If only the power lines weren't there. This is at the summit view point at Mt. Malahat. It was a beautiful morning, and this was taken at around 8:15 a.m.

The snow capped peaks in the distance are the Olympic Mtns.

Looking northeast, at I believe Saltspring Island.

The water was shimmering silver; the actual photo looks better than the scan.

Looking southeast at the Saanich Peninsula.

Here's the waterwheel in Waterwheel Park, Chemainus, the park where I had my geocaching meltdown.

I arrived in Chemainus a little before 9:00 a.m. so it was still really quiet and not filled up with tourists. After the geocaching fiasco, I wandered thru Waterwheel Park, which is really pretty. There are carved animals at the tops of trees that have been cut up high. Unfortunately it was too shady and my pics of the animals turned out lame.

Fortunately the stores realize that tourists do show up early, and so many of them opened early too. My favourite place was the Willow St. Antique Mall. They had the largest selection of antique beaded bags that I've seen in a long time, outside of an antique show, and I found one that is beautiful, old, in great condition, done with the tiny beads, and for an absolute steal at $83.00. Metal frame and everything. I haven't yet taken a pic of it, but I will. I also scored a bag of antique German marbles for $20, and a bag of peewee marbles for $5. Needless to say I was smilin' big time when I left the shop. Mostly I just wandered aimlessly around, stopping for a strawberry ice cream cone for breakfast at 10:30.

I cannot begin to describe how amazing the murals are. There are over 30 of them and they cover huge expanses on large, low buildings. The quality of the artwork is incredible and they all have a 3-D effect with real depth. This was one of my favourite murals, because it is in the "Time Transfixed" (by Rene Magritte) style.

This is the Chamber of Commerce.

Post Office.

Best looking Subway I've ever seen.
"Thanks for invading my country and for giving me this pox-ridden blanket, asshole".

Downtown Chemainus is a very charming town without being over-the-top.

The day was heating up so I headed down to Kin Beach to do some beachcombing. I heard there were a lot of shells and they aren't kidding. Clam shell city. And the live clams are just an inch or so under the sand too. Here's a beautiful view of one of the mountains on the mainland BC, but I'm not sure which one.

This is looking due east. The hazy mountains are on the mainland, and I believe the 2 "sharpest" peaks in the center of the photo are The Lions, these really cool twin peaks outside of Vancouver, and for which The Lions Gate Bridge is named.

A rustic lowtide scene.

Phew! OK, it's about 11:00, and I need to be on the 1:50 p.m. BC Ferry across Mill Bay to Brentwood Bay, because my next stop in the late afternoon is going to be the jaw dropping Butchart Gardens. I left Chemainus and headed on down to Mill Bay. I followed the signs to the ferry landing and I have to say, I was more than a bit taken aback. It was down a really small, narrow, semi-gravel road, next to a few houses and on a beach made entirely of crushed up clam shells, so that it looked white. There were no amenities, such that one would find at most ferry landings. But that was fine with me....it was hot, but quiet, extremely peaceful, and cooler down at the water so I killed time just looking at the amazing views and listening to the gentle lap of the little waves.

As it turns out, even though I got to the ferry landing extremely early, I was not the first person in line, and many people turned up right after I did. The ferry holds 18'ish vehicles. If there is an exceptionally large vehicle, like the small motorhome & Hummer that were boarding with me, the ferry holds far less regular-size cars. There was a really nice woman who struck up a conversation with me. She, her husband and son were on the trip of a lifetime from Nebraska. They'd been gone for about 3 weeks, and had seen Portland, OR, driven up to Seattle, did the whole WA Coast thing up into Vancouver Island.

This ferry was a lot of fun. It was so small; the smallest I've ever been on.

And even though it was a calm day, we did hit a few wakes from other boats, and the ferry rocked from side to side. It was an outdoor deck; you could spend the 25 minute ride in your car, moving around the car deck, or up in the small observation area next to the wheelhouse.

Luckily for me, I was born with sea legs. I think just about anyone who is born in a coastal area, like Cape Cod, learns balance skills on boats. My dad had a boat for a couple of years when I was young, my uncle had one too. Even in the 6th grade, it was mandatory for us to take a safe boating course offered by our school. Water travel has always been a huge part of my life and I've never gotten seasick. One fact about the Pacific NW that not a lot of people realize, is that it has an extremely efficient marine highway system. There are so many islands, that travel by boat and ferry is an essential and routine part of life in Washington and on the British Columbia coast.

And I couldn't have asked for a better day to take this fantastic, albeit short, ride across the bay. It sure beat driving all the way around and coming back up the Saanich Peninsula; it saved me tons of time and precious gas.

Coming next time....The Butchart Gardens!