Vancouver Island

It's been quite a flying visit to Victoria, we've had about 2 ½ days here. The ferry ride over here was fantastic, we went through the San Juan Islands, and the sun was shining which always makes everything look better! I'm not always the best sailor, but it was so still that I wouldn't have even known I was on a boat if I was inside. The weather over the last 2 days has not been so good, but certainly nothing to complain about, compared to what he have been in!

Yesterday we went to the Royal BC Museum, with a large section on climate change ranging from the ice age to modern day and beyond, and another section on the people of British Columbia, and their history.

Again there were fantastic totum poles in this section, and a house almost completely reconstructed with the original furnishings. I get so confused whenever we go to these museums. It is hard to imagine the Aboriginal way of life being the only way of life in Canada until as recently as the 17^th and 18^th Centuries, when compared to the UK's history. I REALLY should have paid more attention in History lessons. But they never really taught us that, we met this guy in Seattle who asked us what spin the UK puts on American Independence when teaching it to children. I honestly never got taught anything like that, and I'm sure most other people didn't either. It makes me feel very ignorant.

Today we walked down through Beacon Hill Park which is supposed to have the world's second tallest totum pole in it but we didn't see it.

.. We did however stumble across a little farm which had baby goats, so spent a while cooing over them! They had quads which were only 5 days old, but we weren't allowed to play with them. I LOVE goats, they are so friendly and cute. Plus, Lisa said that if we get any farm animals as pets, I can no longer eat that animal, so goats are looking a better option than pigs, haha!

The other side of the park leads down to the coast, so we walked down the cliff edge steps and found lots of little pebble coves, all deserted. It looked so much like the British coastline it was unnerving, very rocky, with huge grassy banks. We spent ages walking along the shore, climbing the rocks, and looking in rockpools. We got quite scared by these huge tentacle things which were everywhere and looked like there had been a mass octopus slaughter, I think they were actually weird mutant seaweed thingys, either way they were FREAKY!