vancouver island: away from the hustle and bustle

jam, sparky and i took the short ferry trip from vancouver to vancouver island and made our way down to victoria for three nights. the trip was only 90 minutes on the water, although it was a bit longer than that from door to door. victoria is the capital of british columbia and therefore the appropriate location for the 'Royal BC Museum' which was the first thing we went to see. we were really impressed with the museum and actually rated it second best of the whole trip (there is no beating the museum in wellington). the museum was also showing the 'wildlife photographer of the year' entrants from across the world which were just amazing; there are some incredibly talented photographers out there - the younger age groups were particularly impressive.

right next to the museum stand the visually impressive BC parliament buildings. unfortunately we couldn't go in as they were closed for the weekend, so we had to make do with walking around the outside.

jamie has a keen admiration of model miniatures so he was thrilled when he found out that victoria had its very own miniature world. naturally we had to pay it a visit. the displays had 10 working miniature railways and depicted scenes from canada's history, famous battles and wars, as well as fairytale stories and an area dedicated to the circus (with working miniature bumper cars). the models themselves varied from 5mm to 20mm and there was obviously a lot of love and passion put into making them which is always great to see. 

the art gallery of victoria is home to a number of excellent exhibitions, mostly notably by emily carr (a BC native and one of canada's most famous artists). we enjoyed visiting the gallery not only for its exhibitions but also as it is housed in an old victorian mansion. 

we also visited victoria's chinatown which is home to fan tan alley, which apparently used to be a gambling and opium den district, but unfortunately now houses only regular shops. at its narrowest point it is only 0.9m wide, and is said to be the narrowest street in canada.

nanaimo is about a two hour drive north of victoria and made a good destination for a day trip for us. on our way to nanaimo we stopped in duncan, known as the 'city of totem poles', and chemainus, known for their murals. we also stopped on the drive on the way to take in some beautiful views, allowing us to see all the way across to the US as it was a clear day.

we enjoyed making our way around the numerous totem poles in duncan and the murals in chemainus. both made easily findable by following the yellow footprints on the ground. both of these places had a really nice community feel.

in nanaimo we visited the harbour as well as the nanaimo museum, which told the history of the town and had a very good coal mining experience that involved entering a dark cave to learn more about the town's original industry. in the museum we took down the recipe for the town's own dessert creation, the nanaimo bar, and then decided we should pop next door to the coffee shop where they sold some to check that it was tasty before we went to the effort of making it! sweet and chocolatey, jam concluded that we should definitely make some when we get back to england.