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We flew Westjet out of London, with stops in Winnipeg and Calgary. Our European friends who flew over the pole had shorter flights than ours! Our return flight was quicker with a single stop in Calgary and then directly home to London.
It's good that we have Westjet flying out of London. We'd rather fly out of London than deal with Toronto and the traffic to get there. Besides, parking in London is pretty cheap by comparison.
We stayed at the conference hotel, the Harbour Towers on Quebec Street, which is only a couple of blocks from Fisherman's Wharf (to the west), the Inner Harbor (due north), the Legislature and the Empress hotel (to the east). It's a modern high rise hotel and the conference events were held on the lower floors. We had a suite with kitchenette that our friends Arlinda and Keith had reserved. We have some nice pictures from the hotel of the harbor to the north and the mountains of Washington State to the south. The neighborhood is called "James Bay". The James Bay area has a lot of lovely old homes.
Next door to our hotel there's a quaint Victoria clapboard restaurant we visited for lunch several times --the Gatsby (now called the Pendray Inn and Tea Garden/Huntingdon Manor Hotel -- Victorian bric-a-brac wooden). It was just out our door, across the street, and towards harbor.
One day, when Kate as at the conference, she went outside for a bit during the break and bumped into our friend Scott talking to a weirdly dressed fellow. Kate approached, and recognizing who it was, she says "Valdy!" (he's a popular folk singer we've seen many times over the years -- he lives in the area). Valdy looks at her and says, "Kate!" (he read her conference name tag).
We had a National Car rental for duration. This meant we were able to see some sites beyond the immediate area. We also brought our fold up bikes with us, that made visting in the area easier. We were able to get out of the city to visit with Cai & Natasha, Jeananne & Jim. We drove out of the city to the west and up the coast of the island to Port Renfrew with Deborah and Jerry one rainy misty day. It is a real rain forest area with lot of ferns and thick moss on hanging on the trees. We bumped into some of the huge slugs Kate had warned me about. They are huge!
Mostly, however, we were hanging around the city center which is quite scenic. The harbor, of course, is quite a tourist draw. The picture above shows some of the Victoria Harbor Ferrys. They shuttle around the harbor on a back and forth tour to the West Bay with several stops along the way. They do a daily synchronized performance in the Inner Harbor to music. Over at the West Bay there are more house boats tied up. There was also this very weird house at the West Bay. I saw a bunch of sea otters frolicking on the docks. On Wednesday afternoon we (i.e. the conference group) took a whale watching cruise from inner harbor out to North West channel. We did see some seals sun bathing but we didn't see any whales and, while it was sunny, it was very cold and windy. We were quite chilled. There were other cruises on small open rubber dinghy's that went out to the same spot looking for whales -- they must have been very cold, and very wet. I'd not recommend doing that.
From the inner harbor there are sea planes that come and go. We had taken a sea plan from Vancouver a few years ago that landed here. It's expensive but a quick way to get from downtown to downtown. The car ferry to Port Angeles, WA docks in the inner harbor. The huge cruise ships land at a special cruise ship dock on the outer edge of the Victoria Harbor. It's in James Bay, the far south westerly corner.
British Columbia is famous for totem poles carved by the coastal natives. There's a stand of them in a park by the parliament building, there's another along the water front when we biked over to Fisherman's Wharf which is just a little to the north west of our hotel (walking distance really). The wharf is a scenic area that I returned to again and again. There are a lot of house boats anchored there, some commercial ships, sail boats and even some square riggers. Very scenic. An added bonus is the friendly harbor seals who patrol the area. And to top that there's the playful sea otters. There's also a very good fish and chip shop at the wharf.
On the ocean side of James Bay (due south of our hotel) and I wandered along Holland Point Park and Findlayson Point. There's a long breakwater extending out with a lighthouse and cruise boat wharf to the west. You would sometimes sea big cruise boats on the horizon as well as the car ferry which goes to Port Angeles in Washington State.
Kate and I visited Craigdarroch Castle which is very near the Art Gallery of Greater Victoria to the west a bit in the Rockland area. Both are interesting Victorian structures (there's a lot of that in the city). As for famous artists, the Emily Carr house is near our hotel in the James Bay area near Beacon Hill Park (more totem poles there) -- I visited her home one day. Another day there was an open air market in a nearby park.
We visited the Victoria Butterfly House a couple of times. There are lots of stunning butterflys and moths in a pretty glassed green house setting and it's not too far from the city center. I visited Goldstream Provincial Park with a friend's daughter to see more rainforest and moss covered trees. We took the Brentwood Bay Ferry back across Saanich Inlet to land near Butterfly house.
Finally there are some wineries near Victoria. We visited one.
