Victoria

After leaving Tofino we headed to Victoria on the way stopping at Cathedral Grove which is the main feature of MacMillan Provincial Park and is the one of the most accessible stands of giant Douglas-fir trees on Vancouver Island. These trees are around 800 years old while walking through this virgin coast forest it gives you and idea how the west coast must have looked like before the arrival of European settlers.

We stopped for lunch at Port Alberni - The salmon capital of the world! This small town is situated at the head of Vancouver Island's longest inlet, 40 km from the open seas but due to it raining heavily we had lunch on the bus! The rest of the day consisted of a stop at an old town which previously depended upon work provided by the saw mill but when it closed rather than it becoming a ghost town they got government grants to have murals painted on buildings and walls. The final stop of the day before Victoria was a sleepy town called Coombs with ice cream parlors, antique stores and tattoo studios. Also home to a huge butterfly farm but the real attraction here was the store with goats grazing on the roof. I couldn't resist the lure of the homemade pies so I grabbed a slice of pecan pie with ice cream!

We hit Victoria at about 7pm and checked into our hostel which was previously a warehouse, this became apparent when we got into the dorm. It had really high ceilings and was just one massive room divided into cubicles of 8 beds. Once we'd ditched our stuff we all went out for Caribbean food, I had a Jamaican pattie and a goat curry which was delicious.

As we arrived at night we couldn't really see what Victoria is like but after only 20 mins of walking around today it is appears to be just like an English seaside town, the only thing missing is donkeys on the beach! You can go whale watching but I did this in Tadoussac so unless you like museums there isn't much to do which is why I'm updating my blog! Fortunately we leave in an hour, I'm off to get some lunch now. Bye