Rick & Carol's Journey (DL)

[Be sure to click on the photos for larger versions.]

This installment covers Sunday (August 17) through Tuesday (August 19).

Sunday was a driving day from Port Hardy to Qualicum Beach.

On Monday, we drove about 100 miles to Victoria. The last half of the trip was on increasingly crowded roads. We have a nice, pull-through site at a large campground. In the early afternoon we went out for lunch and minor shopping. Later we napped, surfed the Internet, and watched TV – more Olympics.

Tuesday started out overcast with a light drizzle, but turned sunny for most of the day. Carol and I caught a bus to go downtown for a full day of sightseeing. We started at the Miniature World Museum and saw a host of miniature scenes, ranging from war, to historic views of British Columbia, fairy tales, doll houses, and a circus that took over 7000 man hours to construct.





Next we went into the Empress Hotel, a Victoria landmark for over 100 years. At the nearby Royal BC Museum (which we plan to visit tomorrow) we saw our first solar powered trash can.



We checked out the ferry terminal, to see how we will get the RV there when we return to the U.S. on Friday morning. We then had a nice lunch at a small restaurant near the waterfront.

After lunch we visited the wax museum. In addition to the typical wax figures, including many British royalty (e.g. Henry VII and his many wives), the museum had replicas of British crowns and scepters.



We then took a short guided tour of the 111-year-old Parliament Building. In addition to the rotunda and parliament chambers, we saw the commemorative stain glass windows for Queen Victoria’s 60th Jubilee and Queen Elizabeth’s 50th.




Finally we toured the British Columbia Maritime Museum before catching a bus back to the RV park.



The museum is housed in what was the original justice building in Victoria. The upper floor is a reconstructed courtroom and the building contains the oldest cage elevator still in operation in British Columbia.