Canada – Victoria and Vancouver

This visit to Victoria was to be our rest and recovery time.  So with our backpacks on we walked the 200 yards to our hotel which was handily located next to the Government building and about 400 yards from the downtown area with all the shops and restaurants.  At first glance Victoria was very appealing, not a huge centre, relatively low rise and for some indefinable reason clearly not in the USA.  It’s claimed to be the most English city in North America but isn’t like any English city we know, apart from an area of one large park that reminded us of one in Cheltenham.  That first glance was an accurate one because we found the centre of Victoria to be a delightful place.   Oh, and if anyone doesn’t know just how big Canada is, I can tell you that it’s further to the east coast of the country from Victoria than it is to Japan.

On our first trip into town we found a busker in a kilt strangling a cat mysteriously disguised as a set of bagpipes with the case on the pavement in front of him, although it was unclear whether he wanted money to keep playing or money to stop playing.  A sign on the case read ‘There’s nowhere like Glasgow’ which begged the obvious but unasked question.  At least it wasn’t amplified bagpipes.  So it was the usual wander around.  We had no need to understand the transport system yet because the centre was compact enough to walk to everywhere of interest.  We had one day of rain while we were here but most of the time it was sunny.  The morning after our arrival we set off to explore the town a bit, looked at Chinatown which was small but with some lovely old buildings put up in the days when the area was established.  The Chinese settled and ran their businesses here because they were forbidden to do so anywhere else and were heavily discriminated against.  I think they weren’t allowed to vote here until after the second world war but I’m not certain of this.  

We had arrived on Friday and on Sunday morning it was the Victoria Marathon, Half-Marathon, open and para forms, kids run etc. etc.  It all started right below our hotel room at 6.30am and we watched some of the activity from our balcony.  By the time we’d taken our time, had a leisurely breakfast and decided what to do (not too difficult as the only choice was a walk into town), we were in time to stand at the finish and watch the winner finish.  I’ve never seen a real marathon live as it were and this wasn’t the toppest of top class but to see the winner, a Kenyan unsurprisingly , finishing untroubled at an astonishing pace considering that he’d already run over 26 miles.  He finished in 2.20.33, eight minutes ahead of the second man home while the fourth placed runner was twenty minutes behind him at 2.40   On a fairly pointless bit of knowledge tack I understand that the marathon distance was variable until the1908 London Olympics when it was run at 26 miles 385 yards so that it could start on the lawn at Windsor Castle and finish in front of the Royal Box at White City.  Ah, they knew how to do things in those days.  Anyway a dramatic finish led to Dorando Pietri, the first man over the line being disqualified.  He and the subsequent official winner ran several more races at the same distance and in 1921 the distance was officially set at 26m385y possibly because of the 1908 drama.

Back in Chinatown we came across a short road with the top layer mostly removed.  An information board explained about the wooden blocks soaked with creosote which were laid as the road base.  As I young boy in London’s East End I remember just such blocks being torn up when a road was being relaid.  The blocks were gathered for burning on open house fires and I remember the stones exploding in the heat so a fireguard had to be in place at all times.  From here we walked along the edge of the waterfront being teased by seaplanes and watching the tiny little water taxis buzzing back and forth.  They looked like something from a cartoon, if you sliced one off at water level it would be an oval, they had perspex sides and were big enough for about a dozen people.

Thanksgiving Day (Columbus Day in the USA) monday dawned lovely and sunny which was good because we’d decided to go to the Butchart Gardens, a Victoria ‘must-see’ according to all the publicity and covering a bit over 55 acres.  I thought it had better be good at CAN$26, about £20 each.  It was an hour away by bus which had cost us only CAN$2.50 each for a day ticket.  The garden was an excellent choice and turned out to be one of the highlights of this trip.  It was absolutely full of colour in October and not just from all those autumnal tints but from an enormous range of different plants.  My two favourite parts were the big and beautiful Japanese garden and the Sunken Garden which had been built in an old quarry.  For those of you familiar with Poole, it was a bit like Compton Acres on steroids and the sort of garden anyone could build given the money, the skill and a hundred years.   One thing about travelling and being interested in the wildlife is the frustration at recognising the family a bird belongs to or the same about a wild flower, shrub or tree.  Without a guide or a lot of books and time, they have to stay at that level of knowledge.  With a garden though it is very different.  In what is in effect a plant zoo, a knowledge of garden plants in England will allow you to recognise a whole range of plants all over the world.  Whatever the birds or plants are called though, that old hack Shakespeare nailed it with “a rose by any other name would smell as sweet”.  I just like to know the names.  

The next day we travelled almost the whole way back past Butchart Gardens to catch the ferry to the Canadian mainland.  This was a spectacular trip weaving in and out of various islands with the sun glinting off the water before we reached the more open Strait of Georgia with Vancouver ahead of us.  To the east lay the snowy cap of Mount Baker in the north of Washington State and the islands we passed all had houses along their wooded shorelines.

Well if Chicago is the Windy City, Vancouver must be the Rainy City.  It’s a big place with lots of skyscrapers and modern buildings.  There is a good transport system but with some strange quirks.  Bus tickets cost CAN$1.75 for 90 minutes of travel but you can only buy the ticket on the bus with the correct change unless you get an all day pass which you can’t buy on the bus.  The all-day pass also covers The Skytrain, a train system which despite the name is mostly underground.  Heather had got us a converted fifth floor loft (with lift) on Air B & B in Gastown, one of the oldest parts of the city with many cafes, restaurants, little shops and homeless people.  Just as in every city people walk around talking to themselves but near here lots of them don’t actually have phones and it seems to be the part of Vancouver where the up-and-coming meet the down-and-outs.  It has a rather nice clock, Big Ben looking but only about twelve feet high near the curb just along from us.  Every hour it plays steam driven Westminster chimes with the standard reduction at quarter and half hours.  It’s a popular tourist attraction.

We did rent a car for a day out and headed off to Whistler, a hundred miles or so away.  It’s a winter sports destination and not wildly interesting but is more attractive than many European ski resorts.  It rained on the journey there and back but was only cloudy at Whistler itself and then when we got back to Vancouver the sun was out.  On the way we passed a town called Squamish, or in the local language Skwxwv7mesh.  I think the local people are called the Dyslexics.

TripAdvisor lists 41 Cafes and Restaurants within 0.1 of a kilometre of our apartment in Gastown and we’ve eaten near here for nearly every meal.  The punsters are at it here too, we’ve seen The Crepe Escape.  Downstairs from our apartment, literally next door is the coffee shop where I went to get a proper coffee each morning to go with breakfast.   Tipping is similar to the USA, much higher than we’re used to with 20% being quite normal.  There are tip jars on almost every counter.  You go for an ice-cream, stand in a queue and there’s a tip jar.  We saw a couple of good notices though.  One café had two jars with an arrow pointing to each jar with a sign between saying “who tips most ? Men or Women ?  Another said “If you’re frightened by change, leave it here”, which I particularly liked.

It’s our last day and we have an unexpected extra eight hours here due to some funny business with my IPhone converting local time to British Time.   We nearly turned up at the airport ten hours before our flight but with the extra discovered time we decide to walk.  Towards the south of downtown is False Creek which used to be the industrial heartland and was heavily polluted.  Now like so many waterfront areas across the world it has been transformed and near the water is traffic free and beautifully planted up.  It looks particularly good at this time of year and is imaginative.  It isn’t a set of evergreen, easy grow plants like so many cities have in similar areas or like the plantings normally seen around supermarkets.  On our walk to it we passed by chance The Dr Sun Yat-Sen Park which we popped into.  This really is a little gem in an unconsidered part of town on the edge of Chinatown and Gastown.  Very much a Chinese style garden with a pavilion, one big pool ewith large fish and an intricate path bounded by weathered stone.  It was very unexpected and a delight.

 By the way, Gastown is named after an early local businessman Gassy Jack.  His nickname doesn’t come from an antisocial intestinal problem but from his propensity to talk a lot. 

I’m ready to go home.

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