Tuesday 16th

Well it is finally here, we are on our way, leaving Sydney on Canada Airlines CA34 at 10.10am AEST and arriving in Vancouver Canada at 8.10am Canada time, 2 hours before we left Sydney, it was a weird feeling.

The 14 hour flight was OK in cattle class, not used to it after Business Class but that's the price you pay when you retire. Our flight to Victoria BC was delayed for 30 minutes and then we had to wait another 20 minutes as they had forgot to load everyone's luggage, finally after a 12 minute flight we arrived, It took longer to taxi to takeoff than it took to fly to Victoria.

The short flight was magnificent, the scenery was beautiful, there was even snow on the high peaks outside Victoria. We then had to wait another 30 minutes for our shuttle bus but the trip in was worth the wait as we had a bit of a guided tour as passengers where dropped off. We met an Aussie lady who was on our flight over who was off to cruise the Artic Circle, we also met a couple from Hervey Bay at an outdoor restaurant on the waterfront, it's not hard to pick the Aussie accent. Our hotel is in walking distance from the waterfront in a central location, close to everything and a 5 minute walk to where we have to get the bus back to Vancouver on Saturday to start the cruise.

Out on the town tonight, sun doesn't set until 9.00pm. We went to the Garricks Head pub for tea, 45 craft beers on tap @ $7.50 pint, good value. Bellini cocktails at another bar at $5 Happy hour after 9.00pm. We have had a great start to the holiday. It is now 10.30 pm in Canada on Tuesday, 3.30pm Wednesday, so it has been a big day and time for Bed.

$7.50 a pint and they had 45 on tap.

Victoria BC.

The seal was outside the back door of a local seafood restaurant.