Day 21 - Off to Victoria
Continuing our exploration of Vancouver island, today we set our sight towards Victoria.
Southbound
Having no set plans for today we enjoyed our breakfast then decided to head down south to explore Victoria and go rock climbing over there. The drive down was very nice, we stopped at Cowichan bay for lunch. The views there were refreshing, they reminded Marty of back home, with the exception of the mountains in the background.
BC’s capital
Arriving in Victoria we found a parking spot near the water where we set out to walk on the beach. Its pretty neat to see the differences along the coast compared to the east or even mainland BC. We could see the American mountains in the distance as well making the walk very picturesque.
Mile zero!
Being on a road trip where we spent a few thousand kilometers on the TransCanada highway, we had to go to the starting point of the road at the mile zero monument. Hopefully we’ll be able to go to the other mile zero monument on the other side of the country one day!
downtown parliament
After meandering through the streets behind the Victoria Parliament, walking amongst the California-styled houses, we eventually arrived at British Columbia’s parliament building. Resembling a much smaller version of Canada’s parliament in Ottawa it was cool to see the old governmental buildings right next to the piers.
the best gym so far!
To keep with our plan to climb everywhere we go, we made our way to the local climbing gym, Crag-X.
As soon as we got there we knew we were in for a good time, huge 15 meter walls surrounded the entire gym filled with routes of all types from lead to top rope to auto belays. The gym has two different bouldering areas, as well as two different heights of top-rope walls. As always, we passed the belay test without any issue, then had the time of our lives climbing here. The routes where really fun and the big wall was thrilling being so much taller than anything we’d climbed so far. It’s definitely the best gym we’ve been to so far!
Unfortunately, being the long weekend in BC, the gym closed early at 6pm instead of the usual 9pm of a Friday night. Tim still managed to squeeze out 3 different routes in the last 10 minutes of opening, on the tune of Semisonic’s “Closing Time”, a classic of Climbing Gyms to throw people out
The way back north
On our way back north we stopped by a rest area with an awesome view. Tim decided to fly his drone to get as good a view as possible, and was it ever a great view!
The Grill Master at it Again!
Knowing we’d be coming back to Ryan’s pretty late, we let him know that we’d be OK to make our own food tonight as he usually wakes up very early to go to work. He insisted that he’d wait for us to eat dinner, and so we made our way back to the home base. When we arrived, Ryan the Grill Master had prepared us some great ribs with potatoes, mac and cheese and salad for dinner. What a good meal once again !