Victoria, Vancouver Island April 2015

April 24  Victoria and Vancouver Island

We join the morning traffic going into the city this morning and stop first at Chinatown.  The oldest Chinatown in Canada, not large but picturesque. We enter through the Gates of Harmonious Living.

 Fan Tan Alley is a narrow alleyway with shops and restaurants.

 We stop at a little cafe called The Sour Pickle and have a little breakfast. Typical English fare with bagels, tea, coffee and eggs.  We drive a little farther into town and get a nice parking spot on the street between the National Museum and The Parliament Buildings.

 We first visit the Parliament building which is very ornate and beautiful.  Designed by a young architect in 1904 it is still home to government offices, courts, etc.

There are over 100 stained glass windows in the building, most commemorating the queen or some department of government, but very pretty.

 Back outside we notice their public transportation is open to everyone!

  Nearby is Thunderbird Park, a collection of native totems.  These are duplicates of ones found in the museum. Unfortunately the museum is closed.

 With the cold, wet weather we are surprised to have seen quite a few homeless on this trip and Victoria has its own.

 The weather is still cold (high 40's) and wet, so instead of walking by the harbor, etc., we head north on the TransCanada Highway (#1) toward Coombs and Quinault Bay.  We stop near Coombs at a Parrot Refuge.  Over 900 birds here which have been rescued from people who bought them and then didn't want them!

 Some are caged, but many are free to fly around and land on unsuspecting visitors. Some just strut by and check you out.

 It is odd to walk through the rooms and hear many "hello's" coming from the birds!  Can't help but respond. Some are pretty persistent in riding on Greg's shoulders.

 Next stop is the old Coombs market which has turf on the roof and usually has goats grazing up there.  No goats today, as they have newborns and wait till they are a few months old before letting them "upstairs".  Fun market with lots of local stuff.   We pick up a Nanaimo Bar - local confection named after the town down the road.  Bottom layer is sort of like a brownie with coconut, a heavy custard, topped by a fudge layer.  Tasty!

From here we head over to Quinault Bay.  Nice area with lots of resorts and golf courses.  We stop at Cedar Grove Campground after driving around a bit looking for it.  Nice couple runs the place.  We enjoy their hot showers and relax for the evening with snacks and soup.

April 23 Into Canada/Butchart Gardens

Happy Birthday Anita!

Ferry opened about 7:30 and we got measured and sat in line again till about 8:10.  Smooth loading, smooth sailing in the fog and mist.  Not a lot to see till we entered the port at Victoria, BC. Busy city with lots of interesting  old architecture, plenty of traffic.

Passed through customs on the other side and their main concerns were eggs and firearms.  He asked several times about guns and ammunition – later someone else asked too and said “Well, you ARE from Texas.”  Guess they think we are a bunch of gunslingers down there!

We decided to pass by Victoria and go directly to Butchart Gardens  about 25 minutes north.   Weather still “iffy” when we arrive, but not really raining.  There are a couple of tour buses already, mostly oriental folks, but the place is large so it isn’t really crowded.

The spring flowers are just awesome.  Big WOW factor as we take in the reds, yellows, purples, pinks – just about every color you can imagine in tulips, daffodils, jonquils, forsythia, cherry trees and other flowering trees.  Most are set off by underplantings of tiny white, yellow, pink or blue flowers.  Just gorgeous! 

  A pretty carousel, totem poles, statues (see Greg rubbing the Butchart Boar for luck) and other features add to the pleasant aura.  So peaceful and beautiful!

We spend about three hours here in the Sunken Garden, Japanese Garden, Italian Garden.  This was all started in 1904 by Jennie Butchart who wanted to beautify an old limestone quarry that her husband had mined for his concrete business.

We plan to go into the city of Victoria tomorrow morning, so someone suggests a Walmart on the West side for tonight.  On the way, we stop at Fort Rood and Fisgard Lighthouse.  The fort was built in 1848 and the lighthouse  built in 1860 as the first lighthouse on the Western Canada coast.  The fort was decommissioned in 1956.  They had huge guns mounted on carriages that allowed them to raise the gun, fire, then lower back to a protected position – called disappearing carriage.

There are 8-10 other RVs at Walmart.  We have fajitas , guacamole and black beans for dinner and fall into bed gratefully.  Lots of walking today.

Rialto Beach, Olympic Nat'l Park April 22, 2015

April April 22  Rialto Beach

Woke early and did the short drive to Rialto Beach where we have breakfast and then “hit the beach”.  Our target is a 1 ½ mile North Wilderness Coast Hike to a formation called Hole In The Wall, an arch with many sea stacks and rocks.  Low tide is at 10AM and we set out about 9:00. It is cold and windy so we've bundled up and Greg is carrying boots in a backpack should we need them.

Tons of logs and driftwood along the rocky shore and thousands of some kind of blue sea creatures. 

They are oval shaped, mostly around an inch or two in length, with a bright blue base and a kind of translucent “sail”.  Many mark the tide line and many float in the water.  They are slippery to walk on. We later learn that they are referred to as jelly fish, though they do not have any self-propulsion and merely float on the water with their "sail" and are not really jelly fish.  Some years they are rarely seen but this year this beach has a bumper crop.  The ones that wash ashore die in less than a day.

As low tide is approaching we see more rocks and a few bright orange and red star fish.  We  have to walk across logs to cross Ellen Creek (not Beth’s forte) and finally reach the Hole in the Wall and the rocky tide pools.

  We clamber around, spotting star fish, anemones, snails, barnacles, shells and other creatures.  Various grasses and seaweed, some live and some washed ashore.  These baby star fish (or are they called sea stars?) were brilliant.

We pick up some more interesting stones on the walk back.  Not too busy, we pass about a dozen other folks along the way. Three quarters of the way back we begin to shed some layers of coats and hats as the sun is shining and the wind has died down.

We continue to drive through Olympic Park and past Lake Crescent where we run into a light rain.  We stop at Port Angeles to check out the ferry schedule for tomorrow.  They tell us we can park in the que overnight, so that’s what we plan.  But first we make the drive to Hurricane Ridge at 5,242’.  Back to the mountains! Quite a climb and as we get higher the fog is rolling in, making for interesting scenery, or lack thereof. 

We see black-tailed deer at several places and patches of snow.

There are several glaciers around Mt. Olympus at the center of the park and they, like the ones in Alaska, are dwindling.  They have lost 30% of their size since 1970.  Stopped at Hurricane Ridge and walked a bit but it is cold and windy and the welcome center there hasn’t opened for the season yet.   We do an about-face and go back down to the Ferry Terminal in Port Angeles.

There is a huge drilling rig on a ship in their harbor.  Apparently it is en route to Alaska and there have been several days of protests, though we don’t see any.  Just a few Coast Guard ships guarding it.  Nearby traffic slows and we have a relatively quiet night.