Monday 4th October - Vancouver - Sidney, Vancouver Island
We left our very cosy hotel after 5 days as we were told they are sold out tonight due to some conference or other . We had to take 2 buses to get to the ferry port at Tsawwassen. It was quite a crush on the bus at times especially when it came to getting our packs back! The ferry journey of 1.5 hours was uneventful and very unscenic due to the fog that descended over the region. We decided to stop off at 'scenic Sidney' on our way to Victoria - good job we asked the driver where the centre of it was. 'Last stop' he said! He let us off anyway and we stepped out into 'Quietsville' shrouded in heavy fog. There was not much information on places to stay and due to carrying our packs we plumped for the 'Travelodge Inn' - the 2nd place we saw. A pitstop in 'Subway' sandwich bar (they're everywhere around here) and we were walking down by the harbour feeling more like we might be characters in a horror novel than tourist in a picturesque seaside town! It was getting cold so we stopped off in a couple of pubs with nice warm fires - the first 'real' ones we've seen since we can't remember when! We even slipped into watching the 'Monday Night Game' momentarily till we realised it was American football we were watching and not the proper stuff!!

Tuesday 5th October - Sidney
We gorged ourselves on sickly sweet cakes for breakfast - we can't continue to eat like this! We'd bought ourselves a phone card so Derek rang customer services to make sense of it all - after pressing 101 keypad number he finally got to speak with someone - what a pity they were struggling to speak English! Anyway, we phoned Derek's Mum and Dad and followed that up by speaking to his sister . In between we made a trip to the pharmacy and local supermarket for some essentials. Our price checking sweep seemed to indicate to us that most things are similar or more expensive compared to at home. We had planned to jump on the bus to the 'Butchart Gardens' but it was by now raining hard so we borrowed a brolly and paid a visit to the local library and internet cafe. A quick harbourside drink and we were off to the local cinema where we watched the new release 'Ladder 49' with John Travolta (and some 'butter' popcorn - good job we stuck with small as it was too much for both of us!). Next door to that was a Chinese and we couldn't resist it though it proved a bit of a disappointment.

Wednesday 6th October - Sidney - Victoria
We finally made our bus trip today to the 'world famous' Butchart Gardens (we hadn't heard of them either but they are what they say they are!) catching the 75 bus there - we dropped our packs and headed in. As we saw only 2 buses when we arrived we thought it'd be a nice quiet day in the gardens . How wrong we were - 5 minutes after we arrived 10 busloads of Japanese tourist turned up and proceeded around the place like a swarm of bees - we did a quick about turn and headed in the opposite direction. The gardens (which are 100 years old this year) were indeed beautiful and very colourful - we were able to enjoy them more as the forecast rain seemed to hold off a long time. We grabbed our bags and jumped back on the local bus to Victoria. We'd pinpointed a motel a little bit out of town for tonight and headed there. Walking in toward the city centre we saw a place even closer and even cheaper than where we were so we made our minds up to move tomorrow. Standing on the bus so long and walking about made us thirsty so we called into Darcy's pub for a couple of drinks. That made us hungry so we hit the 'Elephant and Castle' pub for some homegrown 'bangers and mash' and 'roast beef and Yorkshire pud'. We had another 'panhandler' try his luck with us today - the 3rd in a week. Also we find we keep having to ask for our change as it's not always given to us or sometimes we get the incorrect amount - it's happened too often to be coincidence!

Thursday 7th October
For the 1st time since New Zealand we had no breakfast - we packed and left and headed into the city centre and cheaper accomodation . The room we have is huge with 2 double beds though certain things made you wonder what kind of a place we're staying! Like the ambulance man who told us 'this place is friggin' scary' in the lift as he evactuated an inhabitant to hospital - or like the fact that the wood next to the lock on each door has been covered with metal to stop 'chiselling the lock' episodes! Nevertheless the place is comfortable and central so we're happy. We tried the local breakfast of 'Eggs Benedict' for lunch and went for a walk around the harbourside of the town. For the first time on our travels internet cafes seem to hardly exist and the only one we found was well overpriced and too far out of town (though we walked there!). We found solace in the nearby 'Bent Mast' pub which is supposedly haunted. We came accross a great Jamaican restaurant closeby and had our dinner there with reggae beats in the background for added effect.

Friday 8th October - Victoria
A flyer we saw yesterday took us to the Avalon cafe for an even better brunch than yesterday - Sue is very keen on the local 'eggs benedict' (or 'benny' as they're known here) and finds them hard to resist! We were really cheesed off to discover the memory card in the video camera has decided to pack itself in after only 300 photos - so we bowed to the inevitable and bought ourselves a brand new memory card. We finally did find a centrally located internet cafe. We did plan to jump on a city tour but the pouring rain put us off. We headed to the laundrette and hairdressers instead where Sue tried once again to eradicate the 'chopping nightmare' of Singapore. We switched rooms in our hotel to avoid the bass boom coming from the strip club next door late at night. Victoria is supposed to the the most haunted place in this part of the world so in recognition of this fact we booked ourselves on a 'ghost walk'. Due to the rain we thought there would be few people there but in the end 30 brave souls turned up. Our guide for the night was local historian turned ghost investigator John Adams. He told us many stories of bludgeoned bodies and restless souls - even one maybe linked to the 'Jack the Ripper' murders in the East end of London in the 1890's. Alas, we saw no ghosts. We finished our evening in a very tasty Mexican near the renovated city centre market.