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Published: August 18th 2013
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August 17, 2013 – From East Sooke to Victoria, BC
I’m typing this in the Royal Scot Hotel & Suites in Victoria. The hotel is in an excellent position, situated just one block from the harbour front on Quebec Street, very close to the Parliament Buildings but on a quiet side street.
We decided to slip in a couple of days staying in Victoria itself, partly because the next place we’ve booked across the waters in Washington State didn’t have the weekend available and partly because we thought it would be nice to actually stay in this lovely city for a change.
We’ve got a one bedroom kitchen suite so the boys will be sharing a bed. Not as bad as it sounds as we are talking big (in the way that everything Canadian and American is). A double bed in this country is a queen in the UK, a queen here is a king at home and a king here? Well – I don’t think we even do beds that big! Their bed is getting on for the equivalent of 3 singles pushed together. So we’ll stick some pillows down the middle and they’ll be
just fine.
When Canadians or Americans visit the UK one of the first things that must strike them has got to be how much smaller everything is. From the average size of a car to a washing machine or dryer, a muffin, an ant; even the American Robin is 3 times the size of our little red breasted fellow. The plastic bags you fill with fruit etc with at the local supermarket were twice the size! Not to mention the “bucket” selection that 7Eleven provides for soft drinks! Everything here is so much bigger. Sam pointed out a tiny bird in a tree at our place in East Sooke and then realized it was just that the tree was huge! We found a massive Texan Donut in a bakery in beautiful Sidney this morning, which was the size of a big dinner plate. Even the regular donut (priced at only 69c) was twice the size of our UK ones. (Very tempting but I’d just shared a massive piece of lemon poppy seed cake from Starbucks between 3 of us so couldn’t really justify it – wonder if it was a chain that I might find in Victoria…? One can
hope…)
I could make jokes about the size of the people as well but although that may be true down in some US states it generally isn’t true here in Canada, not in the BC areas we’ve been to anyway – in fact that’s one area where the Brits may win on size, in certain areas of the UK anyway (I dare not generalize or be more specific and besides, the way I’m going, I fear I may become one of them. It’s about time we found another mountain to climb).
Anyway, I digress. I should firstly fill in gaps in this blog and briefly summarize our last couple of days in Sooke.
On Thursday (Aug 15
th) we explored nearby Witty’s Lagoon Park and although the park & beach area wasn’t quite as nice as East Sooke it did provide an excellent opportunity to watch seals and their pups on an island close to the shore.
And on Friday (Aug 16
th) we drove the 60 or so kilometres up to Port Renfrew and the natural wonder that is Botanical Beach. The tidal pools here are considered some of the best anywhere to study marine and intertidal
life. The rocky beach is full of rock pools, big and small, deep and shallow and absolutely fascinating. A great place for kids (although I wouldn’t want the responsibility of having really young kids here. If you didn’t loose one in the sea you could loose one in a deep rock pool).
And if the pools didn’t provide more than enough entertainment then the wildlife further out to sea certainly did. Not long after stepping out of the mossy rainforest onto the beach so we heard the distinctive sound of air being forced through a blowhole and looked up to see what we now think is either a humpback or grey whale swimming quite close to the shore. Every now and again he would raise his giant barnacle covered body just above the surface, dip down and come up again only to disappear for a longer spell before rising and repeating the pattern.
We watched him as he followed the coast line eventually disappearing out of view. Further round the beach Sam spotted life on a rocky outstretch just feet away from the beach and on further inspection we realized we were watching a river otter sunning himself,
head bobbing up and down, curiously looking around him. No doubt assessing the potential danger that these strange noisy beings posed. Despite the name these beautifully slick creatures occupy both sea and freshwater habitats along the Pacific coast and throughout North America
A sea otter would be nice but I fear that might be less likely.
Back to today - we checked out of Madrona Cottage around 10.30 and travelled up to Sidney just north of Vancouver. This is a charming little seaside town on the Saanich Peninsula not too far from Swartz Bay, one of the main BC ferry terminals. It provided a lovely spot for a morning coffee, a wander around the harbour and shops and finally very delicious gyros, souvlaki & calamari in a little Greek restaurant. For a while we imagined we were back in Greece.
Then it was onto Victoria, where we checked into the Royal Scot. The capital of British Columbia was bustling with activity. The harbour was teeming with people, the general summer tourist population combined with the fact that we had timed our visit accidentally but rather fortunately with the Victoria Dragon Boat Festival. Over the weekend up to 90 dragon boat teams from all over North America will be competing in this event. Dragon boats are something special to watch. When the starter gun goes 20 paddlers thrust their paddles deep into the water and the colourful boat slices through the water.
As we return to the hotel after eating out the Parliament Buildings are lit up like it’s Christmas. It’s rather effective and not as tacky as it sounds!
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