Wednesday 26 September 2012

Victoria, Vancouver Island

This weekend Jess and I ventured over to Victoria, Vancouver Island. We stayed with friends of a customer from the cafe I work at in Perth. I hope that makes sense! We received nothing short of amazing hospitality during our stay.

The ferry ride over, a little cloudy!

Jess & I
On Friday night we went out for dinner with a good family friend of mine; Izobell. She is the daughter of Mum's best friend. I hadn't seen her since 2009, as she is living in Victoria now. Hopefully she will come over to Vancouver while I am here to catch up again.

Izobell & I

The waterfront



Downtown Victoria

Very European influence

Jess & I with one of Canada's mythical creatures...although I am sure it is a character from a movie,

The typical Canadian tourist photo




The Empress historic hotel


Parliament house
( Victoria if the official capital of British Columbia, not Vancouver as many people think)

A sculpture carved completely in Jade which is harder than steel, yet translucent.

One of the dining rooms inside The Empress. There is a high tea here for a small $89 per person.
We gave that one a miss!

Killer whale hedges (kind of tacky haha)



Fan Tan Alley in Chinatown. Victoria's smallest official street


On Sunday we went to the Butchart Gardens, which is a world class venue. Over 100 years ago the area was a quarry pit. The Butchart family came in with a vision and made it what it is today. Members of the original family still operate the garden. The garden spans over 20 hectares, and every tree, flower, hedge and garden bed is in impeccable condition. I don't know if my photos do it justice, but this is just a small selection of the photos I took on Sunday.

The Rose garden, which smelled amazing!


The Japanese garden


View from the gardens overlooking the water


The sunken garden


Autumn colours




Water fountain surrounded by the walls of the original quarry


Historic Merry-go-round


Jess, Colleen (who we stayed with) & I




Arch to the Italian garden

The Italian garden

Colleen & I

The whole weekend was very memorable, especially with Colleen as our local tour guide!

Thursday 20 September 2012

Birthdays, Ice pools and Parties

Apologies for the lack of posts over the last week! Uni has started to get pretty full on and weekends are filling up with activities (which is a good thing). Where I left off was Sunday night after doing the Grouse Grind, which left me tired for a couple of days and the 30 minute commute to uni is not very inspiring! However, the following Monday was Charlotte's birthday so we had a house dinner. I made a cake which said "Joyeaux Annivesaire Charlotte xo" which means Happy Birthday in French. 





On Friday, Charlotte, Flora, Rebecca and I went to Lynn Canyon, which is about an hour and a half public transport journey from home. A bus, then the Seabus and then another bus. The journey is worth it however. It is a National Park and entry is free (unlike the much hyped about Capilano suspension bridge) . There is a natural pool and the water was freeeeeezing!! Literally melted ice off the mountain behind. However, we all got in!! Wouldn't say it was 'swimming', more just ducking under haha.








Saturday night we had our housewarming party. The theme was United Nations so everyone had to dress as a different country (not our own) and bring a bottle of alcohol from that destination. I went as South Africa, you can see in the photos there was a large range of costumes! The night was a success, which meant a big clean up on Sunday morning.








I have been pretty busy with uni this week so not much else has happened. My friend Jess from Perth arrived on Tuesday night. She has been travelling in the US for 3 months and will stay here for 2 weeks. Tomorrow we are going to Victoria for the weekend together which I am really looking forward to. Photos to follow!!