Ok so I've now finished in Victoria and Nanaimo.

Victoria was a nice it is the centre of BC and is set up like a little 'English' town, when I got there the Navy were docked in the harbour for a visit so it was very busy there with an extra 10,000 people from their ships. I went to visit the BC Museum which was one of the best museums I have visited so far. It had a lot of stuff inside about Canadian history and a lot of First Nations items like Masks and Totem Pole. They had also built a Victorian styled village inside it which you could walk through and there was a house which you could go through and look around at a Victorian household. At the end there was also a silent theatre which was showing a Charlie Chaplin film so I stayed to watch that. Unfortunately there was also a lot of school children who thought it would be great to shout their way around the museum including in the silent theatre. They also had a good animal section showing various animals in their 'natural environments', they had a section with some deer and it looked like the trees were going through the roof so it was well done. The hostel also gave us discount to visit it which was really good, I also watched a bit of the Navy Parade before I went in but it wasn't anything too special they were just marching down the main street.

The next day I decided to walk around most of the city so I visited their ChinaTown which was a bit of a let down, not too much there and not very well developed unlike the one in Vancouver and Seattle. I went around their main town and then I went to their antique district which had a lot of nice old houses and shops, after that I went to visit their local 'castle' which was in fact a really small manor house with 40 rooms so I didn't pay to go in I just took a picture of it. After I walked back from the not quite castle I walked down the harbour and got some more pictures there and some in the Empress Hotels garden. But that's about all for Victoria really nothing much else happened there.

Nanaimo has been very good I wish I had come here for a bit longer but I already had my return tickets booked which was a shame. Nanaimo is part of Vancouver Island and it is a medium sized town, it's on the Sea Side as well so it has its own Harbour which you can walk across half the island on and it also has its own small islands you can visit via boat too. I went to the Harbour the first day I arrived for a little while and had a really nice Mexican meal there which was very nice. I only stayed for two nights so only had one full day here, but I went down to take some photos of the Harbour and explore it fully before I left, it has been very sunny so that helped as it was really warm, after that I got some lunch and headed to the local park which is more of a small forest then what we would call a park. It had a river with a small waterfall in it too where I sat for a while, I hiked around some of the parks trails and got to a duck pond where the ducks followed me wherever I went. It started raining a bit after a while in there so I headed back out and walked back across the Harbour on my way back to the hostel. This has also been probably the best hostel I have stayed in as well, it is very modern and the hostel staff are really helpful too. So Nanaimo has been lovely, I've really enjoyed it and would like to visit here again for a few more extra days.

But that's all from me, back to Vancouver tomorrow and I will see some of my old Paralympic work mates too before I leave which will be nice. Hopefully the weather will stay nice too and I can hike around Stanley park (again more of a forest than a park) a bit for a day.

Liz x