Buddy

2001-2016

Last Month At Weir's Beach

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Friday 18th March
Have rental car will travel.  Another day, another park, another pretty waterfall.

What is this?

Here’s the explanation.

Wow, that’s worse than you get for manslaughter.

Saturday 19th March

It’s getting positively warm some-days.

Sunday 20th March

A visit with Phil and Chris’s place where we get fed.

Monday 21st March

Hangin’ on a cloudy day.

Tuesday 22nd March

The truck is apparently ‘fixed’, so we got it back.

Movie of the day: The Danish Girl – Alicia Vikander rocks – she did get a deserved Oscar for this.

Wednesday 23rd March

Jan and Ray, people we met in Pedder Bay are leaving tomorrow so we had them over for drinks

Thursday 24th March

The day started with heavy rain but we went for a walk in Frances King Park with Robin and Jill after dropping off the rental.  A pretty golf course next to the park.

Friday 25th March

Phil and Chris had promised us a tour of Victoria, so after driving to their place, Chris drove first to this hill which has stunning views that unfortunately don’t photograph that well, at least not with a point and click camera..

Then it was down to Fisherman’s Wharf to sample the cuisine.

The prawn tacos I had were truly wonderful.

The area round Victoria Harbour is serviced by these water taxis.

After lunch we walked down to the breakwater.

At the end of the breakwater, one of the the tourists said “Oh look, a seal.”  I took one look “that’s not a seal, it’s an otter.”  Twenty feet below the parapet he/she was just sunning itself.

Chris and Carol walked back along the breakwater while Phil and I took the more adventurous route along the massive stones that follow the breakwater down at the water’s edge.

This is typical BC artwork on the breakwater wall.

After collecting the car, next stop a popular beach near where Phil and Chris live.  

If that were a palm tree?

The Royal Roads mansion was built by the son of the fella who built this place: 'Craig Darroch', another famous Victoria landmark. 

By this time we were all ready to call it a day, so we headed back to pick up the truck and head back to Weir’s Beach.

Saturday 26th March

Hangin’ in WB.

Sunday 27th March

Rainy, windy day food shopping.

A short bike ride for me.  

Monday 28th March

Easter Monday and we’ve been invited to Robin and Jill’s for a meal with daughter Tara, son-in-law Ray and grandson Isaac.

For the first time since Marathon we played dominoes.

Tuesday 29th March

Although we’re not that crazy about the ‘Divergent’ series, we had seen the two previous ones and since there’s absolutely nothing else worth watching we went to see “Allegiant” - nonsense but kinda fun.

For supper I made spaghetti carbonara with smoked tofu instead of bacon – not a huge success.  (I thought it was pretty good!!! Carol)

Wednesday 30th March

Climbing on the roof to clean it I dropped the cleaner and the bottle split, so that’s a job for another day.

Thursday 31st March

Witty's Lagoon with Robin and Jill and this time did the full hike out to the sea – or more accurately the Juan De Fuca Straits with the Washington Olympic Mountains in the distance.

A rest spot in the sun.

Pretty (but shy) flower.

Some strange structure we couldn’t collectively figure out the purpose for.

Friday 1st April

Cleaning the RV roof.

Saturday 2nd April

Finish cleaning the roof.

Sunday 3rd April

Weekly shopping.

Monday 4th April

Playing with a cheap strip of LEDs.

Tuesday 5th April

Attempting (unsuccessfully as it turns out) to replace the dining area light with LEDs.

Wednesday 6th April

Gave the truck a rare treat.

Hairdresser for Carol while I did some errands.

Left front brake binding and smoking on the way home – not good and that’ll teach me to clean it.

Thursday 7th April

Robin and Jill came for a visit and walk down to the beach with Lucy.

Afterwards they gave us a ride to the car rental place after dropping the truck off for brake repair.

Friday 8th April

We now have a Kia Soul for a week and since Port Renfrew is supposedly a place to visit, we set off in the morning.  There really isn’t much there other than a marina where all the docks are out of the water for the season and a hotel where we had a pretty decent lunch.

And a (almost) human sized totem pole.

The restaurant waiter said that Botanical Beach was a good place to go to hike, so we did that.

It’s a little wilder and more ragged as we’re nearer the Pacific.

Not unattractive though,

And one weird tree.

Instead of retracing our steps back to the RV we headed up north to Lake Cowachin, the road notable for the endless views of clear cut hillsides.

While stopped in Duncan on the way back we got a call from the garage with bad news.  Not only do we need replacement callipers and rotors but our ball joints are shot.  So there goes a few grand.  Nothing on these trucks is cheap.

Saturday 9th April
Got an inexpensive dashcam from Amazon, so playing with that.

Sunday 10th April
Weekly shopping.

Monday 11th April
A grooming for Buddy at Petsmart.

A second go at Mill Hill for us while we wait for him to be clipped.

Found this (tiny – about 9” long) fella on the path on the way up.

The Arbutus on the top is now covered in leaves.

The Transcanada rolls to Victoria. 

A clear view of Esquimalt navy base.

Pretty flowers everywhere.

Tuesday 12th April
To the Cineplex in downtown Victoria, with remarkably cheap parking, to see Eye in the Sky.  How good was it?  Well there was this incredibly noisy person eating behind us but we didn’t want to stop watching long enough to sit somewhere else.

Wednesday 13th April
Heavy rain and loss of Internet.

A good day to shop.

Thursday 14th April
Met Robin and Jill at daughter Tara’s and I drove our rental to Todd Inlet.

Ontario’s official flower growing here.

Interesting model of the area’s topography.

This is the closest we ever got to the famous Buchart Gardens (they’re behind the fence).

We had our packed lunch in nearby Grant Park and then took a walk around.

The truck smoked on the way home – sigh!

Friday 15th April
RV work.

Saturday 16th April
Weekly shopping.

Sunday 17th April
Our turn to host Phil and Chris.  They came over for a midday meal and then a walk along the beach.

Monday 18th April
RV repairs.

Tuesday 19th April
Silver City for The Jungle Book in Imax 3-D – Wow! Wow! Wow!

Wednesday 20th April
RV work.

Thursday 21st April
Met Jill and Robin at Tara's.  Bear Hill is the hike of the day.

According to Robin the little Island out there used to be a leper colony.

Friday 22nd April
The big Seven Oh for me.  I decided for this one we’d just stay in and have good food.

Sushi for lunch and moules et frites for supper with French fizzy.

Saturday 23rd April
Pumped up the RV’s tires with a borrowed compressor and started on cleaning the sides.


Sunday 24th April
Weekly shopping.

Monday 25th April
Finished cleaning the RV and fixed an electrical problem where the trailer lights didn’t work properly.

Tuesday 26th April
Ever since the first time we walked around part of Matheson Lake I’ve wanted to complete the trek.  Carol preferred not to so I did it alone.  On the way back I stopped in for some eggs and was introduced to their pig population.

Ginger and friend.

This one is star of the show though.

He’s one ugly little pig.

But at the same time ... cute and very friendly.

Wednesday 27th April

Re-organized the RV basement ready for travel.

Thursday 28th April.

Our last hike with Robin and Jill before departing.  Tour guide Jill took us somewhere close – Esquimalt Gorge which is a walk alongside the long, long inlet from the sea.

One of the high spots is the Japanese garden.

Lunch was in an excellent Thai restaurant.  We had cup of tea on their patio before saying our sad farewells.

Friday 29th April.

The truck’s turn to be internally re-organized.

Saturday 30th April.

Last Langford shopping.

Over the two months we’ve been here we’ve got quite friendly with our neighbours Luc and Dianne.  We had drink outside with them on a beautiful sunny afternoon and then sat around their campfire after they ate their hot dogs and we had our last crab cakes and mushy peas supper.

Last Month In Pedder Bay Then On To Weir's Beach

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Wednesday 3rd February
Rain

Thursday 4th February 
C to hairdresser

Finished Brideshead the movie – a little compressed (compared to the TV series) but pretty good.

Friday 5th February
Gloomy day.

Saturday 6th February
Overcast and rainy but took a short bike ride anyway.

Sunday 7th February 
Shopping day with the highlight of dragging some young idiot (who had tried to drive his SUV across a ditch), out of the  ditch.

Monday 8th February
Family day in BC.  We’d arranged to meet our friend Ken’s brother at a Chinese buffet that turned out to be closed at lunchtime.  So we ended up back at the Turmeric Restaurant (our Christmas Day lunch spot) with Phil and partner Chris.

Tuesday 9th February
Movie of the day: Hail Caesar – NOT a Cohen standout.

It may rain a lot here but how about blossoms in February?

Wednesday 10th February 
Since we can’t stay in Pedder Bay for the rest of our stay on the Island we had booked into a campground north of Victoria.  Today was the day to take a drive and visit.

The Oceanside campground is huge, our site number would have been 519 and that wasn’t the total number of sites.

Anyhow, we were not impressed by the surroundings.  The campground is on an Indian reservation which does not look in great shape at all.

While we were near Sydney, a seaside resort we took a look.  Maybe in better weather it would have been more impressive.

Feeling somewhat despondent, we dropped in at Weir’s Beach where we’d checked before for a spot with no luck.  This time they had an opening in March and we tentatively took it.

Thursday 11th February
Received a refund invoice from Oceanside minus $20 cancellation fee and so to Weir's Beach to register

Friday 12th February
Bike ride for me along the Galloping Goose trail.

Movie of the day: Mad Max Fury Road – Way too much action for old fogies.

Saturday 13th February 
Monthly run the generator time – a lesson learned the hard way.

Windows 10 wants to do a major upgrade and it’s not going well.

Sunday 14th February 
Can’t even update Windows 10 off a USB stick (the solution when I upgraded the first time).  Apparently I’m not alone!!!

Food shopping day.

Monday 15th February
Rain

Tuesday 16th February
A walk round Metchosin Park.  We’re noticing a pattern with our walks.  Mostly we get to see a lot of towering tree trunks.

We don’t see this too often though.

Or a giant plant pot.

Movie of the day: Bridge of Spies – Most excellent movie, that Speilberg guy can make a movie.

Wednesday 17th February
Downtown Victoria for a visit to C’s doctor.  Value Village for some waterproof pants for me – shoulda got some sooner.

Thursday 18th February
Met with Jill and Robin for lunch at the Royal Roads Cafe followed by a trip around the park.

The main building is impressive.

If anyone should have seen the movie Deadpool, although not credited at the end of the movie, it was used as the place Colossus and his buddy Negasonic Teenage Warhead were hanging out.

Here’s the facts:

The back of the building is pretty cool too.

Since it had been raining like crazy for a few days there was some serious water flow on our walk.

Dire warning near the shore.

Love this tiny aqueduct.

Friday 19th February

Another rainy day, so I watched movie Carol wasn’t interested in: The Hunger Games – I can see why young folk like the series.

2nd movie of the day: Steve Jobs – Another winner.

Saturday 20th February 

To Blinkhorn Park for a walk.  Nothing very picture-worthy there.

Sunday 21st February

Food shopping day.

When I was walking Buddy, Rick, the park superintendent gave me the claws/legs from a sizable Dungeness crab.  So we ate it with garlic butter.  It was tasty but as someone pointed out, anything is good with garlic butter.

Monday 22nd February

Investigating Windows 10 fix.  According to the Microsoft ‘help’ site the best thing to do is blow it all away, reformat the drive and load from scratch.  It used to be that Microsoft would blame Windows problems on viruses, now it’s shifted to ‘data corruption’  i.e. it’s still YOUR fault.

Langford has a lake of the same name with a trail that goes around a good part of it.  

It was another gloomy day but no heavy rain.

Tuesday 23rd February

Stared backing up my data ready for the big purge.

Bike ride for me.

Wednesday 24th February

Vet trip for Buddy to get his nails done and have some glands expressed.

Thursday 25th February

Started the re-install and it goes (relatively) smoothly.

Roche Cove Park for a hike.  We didn’t go to the lookout but we talked to someone who did and they said it was a great view of ... tree tops.  But there’s always a weird tree.

And on the drive back we stopped to see the Washington State Olympic mountains just across the straits.

Movie of the day: Joy – A little Nicholas Sparks-ish.

Friday 26th February

Putting the computer back together.

Saturday 27th February

We always said before we left we would have breakfast in the marina cafe and times a runnin’ out so today’s the day.  A tasty egg McMuffin and good Starbuck’s coffee.

Movie of the day: Animalisa – animated movies should do something live actors can’t and this doesn’t.

Sunday 28th February

Food shopping.

Movie of the day: Trumbo – Very good on all fronts.

Monday 29th February

Doing some preparation for the move.  Took a trip to Weir’s Beach to suss out our new spot.

The Oscars

Tuesday 1st March

Time to move to our new location: Weir’s Beach.  Although we’re not exactly on the beach it’s just 100yds away.

Wednesday 2nd March

Another rainy day settling into our new spot.

Thursday 3rd March

The Internet here is definitely not industrial strength so we signed up for Shaw Internet and today’s the day we get it.

Movie of the day: Ex Machina – Wow!  Smart Sci-Fi.

Friday 4th March

Buddy to the vet again, some kind of infection on his tail.

Saturday 5th March

After 4 months here we now have continuous cell-phone service, so making lotstsa calls.

Took long walk around the neighbourhood, up to Galloping Goose and back along the road.

Lots of cavorting lambs – not a common sight in Canada.  Note the black sheep.

Vegan Shane who works at Weir's Beach pointed out they would be on someone's table at Easter.

Close to the campground lives an artist, this is in their garden.

Sunday 6th March

Weekly food shopping.

Monday 7th March

Received really inexpensive Bluetooth headphones from Amazon.  Hey, and they work just fine.

Movie of the day: All Is Lost - Must see for all sailors.

Tuesday 8th March

To the movies for Deadpool – OK, that really is THE LAST super hero movie we go see!

Wednesday 9th March

High winds and rain, enough to knock the power out for several hours but not enough to deter a couple of crazy kite surfers. 

This time we have a working generator so no interruption of service.

Thursday 10th March

Went to Jill and Robin’s for lunch and then a walk round somewhere close.  Given the continuing high winds Jill was leery about being near trees.

Interesting street ornament.

Friday 11th March

Rain

Saturday 12th March

Went for another walk with Jill and Robin through an old military complex.

Sunday 13th March

Weekly food shopping.

More high winds and tree branches hitting the RV fortunately with no damage to the trailer.

Movie of the day: Trainwreck – a rare thing, a smart comedy

Monday 14th March

Rain

Tuesday 15th March 

To the movies:  Zootopia – Terrific animated movie.

Wednesday 16th March

The truck has occasionally been blowing white smoke but now it’s doing it far more frequently so we made an appointment for it to be looked at and rented a car with our Avion points.

Thursday 17th March

First order of business is pickup the rental car and then head over to meet Robin and Jill at their daughter Tara’s.

They have two Fainting goats that live in a tree house:

Fainting goats’ defence mechanism is falling down if they’re panicked - not too effective.

They have four horses: Sheriff, Hotspot, Zapper and Trigger.

We were there to take them a walk.  Take horses for a 'walk'?  Well you can if they're this size.

.

Shetland ponies are small, bu these guys.

So we took them and two dogs for a walk.  This is Carol with Hotspot.

After dropping off the truck for diagnosis, back at Weir’s Beach we get a rare glimpse of Mount Baker.

The snow covered peak is 80 Miles away and that’s Victoria in the foreground.