It's been remarkably easy to adjust, although having signposts of victory to stand behind me certainly helps with feeling accomplished. Every step feels like a trip of it's own. So far there's been the cross-country-Canada trek, the Lund excursion, the Vancouver jump-off point...and now the Victoria search & discover. Which brings us to today.
Woke up. Had a cozy night in a tent with three others. It was nice not to be alone in the outdoors, but unfortunately it turns out only I had a good sleep...but to be fair, Alex & Kirstie had to share a sleeping bag, James only brought a blanket, and I had the only air mattress...
This put a bad taste in everyone's mouth as far as camping goes, and it was decided almost immediately that tonight we'll sleep in a HoJo. I was not down...camping is awfully free, and we had brought a tent with us. I was more than happy to share my air mattress but unfortunately, I am but one voice in a democratic planning committee of four. Concessions must be made.
We piled into the car (Alex drove) and headed for breakfast at the well-reviewed Blue Fox Cafe. James took a photo of me! This was a great rarity, so I in turn took a photo of James to celebrate the occasion.
Breakfast was amazing and we all ate a little too much. But that didn't stop us from wheeling through downtown Victoria to rent some bikes.
This proved to be way, WAY more fun than we'd imagined. This is the perfect way to see Victoria. I'm a medium-serious cyclist, and so I balked at first at the idea of riding a cruiser-hybrid sort of bike, and not a road bike, but considering I'd be biking with friends, some of whom hadn't biked much, and the objective was one of leisure, and not of piling on as many kilometres as possible, I figured I'd still manage to enjoy myself - and I absolutely did.
Great route, up hills, down hills, up again, along the waterfront 70% of the way, to numerous lookouts, beautiful neighbourhoods with brilliant eclectic architecture, and oddly, lots and lots of deer. They're all deer, no fear down here in Victoria. Most of the deer we saw were crossing the roads in the suburbs, or in one case, occupying someone's front lawn en masse. They're reasonably large too, some of them are already growing big horns. They just stare at cars and expect them to stop. A strange surprise - people pay them as much mind as they would a squirrel.
The bike ride was stellar, and as we wove through University of Victoria and back into downtown, it brought 4 hours of activity to a close. We were all fairly spent, so we re-fuelled on some sushi and brainstormed what to do next. Kirstie had been out to the island a number of times before, and remembered being taken out to Pot Holes National Park, in Sooke, just an hour outside of the capital.
We had a look at where we needed to go, and zipped off to find some nifty water formations.
So the internet led us to believe that the Sooke Pot Holes were quite literally holes into which river runoff had spilled, about the size of a hot tub, for sitting and enjoying in. This turned out not to be precisely the case, but we did manage to find an amazing piece of river, surrounded by smooth stone scooped out by the river over the course of many, many years. We even managed to get our little bit of river all to ourselves, just as the sun was setting...it was awesome.
It was a miniature hike to get into the Pot Holes, and so after a little bit of leisurely swimming, we were fairly tired. It had been a long, physical day, and we'd managed to see quite a lot, and do quite a lot. We all felt reasonably pleased with ourselves, and as we basked on the rocks at the side of the river as the sun sank behind the mountains, we all felt a little bit more at peace. I said that when I imagined BC, and people going there, this is just the sort of thing I imagined them doing.
Seeing these hidden, natural places...swimming in pristine rivers full of little salmon, among beautifully sculpted rock in the setting sun. This felt like a piece of that Canadian Dream I'd been asking after for the past eleven days. It felt...satisfying. You know how they say it's not the destination, but the journey? It felt a little like that...almost like the search for the Canadian Dream is the dream itself...scouring the length and breadth of this country for clues is what we'd really like to do.
It's a good answer...but I don't know if it's quite good enough. I've miles to go still, and questions left to ask - but I feel a great deal closer to what I want, and if nothing else, I'm happy to be where I am now, in this moment, today.
-Jeff
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