The Trip – Part 18: North to British Columbia
When we arrived at the ferry dock in Port Angeles, I was a little worried. There were already about 20 cars waiting. From my experience with Washington Island ferries, I was afraid there might not be enough room for us. When the ferry got to the harbor, however, I realized what a naive farm boy I was.
The ferry, the M.V. Coho, had a passenger capacity of 1000 and a vehicle capacity of 115. We had no problem making it on board for the 90-minute, 26-mile ride to Victoria, British Columbia.
When we arrived we needed to find a place to camp. With the help of some travel guides we found a campsite in a nearby Provincial Park. After setting up we drove back to town. One of the first things that we decided to do was a very British thing: have afternoon tea and crumpets! This was served daily in the massive lobby of The Empress Hotel! Not being a tea drinker, I had to add sugar to make it enjoyable. I’d never had a crumpet and didn’t even know what one was. It turns out to be a small flat circular bread-like thing full of tiny holes. Since it was warm and buttered, it was actually quite good.
We drove around town a while and stopped to view the British Columbia Parliament Building and Craigadarroch Castle. We didn’t tour them, however, since we were on a very limited budget. One very interesting place that we visited was Thunderbird Park, which has an interesting outdoor display of totem poles from their museum’s collection. The last thing we did was walk around parts of the city at night. The Empress Hotel, of course, really put on a show.
The next day we packed our gear and headed off to catch a ferry that would take us back to the US and drop us off in the San Juan Islands.