We left Maple Bay with a heavy heart, as it was sad to say goodbye. However, today's travelling would again involve two ferries, and it is going to be through an area that I have studied on numerous occasions on a map, always wondering what it looked like in real life.
The plan was to drive down to Victoria, then hop on to a ferry to Port Angeles, and then drive through the fjord like area between Seattle's Puget Sound and the Olympia National Forest. (By the way, Olympia is the state capital of Washington, not Seattle as I have always thought). Anyhow, the plan was to cover the following route:
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| Only around 250km's - but up to 6 hours?? |
Steph advised us that we should try and stop at a place called Goldstream Provincial Park, as this is an excellent spot to observe the salmon swimming upriver during their annual spawn. The mind boggles as to how they manage to find their way back to their birth place after years of living in the ocean. The park's
website have some interesting info on this phenomenon.
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| The gulls seemed very picky |
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| Sickly, dead salmon |
Its really sad to see the poor male salmon struggle upriver, just to come and fertilise the females eggs, without even any intercourse . . . poor guys.
We made good time to Victoria and quickly found ourselves in the belly of the Blackball Ferry, for our lift across to Port Angeles, back in the good ol' U S of A. First time I have entered the USA without getting a stamp in my passport.
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| Float planes in Victoria Harbour with the Empress hotel in the background. |
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| Free Wi-fi now seems to be readily available throughout North America. Almost all airports, hotels, coffee shops, restaurants etc that we have been to, offers this service without charge. Even the ferry companies! |
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| Bye bye Canada. O Canada . . |
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And hello again America.
The beautiful Olympic mountains beckoned behind Port Angeles:
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| The port of Port Angeles. |
Once we have cleared a bunch of grumpy customs officials, we had a scenic drive through the land on the western side of the Puget Sound. It is quite a similar coastline to what we have seen on Vancouver Island, so pretty indeed. Reaching Bainbridge Island, we had lunch while waiting for our ferry to take us across to Seattle.
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| Docs Marina Grill |
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| An early settler? |
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| Bainbridge Island Marina |
We arrived in Seattle during peak hour Monday afternoon traffic, but found our hotel courtesy of the wonderful global positioning system offered by iPhone.
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| Arrival into the port of Seattle |
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| The view from our hotel in Seattle - sleepless indeed. |
We couldn't wait to explore Seattle by night, and just strolled through some well known areas, soaking up this stunning city.
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| Pike Place market by night. |
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| Post Alley |
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| Seattle Waterfront. Every city nowadays seems to have a big wheel. |
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| Upon closer inspection. . . yuck! |
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| Alley full of graffiti |
Another awesome day!
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