A 6:35pm ferry, only half an hour's drive away, obviously requires one to leave with 2 hours to spare. So it was we found ourselves wandering round Horseshoe Bay for an hour in the freezing cold killing an hour or so, without any need for coffee (an unusual situation for me) or food (ditto). Gave us a chance to stretch legs before the 2 hour crossing and hope that the fresh air meant we would be more likely to be awake for the drive on the other side. As it turned out it was a close thing and I'm glad we weren't going any further when we pulled into the Best Western in Chamainus, about 45 minutes off the boat.
No bar at the hotel and the nearest pub was at least a 30 second walk so we wisely decided it was much too far in our exhausted state and hit the pit instead. I think I was asleep in less time than it would have taken to walk to the pub! The highlights of Chemainus would have to wait till the next morning - and as you can see on a wet mid December day it is a hotbed of activity! But no matter, we had Lake Cowichan and Port Renfrew to look forward to so, after ignoring all the signs that said we had to have winter tyres fitted (forgot to get a picture) we bravely set off into the rain soaked interior of Vancouver Island, hoping that the expected height to be gained did not equate to a significant drop in temperature such that we found ourselves wishing we had not ignored the aforementioned signs!
The fact that I am writing this from a hotel in Victoria, means of course that no major catastrophe befell us, the rain might have just about turned to sleet for a brief time and visibility was such we could rarely see the mountain tops, but really the trip across the island was largely uneventful, although its beauty was apparent if often shrouded in mist. And Lake Cowichan is such a tourist draw at this time of the year that the best we could find was a ubiquitous Tim's (I understand there is one on every corner of very town with a population of more than 12).
But perhaps, more intriguingly, just outside Tim's... a hummingbird - in December - in Canada. You'll have to look carefully to see it (or perhaps it had flown off before I snapped the picture!)
Despite the rain we reached Port Renfrew on the Pacific coast without any drama and further threw caution to the wind and strolled bravely along the shore between downpours.
And I think we found the smallest coffee shop in the western hemisphere.
Before we reached Victoria, the provincial capital, but feeling rather more like a quaint provincial town (I might change that first impression when I have had a chance to look around, but when has a lack of knowledge ever stopped me from mouthing off), we stopped for a brief encounter with Patrick Stewart and the X-men.
This, Hatley Castle, is apparently Professor Xavier's School for gifted Young Men and Women. And here is one of those gifted x-women ;-)
Well, it has stopped raining and the bars and nightlife of Victoria await, so I will sign off for now. If we can only stay awake long enough...
And finally a few pictures that didn't make into the prose!
Definitely not an X-man!
The Pacific coast - calm, beautiful ... and at the moment, wet.
Just tell me one thing...why?
The Pacific repository for retired tree trunks