My westcoast visits.

Finally, my pictures from the West Coast. I love BC and I'm so glad I've had the chance to take the ferry to Vancouver Island twice in the past year. It's one of my most favourite places to visit.

This time, I flew into Vancouver from Whitehorse. I stayed at the HI hostel on Jericho Beach. The hostel is really cool. It's in an old building and it has a lot of character, sprawling lawns, and is right beside the beach. It's a seasonal hostel and had only been open for a few days before I arrived so it was not busy at all. There were 3 people in my 14 person dorm. The weather was so perfect. The most perfect weather ever, really, after spending extended winter months in the Yukon. I sat on the beach a lot. I wandered around the city. I visited with Crystal and Geoff. It was a quick visit because Crystal was already a few days overdue with their little one, but we caught a few exciting hockey games (sadly Vancouver lost out of the playoffs) and had some lovely dinners.

The day I took the ferry across to the Island, I realized I had lost my camera. I was on the bus that was going to take me to the ferry and into Victoria when I noticed. This entire trip takes about four hours. When I realized I had forgotten it, I got off the bus, packed my gear into a locker, went back to the hostel and searched all over the place. I told the guy at the front desk all about my situation. He knew me because I had spent time chatting with him about the playoffs. I went back to the bus and took the ferry across. Three days later he e-mailed me to tell me that my camera had turned up. I have no idea where it was found, or who found it, but I was really happy. Thanks Jericho HI, however that happened, you're the best.

All of these photos were taken by Leah and Jill. My camera was mailed back to my parent's house.

Leah and her housemate picked me up at the busstop in his truck (thank goodness because I had 100 lbs of gear from work in the north. She didn't believe me because she thought I was exaggerating the weight) and was going to pick me up on her bike. That would not have worked.

We spent days at the beach, neat little cafes, ran into one of my MSc committee members in a fancy little grocery store (he was quite surprised to see me in such a trendy part of town ;), hosted a picnic for her housemates, and hiked along the shoreline. One night Jill and her wwoofer, Malte, came into town and we all went out downtown. Being back in civilization was great. There was ice cream and flowers and cool little shops.

On the shore in Victoria.


Right where I was sitting, we found this bright purple seastar. I thought it was a sea cucumber, but it just had its arms folded in. Cucumbers generally aren't this brightly coloured because they need to hide from their predators.


Later that week, I took the city bus out to Metchosin to meet Jill. I spent a week at her family's ranch. This was the place I started my travels the previous August. Jill was working at the local market farm so I spent the days in her garden with Malte, jogging along the Galloping Goose Trail, and knitting my wool from Whitehorse.

One day, Jill, Malte, Bella the pup, and I went hiking along the Jaun de Fuca Marine Trail. Even though it rained most of the day, we had a fantastic time.

Me in the bright blue, Malte, and Bella


Some of the smooth rock formations on the shore. The colours were amazing. You could see the historical tide lines and since tide was low, we could walk right into these caves.


Bella and I exploring a cave full of drift wood, polished stones, and big tube seaweed.


Kettles worn out of the rock on the shoreline.


Bella having a great day by the tide pools.


One more of the slippery, smooth rocks covered with seaweed.


Leah and some friends came out the last night I was visiting to celebrate Jill's birthday! We had a delicious dinner and Leah made a little carrot cake complete with pink Jill sprinkles.

British Columbia in pictures.

Tonight I finally have a chance to upload some of my pictures! I'm quite organized with everything, but it's been tough to find time on a computer that's fast enough and economical enough to actually put a bunch up at once. I'm at an internet cafe across from the hostel right now and it's cheap. I haven't taken many pictures as of yet in Perth, but the next few days will be quite busy with picture taking. I'm going on a field trip tomorrow, spending Friday wandering around town and visiting the huge botanical garden here, then hanging out with a friend on Saturday.

This first picture just cracks me up. Geoff and Crystal took me to Spanish Banks for a picnic one night in Vancouver. Crystal kicked some sand into our picnic bag, so Geoff took the tomatoes and washed them off. Just as he arrived back at our blanket, the tomato popped off its stem and hit the sand again. It was funny because Geoff was so surprised that the tomato fell and nobody likes sand in their teeth.



Crystal working on the fancy bread from Terra Bakery, a cool little shop just up the road from their house.

The sunset over Spanish Banks.


The crazy gelato place, La Casa Gelato, I visited with Crystal and Geoff. It's all pink and lovely with waffle cones all around the outside and cheesy music played way too loudly.


Just a few of the 218 flavours.


Blueberry picking with Jill and Megan. We filled out buckets in 20 minutes.


Jill and I with a few of our berries.


Jill's mom has the most fabulous collection of pottery. Some day my kitchen will look like this. I'm actually well on my way.


Me on the front porch of Jill's farmhouse. You can see the barn in the backround. My head is blocking the view of the water and the marina.

A tiny puppy we met at Jill's friend Tracy's house. He's a mix of an assortment of things including border collie. He also has 6 other little brothers and sisters. This one was exploring my backpack a lot.


A lovely example of an Arbutus tree that Jill and I found while swimming at Matheson Lake.


Jill's car! It's the coolest little thing. We took the topside windows off and drove all over the place in it. I can't remember what it's called, but it has a Z in the name and leather interior. And it's a standard and it includes music ranging from Justin Timberlake to Ron LaMontague.


Jill in her garden. You can see the abundance of dill. Unfortunately, she didn't plant any cucumbers.


Me on the Pacific Ocean, the second of three oceans I've seen this summer. Um, who wants to send me to the Arctic Ocean and the Southern Ocean?


Jill climbing around a fallen tree on the 'nature hike' we did at Aylard Farm on the coast in East Sooke Regional Park.


The petroglyphs was saw in the same park. I think this one is a giant sea monster, or a salmon, a giant salmon monster.


Treehugging on the front lawn of the parliament buildings in Victoria, BC. This is the first time I had seen a Giant Sequoia. This one is only a little over 100 years old. It was so incredible.


Dinner we made with Leah! Such a fun night. Just a really good time catching up with good old friends. The drink in our cups is Mead from the local meadery, Tugwell Creek, which Jill and I visited in Sooke.

From Glenrosa Farm.

I'm currently writing from the sun room at Jill's family homestead. I can see down the hill, past the barn to the shoreline of Pedder Bay where a little marina is located. We're going to walk down there later this week to check things out. Jill's farm is just outside of Metchosin, BC. The farm is a hobby farm at this point, but it's been here since 1881 and was named Glenrosa in 1885 by J.D. Reid, a Scottish immigrant. Jill's family has a horse named Brandy, a mini donkey named Snowy, a pony, a dog named Riley, 4 cats, egg-laying hens, and 10 sheep, one named Phantom. They also have an apply orchard and they make juice each Thanksgiving. I'm going to have to come back for that one of these years because I love their apple juice. This summer Jill has also been running a market garden. It is beautiful and I will definitely add pictures later. The internet connection is a bit slow out here and I can't upload any pictures today. That's okay, I know how difficult that sort of thing can be.

Since I last posted, these are some of the things I've done:

-Swam 6 lengths of Kits Pool. My goal was 5, but I would have ended up at the wrong end and wasn't about to walk back. My swim was great and good for my knees after being cramped up on the airplane the day before.

-Strolled around the Kits shopping district in Vancouver. Such a cool part of town. All sorts of neat stores and restaurants. I had lunch at a place called Sejuiced. It was all organic, vegan hippie food, but it was tasty.

-Went to a beach called Spanish Banks with Crystal and Geoff after they got home from work. Watched the big ships and volleyball players and had a picnic dinner. We could see the Gondala going up the mountain at Grose Point.

-Went to a fantastic gelato place for dessert. It was called La Casa Gelato. They have 218 flavours of gelato and ice cream at any given time out of the 500 flavours they make!! These flavours include about 50 chocolate variates, garlic, wasabi, and a huge range of exotic fruits and spices I had never ever heard about. I sampled fig and almond (YUM), grapefruit champagne (YUM, you can totally taste the alcohol), and apple cheddar (YUCK no one needs shredded cheese in their ice cream). I actually purchased one scoop or pear ice cream and one scoop of strawberry champagne sorbetto. They made a good match. Crystal had spanish coffee and Geoff had Praline. Delicious. This particular gelato castle is in the middle of an industrial area so we ate at the garden area beside their parking lot. very interesting experience and I would recommend it to anyone visiting Vancouver.

-The next morning (yesterday), I took the BC Ferry across to Victoria. The ferry is gigantic and it sails through the gulf islands. It was a great 1.5 hour trip. I have some really good pictures which I will add later. Jill picked me up at the dock and we headed back to her place.

-Once we were here, I said hi to Jane and Peter (Jill's parents) and then we rode the bikes into town. We had lunch with Jill's friend Megan at the Broken Paddle then went blueberry picking. I had never picked tame blueberries before. They are huge and there are so many of them this year. They literally fell off the plant into our hands and buckets. YUM.

-We came home and explored Jill's garden. We picked zucchini, summer squash, potatoes, beets, little round carrots, and 3 artichokes. We took the produce to Jill's bootcamp workout. I joined in. It was a tough workout, but I made it through.

Now, we're about to head out to the lake to go swimming with Jill's friend Tracy and her kiddos. Should be a nice afternoon before we head into Victoria to see the town and have dinner.