Monday September 4th
I had booked a ferry from Port Angeles over to Victoria Island in Canada, leaving at 8.30am, and I had to be there by 7.20. So I aimed to leave by about 6.30, which entailed getting up very early! I just got ready and left, and then made breakfast when I got to the ferry terminal parking – one of the handy things about having everything onboard! It was still fairly misty and cool.
The trip was pleasant, and took about an hour and a half. I spent most of it on the open deck rather than inside, enjoying the lovely views. I had a nice chat with a few people, who were interested in my trip. It started to get more sunny as we went across.
I was one of the first cars off the ferry, perhaps because I had got there early, and so there wasn’t much of a line up to go through customs, which was great. We just waited in line to drive through one of the booths. The attendant didn’t ask anything about the food I had – there were just questions about cannabis, firearms, tobacco and things like that. I was glad to be able to get all my food supplies through. This was the first time I had been in the country of my birth in nearly 40 years, and it was a nice feeling to be there.
I was planning on driving a loop around some coastal areas of the island, prior to visiting the famous Butchart Gardens the following day. I could have visited them on the Monday, but it was still a long weekend, at least in the US, and I think Canada too, and I thought they might be more crowded. Once out of the ferry I was into the town of Victoria, and about the second intersection I got to I needed to turn left, and I got a flashing green arrow. I had no idea what a flashing green arrow was – I was used to flashing yellow arrows by then, saying you could turn but had to give way to traffic, and I wondered if I had to give way to someone.
A car behind me tooted me as I hesitated, so I figured I had right of way! I found out later that it meant that there might be pedestrians crossing, but I had right of way so car as cars were concerned. There were also flashing green lights, which apparently meant that a pedestrian might push the button to cross and cause them to turn red. Very strange! I got the impression they were unique to that province, or maybe one other province. In Canada, unlike the US, there seemed to be different variations of what some things meant in traffic lights!
All the speed limits were in km/h, and the speedo on the van did have a ring of km/h markings in smaller print below the mph ones. But for setting cruise control, it told me what the speed was set to in mph, and I had to convert that to make sure it was ok. I drove along the south side of the island, along the strait next to the US, directly opposite the road I had driven along a couple of days before.
As I went into the first provincial park (like the state parks in the US), I was looking to see how to pay, but all provincial parks in British Columbia were free to enter. Many of the beaches seemed to have stones instead of sand, but like the other side, there was forest growing to the edge in a lot of places. One beach, Mystic Beach, had a bit of a hike to get there, and had actual sand. There was a small waterfall running down a cliff right onto the beach, and unlike the California one, you could stand right under it if you wanted.
I headed towards Port Renfrew, which is where the road turned and went inland again. The road to Port Renfrew was pretty awful. Though it was paved, there were horrible unavoidable holes which you’d see only when you were almost on them, and had to slam on the brakes, to avoid damaging the suspension as you went over them. This happened quite a number of times. There were some good lookouts over the sea at some places. When I got to the town, I wanted to have a look at the water, and was trying to find out where to park. There was a little road with a parking lot next to the town hotel, and the jetty just beyond it. I don’t know if that was parking just for the hotel, but there didn't seem to be anything saying so, so I parked there.
Port Renfrew was pretty, and I stopped on the town jetty for a while taking in the views of the lovely colours of the water, with mountains behind. There was an old post sticking out of the water, and someone swam to it, and tried to climb it, then jump off. He had a job getting up there, but he eventually did it. When I got back, I found someone had parked right next to me, quite close, and I wasn’t sure if I would be able to get out with the van. After about a 10-point turn, I did finally squeeze out, but it was a close thing!
From there I drove up over the middle of the island, through hilly territory, on what turned out to be a narrow logging road. I was afraid it was going to turn into a dirt road, but it was at least paved all the way thankfully. It went through the little town of Lake Cowichan, which was next to a large lake, but time was getting on, and I kept on though to the main highway, then along to Mahalat Summit, a lookout with great views over the strait nearby, more of Victoria Island, and further away to parts of Washington I think. It was on the opposite side of the highway to me, and I had to drive on for a few km, to a spot where I could do a U-turn, then drive back again. There were even signs telling me where to do the U-turn if I wanted to go to the lookout.
After having a look around, I had to do the same process again to find another U-turn place further on, and head back on the highway again. I made it to the Oceanside RV Park a bit before 7. It was on the eastern side of the island, and there was an inlet going up part of the middle, so I had to drive down to the bottom of the inlet and around.
Unlike many of the campgrounds I’d been staying in recently, this was a commercial RV park. The reception was closed when I got there, but there was a self check-in station. The park was clean, with nice facilities. I had a look around to see what could be seen from the campground. There was a pretty looking inlet on one side of the park, with a small road outside the park boundary, but there were signs along the road suggesting you couldn’t go on it, because it was in an Indian reservation. I did find a track along the end of the campground that came to a lovely quiet beach after a few minutes, looking out across the strait that divided Canada and the US, which was also to the east of this area, as well as to the south.
I was meeting friends the next day, so I went off to find the showers. It turned out that they took Canadian coins, and I didn’t have any. In fact I didn’t have any Canadian cash at all, for most if not all of that pass through Canada. The other option was buying a card, which apparently you could then use in other places that supported it too, as well as for washers and dryers. The card was something like $5, and you had to put at least $5 on it after that, so it was an expensive shower!
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