Victoria

Wednesday the 10th was the last day of the tour - we had until 3pm to check out Victoria. We had looked around briefly the night before, and I got some cool day and night shots of the Parliament buildings (or whatever they were)... (Tuesday night and Wednesday morning)

There were also some totem poles outside the museum... I spent alot of time in the museums' lobby and gift shop, because a) it was shady and I had a headache all day, and b) there was actually cool stuff in the gift shop.

After hanging at the museum and deciding not to spend money going in, I walked down to this big-ish park in the city. There was a cricket pitch, lol, and some nice gardens.



And then we drove and caught the ferry back to Vancouver :)

Tofino to Victoria

On Tuesday the 9th we drove from Tofino to Victoria. We stopped at Cathedral Grove - the whole reason I went on this tour, for a grand total of 15 MINUTES before heading elsewhere for lunch, :(.
Which kinda sucks, but I still have photos of me next to the biggest tree...

We also went on a short hike to these waterfalls, and I don't even know what they're called - or if they have a name, lol. You had to clamber down a really steep hill to get down - there was some extreeemly dodgy rope strung down as an aid - I'd hate to be there when it breaks...

There was a waterhole at the bottom of the falls. I got my feet wet - and it was freezing, but some psycho people of my group went in anyway...

This is Wolfgang, the German, and the French guy I think... I forget his name...

Whales, whales, whales!

You'll NEVER guess what this post is about!

Anyway, on Monday we had the day in Tofino. I'd signed up for a trip to some hot springs, but that wasn't till 11:30am. So I slept in until some of my tour members woke me up at 8:45am with all their noise (rude!) , and then went to check out an art gallery that I'd seen on our way in.

BEAUTIFUL. I loved this guys art - it's like stylised, with native elements, or just straight native design - totally bought the book of his work. And I'm set for christmas cards this year, too :)

Anyway, then we went on the trip to the hot springs. We went in a sort of speed boat that the coast guard uses for marine rescues up here - like a boat crossed with an inflated inner tube. And we had to wear these sexy fashion statement floatation suits - big bright orange/red ones - to keep us warm and act as a life jacket if we fell overboard.

The weather was gorgeous, and the sea was calm. As part of the 2 hour trip to the springs we looked out for whales - and whoa did we see whales!!!

Tour guide said it was one of the best days in the year - first we saw 4 humpbacks in different spots - one was totally hyperactive and kept jumping out of the water and everything.

We also saw bald eagles, a sea otter and a sea lion.

The hot springs were cool, as was the half hour walk through forest to get to them.

After the springs, I went up on a big rock to get a look at the view, and take some photos. I nearly dropped my camera when I saw 3 fins passing me in the ocean beneath my rock. Took some shots because I thought they'd be dolphins or something!!! They looked too big for that, but their fins weren't pointy enough to be orcas.

Long story short, I showed my pics to the others on my tour, and then to the tour guide. Turns out they WERE orcas, and then we got to go looking for them to see if we could find them - all because of my random shots!! They were females - their fins aren't as tall as the males.

Totally found a pod of like, 7 orcas after a short trip; one swam RIGHT under our boat. Our boat was smaller and quieter than the bigger ones, so we could get closer - also, our guide had a HUGE camera to get ID shots of the whales to give to researchers - so he wanted the shots.

THEN we saw a grey whale - just once, and later ran into ANOTHER pod of orcas, this time with a male with the huge fin!!! It was so awesome, and my camera didn't run out of batteries (so glad). Had to go back and delete some stuff when I ran out of memory though.

Vancouver #3

So, then came Sunday :) Funny how I'm doing each day the day after it happened, rather than on the day...

On Sunday, I got picked up by Moose Tours at 8:05am, and left my awesome fudge from Capilano bridge inadvertently in the hostel fridge. Not cool.

We drove to the ferry at Horseshoe Bay, which took us to Departure Bay in Nanaimo.



We stopped at Little Qualicum Falls for lunch, then later at a beach for a break. Noone went swimming - it was freezing!





...then we drove through much awesome forest on our way to Tofino. It's right on the water pretty much, and is a very small town :) We (the tour group) made stir fry for tea, and I JUST missed getting a great photo of a fluorescent pink/red sun at sunset. Oh well :)

And here are my photos now that I've finally downloaded mine!

Vancouver #2

Saturday June 6th (aka yesterday) I went to the Capilano Suspension Bridge, and Tree Top walk which were great! 10 minutes by (free!) shuttle bus from downtown.

Then I bought fudge and went to the nearby dam...

Then walked nearby to the Salmon hatchery place, before heading back into Vancouver.

Many of my pictures WERE pending my arrival back in Toronto where my camera cord was. And now I am back, so here they are!

Vancouver #1

So so :) Last week and this week coming I am in Vancouver. Last weeks' weather was AMAZING - obviously because I was locked in a conference until 5:30pm pretty much every day (wishing I was out in the sunlight).

But the first holiday-y thing I did was go up Grouse Mountain. When I get back to Toronto and have my camera cord to download my pics I will put some up. (Now I'm back - here they are!)

It's so cool to have mountains like, a 10 minute public transport bus trip away from downtown Vancouver. There was even still snow at the top!

So yeah, I was in time to go up the chairlift to the top (most of the other things were shut) and then to walk around before getting an AMAZING steak for dinner :)

And the sun set while I was having dinner too, so there was a really nice view of the city on the way back down afterwards (at like, 9:40pm ish). The sun set at like, 9:10pm, yay for late nights :)