Dateline: Victoria, with islanders dropping by
Posted August 11, 2013 at 11:16 pm by Ian Byington
It’s a common sight – folks feeding the ducks & geese & occasionally gulls at Beacon Hill Park, in the middle of Victoria.
It’s so close, isn’t it – as the crow flies, it’s only 10-11 miles from Friday Harbor to Victoria, and almost as easy, taking the ferry. When you get on the 9:45am ferry from here, you’re in Sidney, BC less than a hour & half later. From there it’s an easy bus ride or car (if you take it) ride to Victoria, a city of over 400,000 folks.
And there are a lot of things to like – let’s look around.
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That’s Caroline from the Good Lovelies, playing in Victoria last week….
Last spring, one of the highlights of the year was the appearance at the San Juan Community Theatre of Canada’s Juno-award-winning folk group, The Good Lovelies. When I visited with them after the show, the most common question I hear folks ask them was, “When are you coming back?”
The Lovelies have a new album out, and are on a Canadian tour that brought them to Victoria last week for a sold-out show that left people smiling & laughing…you can check out their site & hear their tight three-part harmonies on their site and on YouTube….Sue, Caroline & Kerri do an awesome job!
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It’s always good to see friends from San Juan on the ferry on the way to Victoria – last month we ran into Ian & Laura Bolton (left) then watched Shelly & Clark Gilbert shoot selfies on the way to a day on Vancouver Island.
The gulls get excited when the fishing boats come back to the Inner Harbour, and the crew cleans the catch….
It was a month ago (on July first), but Canada Day in Victoria is a great thing for you to put on the calendar for next year, with tens of thousands of red-clad revelers in the street, music on the legislature’s lawn, and fireworks to end the day.
How cool is that? Josie & ran into island bead artist Darleen Nixon coming back from a trip to Vancouver Island with her college buddies Debbie (left) and Lolly (right) – they all got together for a little college reunion, as they all went to Texas Christian University….
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How cool is that? We caught up with Wendy & Carl on the way to camping on Vancouver Island…..
There was a little Canadian kid, maybe six or seven years old, on the ferry to Friday Harbor yesterday…I was watching him studying a guy who was stretched out & napping on the boat, who then reported to his mom: “They get to sleep on their ferries. Why can’t we?”
I liked it when the ferry folks made an announcement that we were landing in Friday Harbor, and he said, “Hey, Mom! Who’s Freddy Harper?”
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One of the things you’ll want to do is take your evening walk down by the Inner Harbour & watch the sun go down, and the colours of the day soften…beautiful way to bring the day to a close…
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Kinda like Canada Day, BC Day (which was a three day weekend, last week) includes lots of music downtown, including the Victoria Symphony playing on a barge (yellow arrow) in the harbour for people on the Empress’ lawn & the grass in front of Parliament…the fireworks at the end shook our windows, a mile away from the water.
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My six month study of this is complete: research shows it to be true.
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Travel correspondent Ian Byington’s special reports to the Update are posted whenever the prose is clear, the photos crisp, and the weather nice enough to go out & play in. He & Josie currently live in Victoria, BC after nearly two decades on San Juan Island.
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Categories: Around Here
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