Victoria BC

We are spending the night in Victoria. Its streetscapes are pleasing with dignified early 20 th century buildings and lamppost flower boxes.

 Our hotel, the Empress, must have wowed the Edwardian travellers.

The House of Parliament impresses

And Captain Cook at time of writing is still revered. Something to do with the exit to a North West passage. And the Canadians seem to have made peace with those they now call First Nations.

Vancouver Island & Victoria

Up at the veritable crack of dawn this Sunday to be bussed and ferried to Vancouver Island to visit the Butchart Gardens, still a major family business after a century or so, though designated a National Historic Site in recent times. The gardens are formal and exotic, and very pleasant place to be on a hot(30C) day.

A small selection of vistas and close-ups.

More from Vancouver

Our day included 

Views from the local tower - twice, by day and night

A walk on the seamy side past a marijuana shop, several stoned people, and drug deals looking like stronger stuff. Marijuana can be bought legally if you are19.

Contemplation in the Garden of Dr Sun Yat Sen

Reflection on the glory days of Canadian Pacfic Rail in its old station hall at Waterfront.

Vancouver

One day to explore the large town on foot. We chose first a walk through the "old" part of town, but it is younger than Australian colonial cities: the oldest things we saw were from the third quarter of the 19 th century. This area is called gastown because a farmer-publican (called " saloonier " in a statue plaque) told gassy tales in his pub; here the curiosity is a steam driven clock, the steam coming from the underground heating system. The Goon Show would have been delighted- too bad nobody seems to have told Neddy.

In the clock department we also found some temporary street art by Salvador Dali on loan for a short time and returning home at the end of month.

"The famous soft watches are nothing else than the tender, extravagant, solitary, paranoic-critical camembert of time and space.

Still doing street art, down by the waterfront there is a sort of Big Lego: a giant digital orca, sculpted by one Douglas Coupland:

More than a match for the resident cormorants

The rest of the day story to be told later...

Moving on

We applied, many months ago, to trade our frequent flyer points for an upgrade of the trans-Pacific leg.  24 hours  before departure this was confirmed : no notice to us, so we discovered the good news in a final check of the booking. .

The Qantas upgrade gave each of us a mini-suite and more personal attention from the stewards than we are wont to receive. .However despite the splendid isolation I was able to entertain a charming companion for lunch in my suite.

No such luck with the LAX - YVR economy sector flown with American Airlines. After finally getting access to our codeshared booking on their website we paid an extra USD $30 each for "leg room".

LAX provided the usual level of tedium endemic at this  airport, but always a new experience or 2. . Each of us was selected for a maxi- security search , item by item , of our hand luggage. The searcher donned rubber gloves and carefully tested each item for explosives and other noxious possessions. Our  connection gate was Terminal 5 gate 52I. This required a jaunt up the street from landing Terminal B to departure terminal 5 with all luggage. After some searching In terminal 5 it became apparent that gate 52I was not in Terminal 5, but accessed from Terminal 5. We queued for a transfer bus across the Tarmac to a temporary shed, and eventually embarked for  YVR. However Qantas had made an error (probably because it had no access to its Code share airline,) in issuing the boarding pass for the seats with leg room and American seemed not to have retained its record and issued another boarding pass, and since the plane was fully (double) booked there was a moment of tension, successfully resolved by our production of the American receipt citing our roomy entitlements.. The spice of travel is such incidents.

A train conveyed us from airport almost to the door of our hotel. As we arrived and looked out from our room window a boat, presumably laden with tourists, was departing. The departure terminal on our left has the look of a set of sails.

This evening we dined at a very trendy waterfront restaurant Cactus Club Cafe at Coal Harbour- had to wait an hour to be seated, but was worth it for the meal and chat with our waiter, a moonlighting school teacher who had spent a year or so relief teaching in Melbourne, giving him experience of both State and Independent schools, especially with children with special needs.

At the end of the evening a night snap shows how successfully Coal Harbour has left behind its dusty origins but still retains an industrial look.

Farewell winter

Fitzroy North is a good place to winter. It has of course been cold, but still affordable heating keeps the shelter at 20.4C. Outside the sometimes very dry air was enough to burst a nose blood vessel more than once but nothing the medicos couldn't fix.

The inner city back yard is a Garden of Eden. Persimmons to eat every day until a couple of weeks ago. Quinces abundant and Avocadoes super duper abundant- we can't even give any more of them away, so they're in fridge.

Yes, that mark on the bottom left is from possum teeth, and we might have left them for our furry friends to have a party, but the trouble is they take too many liberties.

The limes await more cocktails on return, the lemons are destined for? The grapefruit are thick-skinned but can also wait; the oranges have been consumed. The asparagus spears have been few but sweet and the rest will live to grow tall. The multicoloured chard has reached a height of about 75cm and is far too thick to wade through. The rhubarb is muscling up again after being downtrodden during fitting of a shade blind. The garlic and broccoli are mostly thriving, as are the fava bean plants. Other miscellaneous greens are happy. The summer fruit is in bud burst- pears, apples, and plums.

The NBN is coming soon, though we would be content to communicate with what we already have.

The public transport mostly runs (except on weekends while route works are under way.) The car is mostly uncomplaining and if it's not the service man is just along the road.

The church, the Club, the theatre, the Rotary are all in fast reach.

Nevertheless here we are, forsaking Paradise temporarily,  for an airline lounge, and soon to be conveyed overseas far away: family beckon.

Tour Day 5 - Walking to a World War I landmark

Our coach took us to the heights of the Vosges above the village of Lapoutroie at around 900m. The walk took us to La Tête des Faux at 1208m, a focus of some of the fighting between France and Germany in in 1914-1916. Alsace-Lorraine  had been ceded to Prussia in 1870, so in 1914 220,000 were called up to the German army. The French advance into Alsace began on 7 August 1914. The Germans occupied  La Tête des Faux in August, but it was captured by the French in December and remained in French control for the rest of the war. The Germans had built a concrete fortress of shelters and workshops with electricity, water, phones and a funicular. There is now a French war cemetery.

We came down the mountain by a route unexpected by the coach, so our 9 km walk felt more like 11.5km, before being picked up for lunch in Kaysersberg. On this and previous walks I acquired a lunchtime beer thirst, and the 50cl glass was welcome. This is a village where we have previously stayed for a week, so it was good to renew the acquaintance with a stroll through the village, although the many storks we saw then (August 2010) were now away in some other country.

After lunch we coached to Ammerschwihr to taste the wines of Les Caves JB Adam, though by now we were feeling a little jaded.
The tour concluded for us with dinner in Colmar at 2* Michelin restaurant JYs. We had set ourselves a closing time of 9pm, which meant bidding farewell after the pre-dessert amuse bouches. Hardy souls in the remainder of the party were to move on to a tasting of sweet wines and eaux-de-vie at the hotel.
Our train left Colmar at 5.54 am for Basel, and two more  connections brought us to Geneva Airport for the trip home.