Saturday June 18, Westbay RV Park, Victoria, British Columbia

Woke this morning to light rain which seemed to be a good excuse to stay there a bit longer with my book…really felt like holiday mode. The rain soon cleared although the clouds hung around all day.

I am not sure what has happened to the North American summer we came for as the maximum today has been 16 degrees, and doesn’t seem much higher over the next few days. But no rain during the day, so can’t complain.

Decided to put on our walking shoes and take the walkway into town, which proved to be brilliant as it wound around the edge of the harbour giving us great views of the city and all the boats. I think it only took us about 30 minutes before we were in the heart of the shopping area. Very pleasant ambling along with the Saturday morning shoppers, there are some wonderful stores.

It was almost one o’clock before we stopped for a well earned coffee and lunch, then down to the harbour which was lined with street merchants and artists…and tourists, such a shame the sun wasn’t out though. We walked past what appeared to be a full size brass sculpture of a cowgirl with a bucket for tips, and were standing looking at it trying to work out what it was, when she winked. She was a mime artist, I was fascinated and enjoyed watching the reactions of others as they walked past.

The Parliament Buildings front onto the inner harbour, and are quite an imposing feature along with the nearby Empress Hotel which is built in the same style, both with towers and green Verdi gris copper roofs.

The gardens are probably at their early summer peak at the moment, with flowers and trees everywhere, looking forward to seeing the Butchard Gardens tomorrow.

We caught the little water taxi back to camp, they are the cutest little dumpy double ended boats with a skipper who gives a commentary. The harbour is shared with these taxis, the big ferries that come in from Washington as well as Vancouver, whale watching boats and also float planes. It is a busy place.

Ian was keen to go and see Lee Valley, a specialist wood and garden tools store which was only about 15 minutes drive away, so after a bit of a rest we loaded the address into Jilly and headed off. Don’t know what happened to Jilly but we ended up in a very narrow street with no sign of the store, so stopped at a Canadian Tire store where they were most helpful and set us on the right road. They are a great store with really good quality items. I was so impressed to see the huge selection of door handles, considering how hard it was in NZ to get something decent for the new wall unit Ian has just made.

All my photos today have been taken with my small G10 camera, with so much walking I decided to leave my big camera in the van. It has been a good day, and the sky seems to be getting lighter. Looking forward to catching up with our friends Witta and Dick from Sequim, Washington who are coming in by ferry in the morning.