The countdown had begun to the end of my RTW trip, and I mentally prepared myself by repeating the words ‘house’, ‘job’ and ‘credit card debt’ until I felt comfortable enough that I didn’t shudder. It had gone by so fast that I couldn’t believe it was almost at an end. And I didn’t want it to end with tired feet and a Starbucks smile pastered on my face. I wanted to come home rosy pink from the snow-chilled wind with a inner glow of exuberance from my travels. So we decided, before we caught our flight home, to head over to Vancouver Island for a week and get our rosy cheeks and inner glow up to scratch.
My Starbucks customer, Steve, told me the travelling through the islands on the ferry was the ‘most spectacularly beautiful thing’ he’s ever seen. He must have travelled to Vancouver Island on a perfect summers day , maybe even the same day the photographers from all the travel brochures went. They might have even bumped into each other on the ferry, smiling with a ‘great day, eh?’ as they passed each other. Because I can tell you, our ferry trip included some stunning grey water, rain, grey clouds and grey mist. Reminded me of Scotland. The 4.5hr journey brought us to Victoria, the capital city of British Columbia, which really did remind me of Scotland, cobblestones and all.
Victoria was a very small city, no skyscrapers or endless rows of office blocks, and there was only one undercover mall. There were quirky cafes, independant cinemas and lots of second-hand bookstores, all in all very European.
Of course, because of the weather, the wildlife watching cruise we booked was cancelled until our third day - so we made do with walks around the harbour and through the city, stopping regularly for coffee, afternoon naps and snacks, eventually making it down to the ‘Prince of Whales’ wildlife cruise operators the following day after walking to James Bay and up to the coastal lighthouse for a view across Haro Strait.
The ‘cruise’ was really a jetboat hosting 6 passengers (5 of us Australian) and the speed, bumps and turns made it a ride in itself. But we did see wildlife and had some fantastic scenic views of the forests, inlets and caves along the coastline of Vancouver Island. We saw seals, elephant seals, harbour seals, sea lions, the American bald eagle and lots of birds, stunning coastline with the Olympic Mountains of Washington State, USA in the distance as well as the beautiful, rough currents and smooth waters of the Strait of Juan de Fuca.
It was, in a word, amazing. We came back frozen to the bone and were served a hot chocolate and an apology by our captain for not seeing any Orca whales (we hadn’t expected to, it was the wrong season) despite this area having the most abundant numbers of Orcas in the world. We thawed out with some McDonald’s and had a very early night with a book.
The following few days we took some more walks, had an incident where a wild doormouse tried to attack us for the chips we were carrying, visited the historical ‘Craigdarroch Castle’ house and the wax museum (not as good as London’s, of course, but a lot cheaper and good for a touristy afternoon), watched a movie and spent lots of time reading and drinking coffee.
We were so relaxed, we didn’t even need to try to obtain the rosy cheeks and inner glow. It all came naturally.
-Sarah
