Vancouver Island and cruise home: 24-25 August

Wednesday 24 August

After an uneventful flight to Vancouver and a smooth connection to Victoria, we arrived at Victoria, BC airport an hour before we left Sydney – courtesy the International Dateline! We did not have long to wait for our shuttle into the city and were at reception of our Hotel Rialto by 11.30am. As luck would have it, having emailed to see if we could drop our luggage if our room was not ready, the front desk had received a message to say our room was ready when we checked in.

Resisting the temptation to have a nap, we freshened up and hit the streets. It was promising to be a warm day, but we headed off towards the waterfront nonetheless to explore. We were able to walk the route we would be driving out of the city in a couple of days which is always a good thing. We had explored the waterfront on the inner harbour on a previous visit so went looking for the car hire place as well as the bus station where we would be leaving from after our tour of Vancouver Island.

Feeling a little weary, we found somewhere to have something to eat. This confirmed in our minds the need to be very selective about what we order – the meals were huge and we thought we had ordered something ‘light’. After contacting a friend who lives locally to make arrangements to meet, we headed back to the hotel for a nap before dinner. This worked very well.

Thanks to local knowledge (thanks Rebecca) we decided on a little Italian restaurant, Cafe Brio, which we could walk to and had a delightful meal. After walking back to the hotel it was pretty much our bed time – at least by the local clock which we always try to stick to on arrival. Tomorrow was looking promising. So to bed we went.

The people of Victoria have no problem with permanent rainbow crossings

Lovely Victoria Harbour

Thursday 25 August

We had breakfast in a funky cafe just across the road from our hotel. Again, we were mindful of portion size, but still came away only having finished just over half what was on the plate. At least we had a lovely big pot of tea and mugs, so we could indulge.

We walked downtown to get our tickets validated for our Big Bus (tourist) bus tour. This turned out to be a very good find. The route took us to lots of areas of the city which we wanted to see without having to hire a car. The commentary was very comprehensive and full of history and lots of anecdotes. We had a combined ticket with entry to Craigdarroch Castle. This too proved a very worthwhile visit. Some more details below.

Some images taken during our bus tour:

The narrowest street in Victoria

Chinatown

The Dunsmuir family story is one of rags to riches. Robert Dunsmuir was born in Scotland but made his fortune working on the coal rich fields on Vancouver Island, starting in the north of the island and finally in Nanaimo. As his fortunes grew he moved his family from Nanaimo to Victoria where he prospered further.

Eventually he bought up parcels of land upon which Craigdarroch Castle was built. Construction started in 1887, however, Robert Dunsmuir died in 1889 before completion of the house. With division in the family over the estate of Robert and later his son, Alex, the family fortunes were ultimately squandered. Robert's wife, Joan lived in Craigdarroch Castle for 18 years until her death in 1908. In 1909 the house and its contents were auctioned.

Craigdarroch Castle

From rags to riches

In the afternoon, we caught up with Rebecca and had a lovely visit to the suburb of Oak Bay which we had passed through on our bus tour. After visiting the Oak Bay Hotel we stopped at a cafe in Oak Bay. The Oak Bay Hotel sits in an iconic location overlooking the Haro Strait which separates Canada and the USA and looks directly across to the Cascades and Mt Baker-Snoqualmie National Forest. Mt Baker was looking splendid.

Beautiful homes in Oak Bay

Mt Baker

View of Mt Baker from Oak Bay Hotel

After another good meal in the evening, this time in the Sticky Wicket Pub, we walked to the waterfront to see the lights. As there was a cruise ship in for the evening, the waterfront was very busy and buskers were out in force as well. Lots of atmosphere.