Wood watching

Just a quickie today guys. Wow, it seems I'm on a roll when it comes to this embarrassing myself in public malarkey. We drove back from Torfino all ready to drop off the car and get the bus but decided to see if we could extend the hire car for a few more days. The hire car company were closed for lunch so we decided to go to the rental place next door instead and see if they could do us some sort of deal. Now the crappy rent-a-wreck car we had was an oldsmobile alero which is quite a low sleek sporty looking car, which for someone who is 6 foot 3 inches like myself, is a slight problem when getting in and out of the damn thing. It almost looks like one of those clown cars when you see a giant clown unfold himself out of a tiny car. Well, i guess i must've caught my baggy jeans on something as i was getting out of the car because when i was in the Budget rental shop next door i suddenly realised my ass felt a bit cold. We agreed to just rent from them and decided to drop our piece of shit oldsmobile back. When they brought our new hire car out we went outside to check it over for dings and stuff and my ass suddenly went very cold! I reached back to feel what the deal was and realised the whole left side of my butt cheek was hanging out! My jeans were totally shredded. Being pretty used to embarrassing myself in public by now i pointed it out to Kate and the dude showing us the car. What i had forgot though was that it's been a while since we have done any laundry and I'm down to my emergency boxers. Emergency boxers are the tatty ones you save until you are desperate. The ones in question were pretty much crotchless! So not only did i have a huge rip in my ass, it revealed probably the most tattiest pair of bangers i possess. Kate had to sit down from laughing so much and the other guy just sort of ran off screaming.

Jeez, when will this end? I like to make people laugh but maybe not when it comes to over exposing myself. Says the guy who once painted himself blue and danced naked on national TV. Thank god though that tape seems to have been lost for now. Well, unless my partner in crime Lewy still has a copy.

Anyway, we dropped off the old car and drove the new swish hire car down to Victoria, which is the provincial capital of British Columbia. Victoria is quite a big place considering everything else on Vancouver Island is pretty small. We got into town just as the Canadian Mens hockey team won gold against the Americans and the place was going crazy! People running around dressed in hockey uniforms, cars tooting their horns and just general anarchy! It was insane. I knew that Canada was passionate about ice hockey but DAMN! These guys were going nuts. It was the closest i have ever been to a riot. A joyful riot though. We wondered the streets just soaking in all the crazy canucks running around in red face paint.

Apart from all the commotion with the ice hockey fans, we just checked out the downtown area. Victoria has quite a lot of old historic buildings. Well, old by Canadian standards. The country isn't exactly what you would call old. It was pretty though. I guess any city would look pretty special with huge pine forests and snow capped mountains on the horizon. I was still a little peeved that i missed the Orca in Tofino so we decided to go on a whale watching trip. Victoria has the most consistent viewings of Orca in Canada, apparently. So we checked the weather and decided to go out for an afternoon trip. We checked in and put on our Mustangs. A Mustang is a PFD (personal flotation device) that you wear. Not like a life jacket, more like a life suit! It's like a cross between a wet suit and a one piece ski suit and makes you look a lot like a teletubby.

We also went on a zodiac which is a really fast dinghy style boat. We headed out of the harbour into open sea where our skipper really opened the taps! We were flying along on some of the calmest seas i have seen, yet we were still managing to air completely out of the water! I loved it. It was like jet boating on a more grander, more dangerous scale. Although we are here out of whale watching season, our skipper told us they had seen whales in the area just a few days before. It filled us with optimism but after a few hours of seeing just seals, sea lions and bald eagles we realised the chances of seeing any whales were waining. In fact the only thing i saw resembling a whale was a huge log! We saw plenty of logs and bits of wood floating past as this area is a huge logging area. I joked that they should call it wood watching instead. So, we were a little disappointed but it was still cool getting out on the open water and exploring the water ways around the area.

We left Vancouver Island yesterday and got the ferry over to Vancouver. I liked Vancouver Island a lot. It was very laid back and very organic looking. Just so lush and green. The big cities of Victoria and Nanaimo were quite industrial but Courtenay and especially Torfino were really quaint and pretty. I would love to go back in summer and really explore the woods and beaches.

Today we spent the morning at the Vancouver Aquarium at Stanley Park in the city. It was cool being back there and was one of the city highlights last time i was here. Mainly cos it was raining the whole time i was here and i appreciated an attraction that was dry but also cos of the super cool sea otters they have. They are the cutest animals. They are way bigger than you think too. We walked there from our hotel in the heart of the city in a popular vibrant area called Granville. It's a long bar lined street with some nice looking restaurants. One of which i hope to go fill my belly up in right now. Better go as Kate is starving! We're in the city until the weekend when we head off to the ski fields of Kamloops. Chat soon.

Peace

D

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