“Oh no, there's absolutely nothing up there whatsoever” - said the dickhead of a guy who likes to think he's God's gift to travellers, as he walks around the hostel with his mug planted into his hand at all times.
Well, fuck you – I'm going there anyway because I have a few hours to spare before my flight and that's the only part left for me to explore, so off I went to follow the Gorge waterfront, that runs up the middle of Victoria.
To start off with, that dickhead might have been right, as a few minutes into my walk I was surrounded by noisy boring industrial estate of faceless buildings and faceless trucks moving things around without and rhyme or reason, I persevered.
Glad I did too, because in the midst of the industrial nightmare I discovered a Victorian time capsule called Point Ellice House, which has the biggest collection of Victorian goods in North America but unfortunately closed that day so couldn't look around further, so I continued onwards.
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| Old Victorian House |
Very quickly after that house, the industrial estate gives way to new developed waterfront residential area, with coffee shops, gym, restaurants that overlooked the Selkirk Trestle and Halkett Island, I continued up along Gorge Road, which doesn't show much of the gorge and is mainly more residential area, until you get to Tillicum Road and cross the bridge to look up and down the gorge.
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| Water, Land 'n' that |
Heading down the other side, the paths gives way to more park and water views of the gorge, watching boats bobbing up and down on the water and groups of kayakers taking trips, time was running out for my flight so I rushed the last part of my journey.
I took a few moments to admire the Johnson Street Bridge, an unusual blue bascule bridge built in the 1920s by Joseph Strauss (the same designer behind the Golden Gate Bridge) - I got my flight in time and took an incredibly scenic flight home back to the mainland.
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| Rarrrrr!! |
I have thoroughly enjoyed my few day's exploration excursion to Victoria, I've done as much as I could possibly do on the cheap and in all, Victoria is far more chilled out and content than Vancouver, though it is a place filled with the most relaxed demographic, the retired and students both of which are no doubt high as a kite on Victoria's famous finest green.
As far as looks go, Victoria is on par with Vancouver but in different ways, it doesn't have the quantity of high mountains and highrises to look at but, it does have the quality within the finer details or its gardens, history and architecture.
It's a brilliant place to visit to escape city life, but I just couldn't fathom on how people could ever live here, but they all seem very much joyful so I won't question it too much and just be happy that they are.
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| Even the pilot was welling up about my departure. |
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