Friday June 17, Westbay RV Park, Victoria, British Columbia

70 Miles

ON THE ROAD AGAIN!!!!

After spending a wonderful week in Anacortes, enjoying great family time and hospitality, it was time this morning to say goodbye and Hit the Road.

The garage had replaced the muffler on the generator and given it a good service, needed to make sure it was working well as we often primitive camp and do need the generator at times. Spent yesterday afternoon loading up with groceries, stowing our gear and packing away the suitcases for the return trip in September. There is something really good about having things in proper places once more and not living out of a suitcase.

The ferry left Anacortes at 8.30am, so it meant an early start. Had a coffee with the family before we left, then breakfast in the van while we waited in the queue for the ferry. Anacortes is actually on Fidalgo Island which is joined to the mainland by a bridge, but is part of a large group of islands, the San Juan’s. a boaties paradise in the North West. There are many vehicular ferries servicing the islands, and our boat stopped at one of the islands where a large number got off, before we continued onto Sidney on Vancouver Island.

The trip was really smooth, but I took a pill just in case (thanks Heather, they worked well!), and I had a very good sailing. The ferry passed by many rocky islands of all shapes and sizes, most seemed to have homes tucked away in the trees, hard to see how they accessed them though, but guess it was by boat. In the distance to the south we could see the snow topped peaks of the Olympic Mountains creating picture perfect scenes.

Friday Harbour where we stopped was quite a sizeable town with a huge marina, it looked a very inviting place.

We arrived at Sidney in just under 3 hours and had to pass through Canadian Customs, which was a real breeze. They didn’t even ask how much alcohol we had on board!

Sidney is a seaside town with a large number of multi storey apartment blocks and seems to be a retiree destination town. Parked the van and had a walk through part of the town, and some lunch before setting off for the 45 minute drive down to Victoria which has a population of about 80,000. Had heard that it was a great town and our first impressions would agree. The streets are tree lined and the gardens are so well kept and full of flowers. It has a laid back feel to it, maybe partly because it is on the water.

We were feeling quite jaded and found a campground right on the water where we can walk into the city centre or take a water taxi, seemed like a good place to settle in for a few days. The past week seems to have caught up so it’s been a very lazy afternoon, doing very little. Exploring can wait until tomorrow.