British Columbia

We boarded the ferry from Anacortes WA at 3 on Thursday 8/7.  The boat threaded its way through the beautiful San Juan Islands, where the Strait of Juan de Fuca meets the Strait of Georgia, near the Province of British Columbia.  We arrived in Victoria, the capitol city of British Columbia on Vancouver Island, at 6.  We liked our hotel, the century old James Bay Inn, located near the Inner Harbour, Parliament & central Victoria.  We had dinner at a seafood restaurant, then walked around the historic district.  We toured the area again on Friday morning 8/8.

Anacortes

San Juan Islands

Parliament

The Empress Hotel

Victoria BC

We drove to Butchart Gardens, the principal tourist attraction on Vancouver Island.  It receives over 1 million visitors a years.  It was tacky.  The fact that it was a huge garden made it all the more difficult to bear.  It was very crowded with tourists.  And to top it off, it cost us more than $30 each.  It was mostly filled with annual bedding plants in the style that was popular in the early 20th century.  We had lunch there, then drove 3 hours north to Nanaimo.

 Butchart Gardens

The 1970s modern Coast Bastion Inn in Nanaimo was lovely.  We had a large room on the 8th floor with a stunning view of Nanaimo Harbour & the 2 islands that enclose it.  We ate an excellent dinner in the hotel dining room, then walked along the harbour & main shopping street.  We left early on Saturday morning 8/9 for the ferry from Departure Bay to Horseshoe Bay in West Vancouver, on the mainland.  That trip was also beautiful.  Although the waters of the Strait of Georgia are mostly open at that point, the mountains of mainland British Columbia loomed in the distance.  In case you are unaware of the geography of the northwest Pacific coast, Vancouver Island is about the size of the State of Connecticut.

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Nanaimo Harbour

After arriving at Horseshoe Bay, we visited Capilano Provincial Park, where we walked across a suspension bridge 230 feet above the Capilano River, the main attraction.  That freaked Jordan out a little & Rusty a lot.  There were hundreds of people on the bridge & it was swaying under their weight.  We were told the bridge could support 90 elephants, which was reassuring on an intellectual, but not really a gut level.  Capilano is a bit of a natural amusement park.  There is also the Cliff Walk cantilevered from the side of the cliff & quite sturdy.  We all enjoyed that.  The 3rd attraction is the Treetops Adventure, a series of 7 narrow suspension bridges attached to 8 huge Douglas-fir trees, at up to 100 feet above the forest floor.  Rusty skipped that.  Only Steve was comfortable with the main suspension bridge.

Near Horseshoe Bay on the BC ferry

The Cliff Walk

The Comfort Inn was a nice hotel very centrally located on Nelson Street at the corner of Granville Street, in or very near Yaletown.  We had dinner with Jordan's friend Jack & his friend Larry that night.  We met them at the PumpJack Pub in Davie Village, then walked to a Malaysian restaurant on Denman Street.  The food was good & the conversation was pleasant.

Buildings near the Comfort Inn 

On Sunday morning 8/10 we walked down Hornby Street to the aquabus & crossed to Granville Island.  That was fun.  A large complex of shops & restaurants in old industrial buildings is located under the Granville Bridge on the island.  We had lunch there.  That afternoon, we went to the University of British Columbia.  Rusty & Steve went to Wreck Beach to lie naked in the sand.  Jordan went to the UBC Botanical Garden & then the Nitobe Memorial Garden, both on the campus nearby.  It was hot that afternoon.  We had an excellent dinner that night in Yaletown. 

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Nitobe Memorial Garden

UBC Botanical Garden

The Aquabus to Granville Island

The Roundhouse in Yaletown

On Monday 8/11 we went to the VanDusen Botanical Garden in another, more distant part of the city.  It was a nice garden.  But again the day was hot & sweaty.  We stopped for lunch at a Chinese restaurant along the way back.  We did some shopping in the South Granville Business District near the restaurant. Late that afternoon, Rusty & Steve went out walking while Jordan napped in the air conditioned hotel room.  We met up in Gastown, the oldest part of Vancouver, where we had dinner in a Lebanese restaurant, did more shopping & took a cab back to the hotel.

VanDusen Botanical Garden

Gastown

  

We drove back to Seattle in the morning of Tuesday 8/12.