Got up really early today… 4:45am, to catch the ferry to Victoria… it actually lands in Swartz Bay. Ferry ride was around an hour and forty minutes long… nice ride, quite scenic. We were on the good ship Spirit of British Columbia… one of the ships of BC Ferrie Lines.
Drove to Victoria, around 40min. I am only here a day and a half, but this has to be one of my favourite cities in BC so far… it’s simply GREAT! Not too big, clean, scenic and friendly.
Our hotel is right in the middle of town… across the road from the harbour… a few minutes walk from the government buildings. The hotel also happens to be across the road from Blackball Ferry Line… this is the ferry we need to take to Port Angeles in Washington State. We were worried about getting a spot on the ferry since the reservations were FULL… fortunately for us a kindly employee let us into the parking lot so we would get a spot on tomorrow morning’s sailing… Hooray! They reserve a few spots for transients and people who should have reserved earlier… like us.
Met our co-worker; Gilbert… a local. He gave us a great tour of Victoria. We walked the pier… saw the cruise ship terminal… walked the beach, at low tide… went to a marina where they encourage you to buy ($1.75) a little bag of frozen fish to feed the local seals! This was really cool, I have seen seals before but never in the wild. We capped off our afternoon with a visit to the Mount Douglas Park. What a view and what a tour… thanks a lot Gilbert!
Went to supper at the base of our hotel, with a view of the harbour… had a three-course meal, my first… pretty fancy, the waiter had one of those towels over his arm… never used it though.
That’s it… off to the USA tomorrow.
the dan blog 