07/10/2007 - 09/10/2007 Vancouver Island

07/10/2007 - Today we said goodbye to our hotel and Vancouver and headed off to catch the vehicle ferry over to Vancouver Island. The ferries carry over at least 200 vehicles, plus passengers and leave approx. ever hour. The ferry ride over was a nice little treat, just to relax and let someone else worry about the driving and the directions. We caught our first sightings of a number of seals. Once we docked on the Island we headed straight to the Butchart Gardens, well I must admit Dave and I weren't too excited about going there, but after a few comments that we heard from Tony and Sim and locals around Vancouver Island we decided that we better not miss them. Well we were definitely glad that we didn't miss them they really are beautiful.

After visiting the gardens we headed of to Victoria and checked into our accommodation. We then headed off to have a dinner at a well recommended (by locals) Italian Restaurant. When we first arrived we needed to wait in line outside the front door (at this stage I'm cold and hungry and thinking that this meal better be worth it), once inside the door we were offered some red wine (in a coffee cup) but hey I didn't care. Well we finally got seated and as advised the meals were large in size but we managed to finish them off and wipe the plates clean - the pasta was definitely worth the wait - and I only had to pay $6.50 for a glass of cheap Australian wine - I am trying the local wine at different establishments, but this is definitely going to be an acquired taste.

08/07/2007 - Today the weather wasn't too bad - cold but only the odd light shower. We headed down to the wharves and boarded the "Zodiac" for our trip out to visit the Killer Whales. Well this was an experience that neither Dave or I will ever forget, they truly are magnificent animals. They currently have about 3 pods totalling 87 whales around the area and we were lucky enough to see all 3 pods together. The highlight was when one of the large males surfaced about 5 metres away from out boat and then swam just underneath the water right beside our boat. What a memorable day!!!

09/07/07 - Well the weather was back to cold, colder, rain and more rain. We drove up the coast of Vancouver Island to Mt Washington (the only ski resort on the island). The scenery on the way (for the 2 hours, anyway) was absolutely breathtaking. The ski resort was a lot bigger than either Dave or I expected, but it was about 3 degrees outside, raining very heavily and very very windy so our sight seeing was only from our car. We then headed to Nanimo (Departure Bay) and caught the ferry back to the mainland (Horseshoe Bay), from there we headed off to Whistler to stay in the log cabins that we stayed in when we were here in 2001 - they haven't changed a bit and bought back a lot of wonderful memories.