Holiday - Victora area

Having lived in Victoria from when I was 13 to when I was 18, I thought I know most of what there is to know about the area. Well, not only has it changed quite a bit in the intervening years, there were some things that I didn't know about!

We camped just outside Sidney, which is an area that I didn't know well to begin with. The campground was beautiful, and a very short walk from a secluded beach. Oh, beach...woe, landlocked Alberta!

One of the new additions since I lived there is the Shaw Ocean Discovery Center, an amazing museum/aquarium, staffed mostly by volunteers. All of the marine life in the aquarium comes from the waters around the island, and I had no idea that there was such exotic variety in our cold Canadian waters.

Trevor washing dishes at our swanky campground:

One of my must-see sights in Victoria is Craigdarroch Castle. Not really a castle by European standards, but certainly by Hudson's Bay outpost standards! It's a beautiful sandstone mansion on a hill overlooking the Victoria harbour, and it's been restored to the state it was in when the family built it, as opposed to the state it was in after it was a school.

In the lobby, looking up:

On the top floor, looking down:

After spending a couple of hours there, it was time for tea, so we headed to Oak Bay...