05 December 2006
Victoria to Sidney
Tuesday 28 November
We got up early, had breakfast, then went left our luggage and went out. There was deep (8 inches) snow, and the pavements were very icy. Victoria is a nice city from what we saw of it. We got the bus to the ferry terminal to go to Saturna Island (our next farm). Sophie went off to get some coffee as the waiting room was freezing, and while she was gone there was a tannoy call saying, “could Sophie and R…Rawan visiting from England please contact the ticket staff”. We weren’t entirely sure what to do as our ferry just started boarding soon afterwards, but Rowan went up to the ticket office and was put through to Nan, our host’s sister, who said that the trailer we would be staying in at the farm on Saturna had no electricity so it would be too cold. Nan said we could stay with her family in Sidney until things on the island were sorted out. They picked us up in Sidney (which is north of Victoria and near the ferry terminal) and were very kind and welcoming.
Wednesday 29 November
We caught the bus to the Butchart Gardens near Victoria (which are very famous). The bus driver seemed surprised that we would be visiting the gardens on such an unpleasant day (wind, temperatures around freezing and wet snow). Apart from a couple of Japanese tourists we had the gardens to ourselves.
The gardens were very pretty, although we couldn’t help thinking that they would be even better without 8 inches of snow covering everything. They had displays of all the twelve days of Christmas which were good. By the time we’d gone round the gardens we were freezing so we had a bowl of soup in the café then browsed the gift shop. We caught the bus back and got off a few stops too early so had a little way to wade through the snow.
With dinner we had wine which they’d made themselves in the “U-brew” – apparently a tax dodge where the shop sells you grape must and space in a fermenter. It works out much cheaper than store-bought wine, and it was quite nice (especially at the price).
We got up early, had breakfast, then went left our luggage and went out. There was deep (8 inches) snow, and the pavements were very icy. Victoria is a nice city from what we saw of it. We got the bus to the ferry terminal to go to Saturna Island (our next farm). Sophie went off to get some coffee as the waiting room was freezing, and while she was gone there was a tannoy call saying, “could Sophie and R…Rawan visiting from England please contact the ticket staff”. We weren’t entirely sure what to do as our ferry just started boarding soon afterwards, but Rowan went up to the ticket office and was put through to Nan, our host’s sister, who said that the trailer we would be staying in at the farm on Saturna had no electricity so it would be too cold. Nan said we could stay with her family in Sidney until things on the island were sorted out. They picked us up in Sidney (which is north of Victoria and near the ferry terminal) and were very kind and welcoming.Wednesday 29 November
We caught the bus to the Butchart Gardens near Victoria (which are very famous). The bus driver seemed surprised that we would be visiting the gardens on such an unpleasant day (wind, temperatures around freezing and wet snow). Apart from a couple of Japanese tourists we had the gardens to ourselves.The gardens were very pretty, although we couldn’t help thinking that they would be even better without 8 inches of snow covering everything. They had displays of all the twelve days of Christmas which were good. By the time we’d gone round the gardens we were freezing so we had a bowl of soup in the café then browsed the gift shop. We caught the bus back and got off a few stops too early so had a little way to wade through the snow.
With dinner we had wine which they’d made themselves in the “U-brew” – apparently a tax dodge where the shop sells you grape must and space in a fermenter. It works out much cheaper than store-bought wine, and it was quite nice (especially at the price).
