Victoria coda
On many different levels, our final full day in Victoria started slow and gained momentum.
B&D were up and out of the house between 4 and 5am, to get to the half-Ironman start line. The forecast had been predicting an 80% chance of rain, but fortunately the arrival of the rain got pushed back to 10 or 11am, allowing B to complete the bike portion of the tri on largely dry roads.
I did a free-form run, on no planned route, since the place we are staying is very close to the Ironman course, and I didn't want to encroach upon those roads while the race was going on. So I discovered a bit more of the neighbourhood, including a short trail along the waterfront, bordered by people's back yards: one of the yards had a gate with a sign on it saying ''chemin de merde de chien''...I wasn't exactly expecting to come across French in B.C., but that one made me smile. Obviously there's a bit of friction about between home owners and dog owners who use the trail.
When I got back from my run, I took the dogs out for a walk (and picked up after them), along a sidewalk bordering part of the Ironman course. I watched dozens of bikes whiz by at speed, including a pack of about twelve who had to take sudden evasive action when a white cube van decided to back into a driveway, blocking 80% of the road. I had no idea that Ironman does not close the roads to traffic, nor even cone off a lane or part of a lane.
Tim and I then drove into Victoria, via a swap meet/flea market that Tim wanted to check out. It began raining at this point, and honestly the weather made Victoria a bit of a disappointment, at least in terms of photography. We did however find Munro's books - yes, that Alice Munro - and that was my big wish for the day, to make a pilgrimage there. We also found Chinatown and the famously narrow Fan Tan Alley.
When we got back, B&D had just arrived back from the triathlon. B was tired and hungry but in remarkable shape.
We spent a couple of hours just hanging out, and I opened my birthday presents. Then we all went back to the same beach Tim and I had taken the dogs to yesterday, and it was even more deserted today. We let the dogs play in the water while we beachcombed for pretty stones. Then D pointed out a bald eagle, high in a pine tree, that was being dive-bombed by a crow. I only had my 24-105 mm zoom of course, but I did manage to get a few photos at least. Seeing an eagle had been one of my hopes and wishes for this trip, so I was beyond thrilled.
And now we are packing up the car ready for an early departure tomorrow morning to begin the first leg of our long journey home. We will be getting the ferry back to Port Angeles, Washington, and crossing Washington, Idaho, Montana, North Dakota, Minnesota and a bit of Michigan before crossing back to Ontario at Sault Ste Marie. It will be a fairly straight, no-detours, no tourism trip home, but I'll still be taking pictures out of the car window!
All creatures great and small
This morning the four of us all went off in different directions: B&D went to deal with triathlon check in and prep; Tim headed out on a garage-sale tour, and I went for a run then took the dogs for a walk.
In the afternoon, B&D and I went to the butterfly garden; not only did the place have butterflies, they also had insects, scorpions, an iguana and various birds, including flamingoes, macaws and some small parakeet-type birds.
In the late afternoon, Tim and I drove the girls over to the eastern shore of the peninsula and found a beach for the dogs. It was a beautiful afternoon, and the water was calm as glass. Surprisingly, we had the place more or less to ourselves.
And finally this evening, I walked down to Brentwood Bay and watched the sun set, as a bunch of kayaks and SUPs headed out into the golden waters to pay reverence to the dying day.
It was twenty years ago today that I met Tim for the very first time.
Thar she blows
Today was all about the whales. And they did not disappoint, oh no they didn't.
16 years ago today, I donned white silk and satin. married my true love, then we rode away in a horse-drawn carriage. Today, we donned bright orange survival suits and headed out on a whale tour boat with B&D plus four other people and Captain Dave, an Indigenous local who is obviously passionate about the whales and the land and water he lives and works in.
We were out for nearly four hours; first we followed a pod of transient orcas as they hunted near Salt Spring Island. Then we headed into more open water to catch up with a larger group of orcas traversing a the strait. And to crown the entire experience, Captain Dave said that there were a pair of humpbacks 10 or 15 minutes away, and we travelled over to watch them...they are enormous!
I loved the fact that the various whale watching boat operators not only kept a respectful distance from the whales, but they also communicated with one another and remained with the different pods until another boat could take up the watch. As well, they were in constant communication with one another...that's how we were alerted to the humpbacks.
The survival suits kept us nice and warm on the water, and we had a simply brilliant day that will remain in our memories for a very long time.
Tofino to Victoria
We left Tofino this morning, after another rollicking play session on the beach for the dogs. We had 300 kilometres to cover, and the first half of it was through some rather remote mountains, with beautiful scenery; however the road was to be closed for construction from 12 to 1pm, so we had to get a move on in order to make it through before the closure happened.
We stopped back in at Cowichan Bay and let the dogs have a dip in the water there. The tide was low and the shore was...gooey. But they had fun anyway. Though they smell kind of fishy now.
We made it to Victoria, to the airbnb we will be staying at for the next 4 nights, and we met up with B&D, two extremely special friends, who have travelled all the way from St Louis to spend time with us here. B will be doing a half-Ironman triathlon here on Sunday. We've already made some exciting plans for the next few days.
In the meantime, a few last shots from Tofino.
Touring round Tofino
We had a quieter day today, i.e. no travel; a rest day. I did a run into Tofino and scoped out town a bit. Unfortunately, it was bike to work and school day, and I was sharing the bike path with quite a few adults and kids on bikes, so there was a lot of crowding and dodging.
When I came back, I took the dogs down to the beach and let Tim have a lie-in to recover a bit from all of his driving. We gave the dogs a slightly early lunch and then drove into Tofino and wandered around for a couple of hours. It's an interesting mix of a few high-end boutiques, a regular grocery store and a drugstore, and some tacky souvenir and shell shops, plus a few restaurants, of course. Tim got some smoked, cured salmon from a Native vendor.
We were back at our rental house by mid-afternoon. We took the dogs back to the beach and managed to pick up a friend called Harriet, a lovely fox-red Lab with a bit of a limp on her hind leg. She just had this look about her that she was searching for someone, and I sensed she was lost, though perhaps not panicking about it. We asked the few people we encountered on the way back up the beach if they knew anything about her, to no avail, and as is to be expected, the various dog people and their dogs all congregated and problem-solved together. Harriet had a phone number on her name tag, and someone managed to get a cellular signal and call, only to get voicemail. In the end, Harriet attached herself to some dogs and people who were staying just a few houses down from us, and who were local to B.C. We exchanged numbers so that we could do further assistance if need be. We came back to our house and did reverse lookup on the phone number and it appeared to belong to a construction worker from Ucluelet, 30 km to the south. An hour or so later, we got a text to say her person had been tracked down. But we did come this close to bringing a third dog home with us...if we weren't crossing the US border again next week, I think we would have genuinely done it.
The sunset is in about an hour, so I'll have a wander down to photograph that. It's patently obvious why this is called the Gold Coast of B.C. - everything was gilded in sunlight last night.