Americanuck

Day three:

We had kind of half jokingly discussed the night before maybe calling this trip a write-off and catching the first ferry home but gosh-darn-it, we paid for the room we were gonna stick it out like the little troopers we are. I know, waa-waa poor us right? We dragged our keisters out of bed at the crack of mid-morning and headed to, yes, you guessed it, at at Smitty’s. Answering the siren song of coffee…

With the accompanying kitch

The question of the day was, where would we go next? We didn’t have a map other than what was on the back of some tourist pamphlet Tom picked up at the visitors bureau in Victoria, and that didn’t exactly provide a whole lotta detailed info of the surrounding area. But no fear, the intrepid explorers we are, we just winged it. The goal was to find somewhere with water. I mean, we’re on a stinkin’ peninsula there had to be water fairly close by everywhere we went right? Interestingly enough it seemed hard to find a road that went along side it. Again for quite some time we saw a LOT of trees.

Finally we found a stretch of road where we could pull over and go for a walk. We crossed the street to check out a bunch of water fowl were just, you know, hanging out. They pretty much ignored us and continued doing their thing but when I would get too close they started edging away and giving me the hairy eyeball.

All of a sudden they all started drifting away at a fairly quick clip (as much as one can waddle quickly) all the same direction, these stream of birdie zombies.

It was most bizarre until I realized that it was a person they were streaming towards was a person bearing a bucket of seed. The Goose Whisperer.

She shoveled tons of seed out into the water and we watched the melee with amusement. I said to her that she must be their best friend and she said “Yeah, at lunch time!”

There was general fighting going on and obvious class systems among the birds with the few swans snootily looking down on the geese and seagulls (not seeming to mind the ducks as much) and all the geese fighting amongst themselves like thugs and nipping at the poor ducks tail feathers.

A few of the brighter birds realized there was yet another woman with a bucket a bit further down and they swam/waddled down to her end of the water to avoid the crush. We headed down that way to get the pictures of the swans without the danger of getting nibbled by the gung-ho gaggles of geese.

The swans were milling about both on-shore and those who’d had their fill of seed were gliding elegantly on the water. Most of the swans were the regular orange beaked kind but there was this one rather dapper fellow with an all black beak.

I got in closer to get a picture of him (her?) and all of a sudden he was all like, “HELLOOOOOO” in my face…

Then he was all like “Oh a picture of MOI? Please, take it from my GOOD side!”

Yeah he got kind of close. Heh. I walked sloooowly backwards (I’ve been nipped by swans before, and though they don’t have teeth they can be kind of mean) and told him I would send him an 8×10 glossy of his headshot.

Far enough away, but still with birds in the background, Mr. Long arms took a shot of us before we crossed the road back to the slightly more “beachy” side.

Yeah.. so not much to see there either..

We walked for maybe ten mins and headed back to the car. Truth be told it was a tad smelly there. Tom had noticed though, a bit up the road was a lighthouse and he wanted to go check it out so we hopped back in the car and headed up the road some to where we figured the lighthouse would be.

The lighthouse, Fisgard lighthouse to be exact is administered as a historical site along with Fort Rodd Hill. It cost us just over 7 bucks to get in and walk around, we figured compared to Butchart it was a steal so why not. Turns out that Fisgard lighthouse was the first permanent lighthouse ever built on the Canadian west coast and the Fort, well it was pretty darn old too.

We poked around checking out the exhibits at the fort first. There weren’t a whole lot of people there so it was a pleasant walk-about. These types of places always make me think about the soldiers that served and what may have become of them. I loved History in school so this is kind of like taking a walk through history.

Of course that doesn’t mean it’s all serious business.

Tom showing off his big “gun”.

They had these wooden rifles out for the kids to play with and ehem those of us that are just immature as well.

We saw a pack of kids coming and hot-footed it to the lighthouse to see if we could get there before they do and grab some photos before it was taken over. As we got closer to the lighthouse we were overcome by the serious STANK near the water’s edge. I’m not sure if it was some kind of sludge in the water or rotting seaweed or a bit of both but OMG we had to hold our breath for a bit. Once we got to the lighthouse though it had eased off a bit.

The lighthouse itself was pretty, I mean really, who doesn’t like a good lighthouse? I personally love them and there are a few that I would love to see including the one at Peggy’s Cove in Nova Scotia. We really have to make an effort to visit the East Coast one of these years.

Once the kiddies arrived we had enough and cut bait and left, beside it was getting damn hot! We went back to our room for a bit of a rest, read for a bit and then headed back out to eat at Romeo’s once again.

To shake it up a little, Tom had Chicken Parmesan with fettuccine alfredo (and HUGE portion they serve too!)

And I had a side Caesar salad and an individual Mediterranean Pizza. O.M.G. GOOD.

Looks small but FILLING I can tell ya! I swear, if you ever go to the Island, highly recommended place to eat.

After dinner we didn’t feel like changing into our jammies yet, so we were trying to watch TV on the two leather padded desk chairs which provided this reaction from us.

We (ok I) got the bright idea to haul the softer chairs that were by the fireplace around and so we basically rearranged the furniture and watched some TV.

(these chairs)

After a while Tom wanted to do the same walk-about I did in the area to see what was there, and to check out the marina etc. He was as impressed as I was *cough*. We walked down the path on the bluff, the one I was too afraid to do alone and it basically led us to an alley. We walked up it and through part of the neighbourhood checking out how many people were just letting their places go. Some were SO overgrown by brush you could barely see the house. It’s a shame, I mean, again there is potential there.

We headed back to the hotel via the marina door and walked by the pool and up past the spa which is on the lower level and back up to our room. We changed, put in our DVD of “Wag the Dog” and drank some pop. No wine that night cos we were planning on getting up early enough to grab breakfast and git.