Living out of a backpack: Vancouver Island

First stop on Vancouver Island was Victoria, the capital of British Columbia and the home of Parliament House.

Victoria Harbour

Parliament buildings

We visited Craigdarroch Castle which was built for the very wealthy coal tycoon Robert Dunsmuir and his family in the late 1880’s for a sweet $500,000. The whole idea behind the castle was to show off how wealthy they were as it was in some prime real estate and included granite, tile and oak imported from around the world.. which back in those days was a big task! Robbie died a year before it was finished and the castle then became the object of a very ugly family fued.

One of the many pianos in the castle!

The interior staircase of the castle

The tour of the Royal BC Museum began on the first floor in the natural history gallery which had some pretty cool life sized displays of various land and sea animals.

The next floor, the modern history gallery had displays and various artifacts of 20^th century Victoria and a tour of the forestry, fishing and mining industries and some info on the first settlers and a replica of Captain George Vancouver’s ship, the HMS discover.

The coolest display was the First peoples gallery, which taught us all about Canada’s indigenous people. There was a replica of one of the huts they used to live in in the winter which was under ground, mini replicas of their villages, totem poles, ancient artifacts and an exhibit showing their hunting techniques and how they used to catch their fish! One method involved pushing a float down to the river bed and then letting it float up to the surface. This caught the attention of the fish who followed it, unawares, to the surface of the water where they were speared by the men in the boat and taken home for dinner! Perhaps I could give Rhys a float to catch me some fish next time..

Parliament house was our next stop where we went on a guided tour to learn more about the building and the history of the parliament. The building was built around 1896, was designed by a 25 who won a completion and cost a mere $923,000. The detailing of the building was pretty cool and some parts were decorated with 23 carat gold, rich white marble, some very detailed mosaic tiles and lots of stained glass windows. It cost almost twice as much as the original budget so clearly the problems of modern day construction aren’t new!

Being a Commonwealth country, the Queen is a pretty big deal over here, but funnily they refer to her as ‘their queen’. There were several photos of Queenie’s visit and stained glass windows dedicated to Queen Elizabeth’s and Queen Victoria’s diamond jubillees. The fountains and statues in outside the buildings were very impressive and the gardens were immaculate and SO green! Mum’s rose garden has nothing on theirs as the roses were still in bloom in the fall!

We walked down to a nearby fishing village, where we had been told we could get some pretty good fish and chips and even see some seals! The seals must have migrated, and all the fish and chip shops were closed when we got over there, but none the less we were in awe of all the houseboats that made up the village and the scenery was pretty cool!

The houseboats

The deserted harbour

There was an IMAX theatre down at the museum which was showing the latest Batman film later that night so we decided to cease our day of walking (which totalled over 12km that day) and treat ourselves to a date night! We had dinner at a restaurant near the hostel where we had an amazing dinner and Rhys the first Canadian Club of the trip! He was glad to find that CC to Canadian’s wasn’t the same as Foster’s to the Aussies! The meals were massive but delicious and after all our walking we were starved and they served bottomless glasses of ‘pop’ (or soda water and lime) We then headed down to watch Batman on the HUGE screen and enjoyed it so much I didn’t even fall asleep!!