ourjourney

Sunday, August 10, 2008

HIKING ON THE ISLAND

HIKING ON THE ISLAND

There are endless choices of places to hike on Vancouver Island and we have walked a couple of memorable ones.

One Thursday after my yoga class, Eric and I climbed Mount Finlayson in the Goldstream Provincial Park, which is about 16 km from Victoria. There are many interconnecting forest trails in this park and the one we took climbed steeply out of the rain forest up on to dry rocky ridges of arbutus trees and pine.

The arbutus tree is a very distinctive and unusual looking tree which reminds me somehow of being in Zimbabwe. It is the only broadleaf evergreen tree in Canada and does seem out of place among the conifers and hardwoods of BC. It usually has a “crooked or leaning trunk that divides into several twisting branches.” Its bark, a beautiful reddish brown, is in sharp contrast to its glossy dark green leaves and against the often deep blue sky. It peels in thin flakes or strips exposing a smooth “greenish to cinnamon red” bark underneath. The trees grow on well-drained soils high up in rocky places, or on bluffs close to the seashore. Sometimes you might see one with a branch that is dead and looks like a piece of white curling drift wood, attached to the rest of the tree that is still happily alive, in its reds and greens.

The trail up Mount Finlayson was steep and rugged, a challenge for me. There was much puffing and panting coming from this engine! Thank goodness for my trusty boots. As we got closer to the top it was a case of scrambling up on all fours much of the time. The descent was a whole lot easier on the heart and lungs though not on the knees. It took us couple of hours up and an hour and a half down. In our trail book there is an ominous warning in bold letters which says “Take this mountain seriously: people have lost their lives on Mount Finlayson”. Thankfully we made it with no mishaps and still had the energy to walk a short way along a small river called the Niagara River to a very pretty though mini Niagara Falls, which had an alluring pool at the bottom.
A point of interest in the park is that late in the fall all along this stretch of the Goldstream River the coho and chinook salmon come back upstream to spawn. I hadn’t realized that this is such an exhausting process for both the male and female salmon that once it’s over they die.

About a week later we took off to the other side of the Island to do a coastal trail in the East Sooke Regional Park. We had spent several days in a cottage in the Sooke area 2 years ago with our dear friends June and Rod and their 2, Jamie and Anna. But this section was new to us. East Sooke is it’s own knob of land jutting out into the Juan de Fuca Strait and we followed the coast line from Creyke Pt. to Cabin Pt. and back again, a walk that took us all day.
The scenery was magnificent and all the way along we could see across the strait to the Olympic Mountains in Washington. In the morning when we started out there was a deep mist resting over the water and above that the mountains rose up a pale steel blue with white spotty patches of snow, illuminated by the morning sun. As the day advanced and the sun moved, the blue of the mountains changed and became clearer and crisper. By the afternoon the mist had disappeared and there were whitecaps as the tide came in.
The walk itself was somewhat reminiscent of the Nootka Trail though nowhere was there passable beach to walk along. The path ran above the water level, sometimes climbing up through patches of wildflowers and arbutus to the tops of cliffs, and at other times dropping down over roots through red cedar to lower rocky outcrops. All along the way there were views down into deep coves below that were being battered by waves, and across the strait to the mountains. There was a feeling of wildness and remoteness that I loved, enhanced by the constant cry of the seagulls.
I was thrilled at one point to spot a group of seals sunning themselves far below on some rocks. There was a small island a short distance away and they had found a warm spot protected from the wind between our coast and this island. I was glad to have my binoculars with me and we were able to get a good look at them and vice versa. They seemed totally relaxed stretched out on the rocks but were visibly keeping one eye open to see what we were up to too. We watched them for a while on the way out and on our return trip we noted that they hadn’t moved and were still lounging about.
A glorious day and weary limbs, what could be better than that!

Saturday, August 9, 2008

VICTORIA & ENVIRONS

17th July – 31st July 2008 VICTORIA & ENVIRONS

It was so good to be back on the Island and the first 2 weeks sped by at a frightening speed, every day a full day.

Here are the highlights.

Being able to spend lots of time with Alan and Emi has of course been highlight NUMERO UNO. It’s been so wonderful to see them in the context of their busy lives and to know that we have 6 weeks here.
On our first evening Al came out to see us and we went to a flea market and to have dinner in Sidney, which is very close to where we’re staying. Every Thursday evening during the summer, the main street of this busy little coastal town is closed off and venders come to sell their wares, such things as fresh veggies, clothing and jewelry, and musicians come to entertain. At one booth a woman was selling her freshly baked bread and she recognized Eric’s accent. It turned out that they had both been born in Pietermaritzburg!
We’ve had a yummy meal at Al and Emi’s place on Yates St in Victoria, and they’ve eaten with us at Site #102 Oceanside RV Resort on the Saanich peninsula, delicious food and lots of time for fun and conversation.
Al introduced us to the Gowlland-Tod Provincial Park, our first walk on the Island, which took us through the enormous rain forest trees, and down to the rocky water’s edge of the Saanich inlet, home to numerous starfish. He also introduced us to The Red Barn, a great place to buy fresh fruit and veges and Udder Guys icecream.
And one evening Eric and Al managed to fit in 9 holes of golf after work.

One Sunday, Eric and I visited the famous Butchart Gardens which cover 55 acres. The idea for these gardens came from a Jeannie Butchart a hundred years ago. She wanted to beautify a worked out limestone quarry that had supplied her husband’s nearby Portland cement plant. The couple evidently traveled extensively and brought back plants from other countries, some quite rare ones. First a huge sunken garden complete with waterfall was created and later a Japanese garden, rose garden and Italian garden were added. “In 2004 The Butchart Gardens, in bloom for 100 years, was designated a National Historic Site of Canada”.
They are obviously accustomed to dealing with large numbers of people, cars and tourist busses. A Sunday afternoon in July is a very busy time. The gardens that day were vibrant with great swatches of brilliant colour, opulent in places, I’d say. There was much stepping aside to get out of the way of people taking photos under archways dripping with roses, or against a backdrop of giant begonias or fushsias.

One day we spent a couple of very happy hours at the Royal BC Museum where there was a most interesting feature Exhibit called Free Spirit, Stories of You, Me and BC. All kinds of people had contributed to this exhibit with stories going back 150 years, the age of BC. These were the stories, letters and artifacts of ordinary people. I was particularly interested in the stories of hardship and adventure during the gold rush since we’d recently driven the Gold Rush Trail; and another display of letters from children written to their families while they were at boarding school.
We also viewed an exhibit called War Brides, One Way Passage, which was a celebration of these women by Bev Tosh, a Calgary artist, whose mother had been a war bride. She used paintings, photography and many old letters to depict and record their varying stories in order to create her powerful exhibit.
On another day we went to the Art Gallery where there was an Andy Warhol exhibition, which we thoroughly enjoyed. The gallery is in a large century old house, which has been added on to, a really lovely location I felt.

When we got to Victoria, I signed up to do 5 weeks of yoga at the Ayengar studio here. What a bonus to be able to slot into a yoga class so easily. I go on Thursday mornings and so far have been to 2 classes with 2 different teachers. Interesting to notice the different teaching styles.

It has been special too to connect with our ex-neighbours from Mississauga. The Bell family lived across the road from us and have 3 children of comparable ages to our guys. They recently left Ontario and have almost completed the building of a gorgeous house overlooking the Saanich Inlet. We had dinner with them one evening and were given the full guided tour of their new home after 36 years on Albertson Crescent and enjoyed catching up on all the news of their now grown up family. Since then we have joined them on a short hike in Gowlland-Tod Park and had a
fresh-from-the-fish-market salmon dinner with them here.