Day trip to Victoria (photos)
As it was too windy to go camping with Bob on Friday, I had been thinking about making a trip to Victoria. Apparently the most English place in Canada, The Rough Guide to Canada quotes Rudyard Kipling “Brighton Pavilion with the Himalayas for a backdrop“. It’s situated on the South tip of Vancouver Island, West of Vancouver, and was originally proposed to be the West terminus of the Canadian Pacific Railway but never came to be (perhaps because of deep Georgia Strait it would have to cross) and so Vancouver took over with growth and industrial development (source: Rough Guide to Canada). Victoria is however the capital of British Columbia and also a top holiday destination. With the length of the trip required, and the ferry crossing, it could perhaps be compared to me taking a trip from South England to France.
Friday night I stayed up late, which is probably the only way for me to be awake at 6am. Bob had been awake about an hour before but then seemed to be asleep. I thought he might join Sam, Amanda, and any other 5th floor girls that were also going. I took 296 photos, the most I’ve taken in a day during my time in Canada. I was using photos as notes for adding details to OpenStreetMap. I’ve cut that down to the 56 photos which tell the story in their captions, but first a summary of the day.
I got the number 25 bus about 7am. Half an hour later I was at King George Sky Train station, and at 7:45 changed at Bridgeport onto the 620 bus, reaching Tsawwassen Ferry Terminal at 8:24am. I was next to the ‘49th parrallel’ border with the USA all for free with my UPass travel card which I have as a UBC student. I set off on the 9am ferry as planned, it’s important to account for the queue as foot passengers can’t make reservations. 10:46 we got of the ferry, with the 11 o’clock bus waiting for us and a long line of people wanting to get on. I little bit of napping and almost an hour later, I got off the bus at 11:43am, at the start of Victoria’s downtown area. Total time to get from UBC to Victoria: 4 hours 45 minutes. Wow, that was a long time but the excitment of the trip and smooth changes didn’t make it seem like half a day.
The wind had cancelled some ferries last night, but as we set off the captain said it looked like a nice day ahead. I saw some sun breaking the clouds, and hoped it might be cutting the corner of my route and heading to meet me in Victoria. I mainly just walked around the town. I was a bit too relaxed about sorting out my bill at dinner, and missed my bus to the ferry by 5 minutes so caught a slower one 15 minutes later. However, I knew the last ferry was at 9pm, two hours later than I had planned. I waited at the ferry terminal for an hour and half, but made friends with two guys from New Westminster who had spent the week on holiday in Victoria and Duncan.
Here are my photos, with captions. Followed by the cost of the day.
I thought it would be good to keep a detailed account of how much the day trip cost, with tax included. My McDonalds breakfast cost $4.91. The ferry was $13.70 each way (bus to and from Vancouver was included in my annual UPass). The bus from Swartz Bay to Victoria was $2.50 each way (make sure you have correct change each way to drop in the machine). It was too windy for me to buy a packed lunch the day before, so after looking for a supermarket for a while I got lunch at a 7/11 store for $5.11 followed by a Vanilla Mango and Tiramisu ice cream cone for $7.50. Entry to the Maritime Museum was $9.50. I spent a little more than planned for dinner and a beer, being $18 at the Canoe Brew Pub & Restaurant. The total for the day being $77.22 (approximatly £50.32). If you exclude eating because I normally do that in a day (the ice cream = an evening night snack) then it’s $41.90 (~£27.30). The real spender is the ferry trip, but that does make it really exciting.
I never bumped into Amanda, Sam, or Bob, and later found out they didn’t go because it was predicted to rain. It didn’t rain until I was on the bus to get the last ferry, and I was too sleepy to notice at that point. I’d like to make an overnight weekend trip to Seattle (actually across the border!) before I fly home, I’m running out of weekends though.
Well it’s been suggested here that those who don’t get care packages should send their mean parents a package. Being a poor student I don’t have money to splash away doing that, but then up popped a twitter message from a mapping friend, 
