Beautiful British Columbia

I'd heard so much about Victoria, BC , what a lovely city it is and what a lovely province British Columbia is and they are so right! Victoria is a gorgeous city! For those of you who are not Canadian and are not familiar with it, Victoria is the capital city of British Columbia. It's located on the southern most tip of Vancouver Island which is about 100 km or 60 miles away from the city of Vancouver on the mainland. It's only 25 miles from Port Angeles, WA by ferry or 60 miles from Seattle. And most important of all, it has a needlework shop! More on that later in the post.

This was a working holiday for my DH so I spent a lot of the time exploring the city on my own. Most of the venues were withing walking distance. Our first evening there we took in a ferry tour of the harbour which gave us an idea of the layout of the city and a much better view from the water. That's yours truly in the pic, waiting for the next tour. What I didn't realize about the harbour is that there is an international airport there for the seaplanes and it's the only international airport where landings were suspended because of a whale on the runway!

Speaking of whales, DH decided to play hooky on the Monday afternoon so that we could take in a whale watching excursion. We'd taken one of these excursions in the past when we were visiting the east coast. Although we did see some whales at that time, we didn't get in very many good pictures. This time we had somewhat better luck. I say somewhat because we were not successful in sighting any orca whales however we did see a gray whale and a humpback whale.

This is the humpback, which performed very nicely for us, diving in and out of the water.

Next we ventured a little further up the coast where we spotted the gray whale. It really does look like he's covered in barnacles. This one performed by blowing for us although it might be difficult to see in the picture.

After the whale sightings, they took us around a group of islands where seals go to rest and nurse their young. I couldn't believe the number of seals hiding out there. Several of them looked like they'd had more than their share of food lately! We were also fortunate enough to spot an eagle taking a rest on one of the markers in the water.

It was a great day even if we didn't see the orcas which showed up in a large pod the next day of course!

Every one of our days on this trip was packed full of events and concerts and didn't generally end until about 11:00 pm each evening. Day 2 and I'm whipped already!

The morning following the whale tour I had a couple of hours to myself so I set out to explore the shops downtown by the harbour. I managed to get all of my gifts for family in an hour or so and then set out in search of a needlework shop called The Button & Needlework Boutique. It didn't take me long to find and I happily spent the next hour or so browsing the shop and its charts.

I bought a few things including Hedgehog which is a Countryside Miniature kit, LHN Simple Joys and the necessary floss, BTBN Summer Hill as well as a Canadian flag button. For a reminder of my visit to Victoria I bought a lovely needleminder handcrafted in Victoria from Rosewood.

I've been searching for something that I could stitch for Bob and I found the perfect chart, Eye of the Eagle by The Stitching Studio and based on the artwork of Sue Coleman who is a BC native. Bob is really interested in eagles and was thrilled when we saw one on the whale tour. I just can't guarantee how long it will be before I get started on this one!

I'd say it was a successful visit though wouldn't you?

I have a few more pics of my trip that I'd like to share with you but I'll leave them for the next post. By that time I should also have my latest piece back from the framer's and I'll have an update on what little stitching I accomplished on my holiday.

I'm happy to be home but I must say I sure miss the beautiful, comfortable weather we had out west. They have no humidity!!!