Sittin' on the Blustery Bay

We are parked & set up (again!) in a new locale --- the new address for Shaggy (for the next week or so) is... West Bay Marina, which is in Esquimalt - just across the bay from downtown Victoria.

And, oh, what a location it is! Other than the record gales that we've had the past few nights (winds just rip & tear through this place!), we are set up beautifully; right on the ocean and we walk out Shaggy's door and down to a boardwalk and can easily walk along the ocean bay all the way to downtown.


At right is a mapquest map of the bike route we took last night from our campsite (marked with the green "start"), over to the Conference Centre in downtown Victoria.

The reason for the trip was the Victoria Spring Wine Festival --- which we attended enthusiastically (as evidenced by my well-practiced wine-guzzling stance below....) It was an international fest with wine reps from all over the world and we really found that our local Okanagan wines stood up beautifully against anything from California, Chile or Australia. However, the wines from here on the Island are, frankly, awful! But oh (!) the cheese and breads and meats and sweets --- there were about 50 tasting booths for wines and about 10 booths for local cheesemakers and bakeries and delis and... the food was sublime.



Further to our "eat, drink and be merry" philosophy of life, we also visited the local brewpub today --- Spinnaker's.

We'd taken a blustery walk along the blustery bay (but -- no rain!) and let the wind blow us right into the warm foyer of this awesome, two storey brewpub/guesthouse that overlooks the bay and city.

Our latest afternoon indulgence, in place of the former "cocktail hour" (at 4pm) is our "beer and fries" hour. So.... today we had Spinnaker's Indian Pale Ale and a large plate of Fish & Chips made from wild BC salmon.


Below is a very small portion of the map for the Galloping Goose Trail --- a large bike trail that we REALLY need to start travelling so that we can keep up this indulgent lifestyle. Honestly, we're biking and walking everywhere and we certainly haven't lost any weight..... but Damn! The cheese and wine and beer and bread and everything around here is just so good. Eat, drink and be merry.... must remember that. Actually the only stress in our lives comes from the fact that --- we have cable TV now! So every second commercial is about botox and diet food and "active lifestyles" and... I'm starting to remember why we didn't have television before.

Of course there are about 80 channels available to us here and all Tim ever does is flip through the channels grumbling about the crap that's on TV.

The picture at left was taken on the boardwalk trail that runs from our campground to downtown (called the Westsong Walkway) -- what looks like a row of small houses behind us is actually our RV campground. We pretty much walk this route everyday, past blooming hyacinths and trailing ivys and huge, inspiring arbutus trees (which we love!). Also, runs past some great brewpubs and wineshops and.... oh well....

We figure we'll stay here through the weekend and then maybe move out to Sooke and do some real hardcore hiking and biking (and wining and dining of course, too!)