Day 31 ~ Monday 21st September, 2015

Our last breakfast with Lorrie & Michele and a new couple from Germany. Today was Omelet, Toast, those lovely hash browns, fruit, yoghurt, tea, coffee & juice! YUM

We took some photos of Lorrie & Michele & the dogs Zac & Sarah. We packed up, said our good-byes and we drove away. Quite sad to leave today, we really loved every minute staying at Money Pennies B&B – if you ever find yourself in Campbell River you MUST stay there!

http://www.moneypenniesbedandbreakfast.com

So the sun is out in all its glory, beaming its happy smile onto the waterways and forests of V.I. I am wearing a T-shirt – feels quite foreign after the past weeks of rain and cold. (apart from Mt Assiniboine of course!)

We made our way to Coombs to see “The Goats on the Roof”. And yep – there they were, actual goats on-top of the roof of a large emporium/supermarket. Makes me want to put grass on our roof and do the same thing…. Steve isn't quite as excited about that idea as I am though!  (had the wrong lens, but you get the idea)!

We then drove through Cathedral Gove, which is the forest with the large 200+yr old Cedars. Such a pretty forest. We would have stopped, but the tourist buses – OH MY – there were a lot of them, and Steve's patience is wearing thin (he's tired and he's over photography and I think he's over the holiday now – he needs a holiday from this holiday).

Anyway, onwards to Port Alberni, where the “Hole in the Wall” waterfall is. We found it by chance on line and did some research about it. Its not signposted and it is not well known, but a guy did a blog with great directions (thank you to him) and we found a tiny turn-out on the side of the road before town, followed the paths until we found the small river and there it was – BEAUTIFUL! (if only the bloody sun had disappeared) – but eh, we took some photos (some of us took a lot more photos than others) – but he was very patient and let me fuss around (thank you babe!). This was one of the things I had to photograph whilst on Vancouver Island, so I wanted to make sure I got “the” shot right.

 Here's a sneak peak....

45mins later we were back on Highway 4 heading back out towards Coombs and on our way to Victoria.

We are going to be a good hour and half early to be able to check into our B&B Manor House accommodation on 7 acres, so we might nip back into Coombs, where they had a historical motorbike museum and across the road is a Butterfly House and Orchid garden – SOMETHING FOR BOTH OF US!! YAY!! (Steve is skeptical because of our last butterfly experience in Bali – promised so much & delivered nothing)

The butterfly Garden was only tiny, but at least it had butterflies, and a few finches and it even had 3 turtles – Samson & Romeo, and Sheeba who was a tiny red footed turtle, and then there was “red” a bearded dragon from Australia! Samon who was 16yrs old was not happy being in his enclosure today. He was on his back when we found him, so we put him upright. From there he tried to climb out of his enclosure! Hilarious! We let the girl at the front desk know and apparently when the owner of the Butterfly House is there, he lets Samson out to walk around and Samson gets upset when he can't walk around – this was one of those unhappy days for Samson! What a personality!! 

It was VERY humid in there – 24 degree's but what felt like 2,000% humidity! It took a good 20mins for our camera's to get rid of the condensation. They also had an orchid garden (yeah – not that exciting). But eh, we got some lovely butterfly photos!

Butterfly Garden $13.95ea ++ Open 10am-4pm Daily

We went across the road to see the motorcycles, but it wasn't a museum after all, it was just a retail sales shop! I felt sorry for Steve – no bikes for him.

BUT, we did see a young Deer who was separated from its mother by a fence. We thought the land owners were farming deer, so we went to let them know one was out, only for them to say they are wild. Ha ha ha – we had to apologize & say we are from Australia and we don't see them wild very often we thought the baby had gotten out etc. We laughed!

Of course I got some good photos of the deer! :) WINNING! :)

So now on track to get to Victoria for check in after 5pm, traveling on Route 19. The sun is sill shining brightly and there are big white fluffy clouds on the horizon.

Just drove past a large dairy – heaps of shedding and cows being milked. In my haste to get it out to tell Steve to look at it, instead of saying “ooh look a Dairy” - I said “ooh look a milkery”. I can see that coming back to haunt me from Steve forever more! He's already ribbed me about it and its been 10mins! lol

Steve has done an amazing job with driving this whole trip (having just typed that, I had to yell at him for speeding!) lol. I have found it hard to sit on our drivers side of the car with no steering wheel being a passenger and drive on the wrong side of the road. I did alright on our OOAK part of the trip as I was in the back seat for 12 days. I have calmed down a lot now, but the first part of the trip I must have driven Steve mad with my “backseat driving” – I though for sure he was going to drive me off the side of a cliff, or into a barrier! Lol

As we have only one day in Victoria to explore, we've decided that since the weather is actually lovely, we will go do another whale watching cruise. It all comes down to priorities and what we really want to see and do. There is the Butchart Gardens which would be spectacular now with the fall colour coming out, but we have beautiful gardens where we live in Olinda. We don't have Orca Whales, so we will try and see one last time to see them in the wild.

We got to Victoria at 5.30pm, to Ha'Penny Hollow Farm B&B – OMG – you have to see this place to believe it! WOW – I felt like I was in a fairy tale. It is the most beautiful, pretty, quintessentail tudor manor you have ever seen! (if only Carolyn was here to see this!). WOW – we are very lucky to stay here.

We met Valerie and Bill, the quintessential British hosts, and Rusty their gorgeous dog. We were shown to our room and shown around the gardens and how to get to Elk Lake – yes, this magnificent 7 acre property is right on the lake!

I might have been a tad over excited (blame that on the e+shot I had earlier…), and with the promise of many animals, and the lake and with sunset fast approaching, I wanted to get to the lake.

So Rusty our new faithful companion showed us the way to the lake! (he was very happy). We past people riding horses, and many people out on the lake rowing, and boating! The pathway around the lake (10.5km round trip) was heavily tree'd and just beautiful. Honestly, breathtakingly beautiful.

We did a quick walk and took some photos of Rusty, and then we were back to the Manor House to relax We met Gypsy their resident Tortoiseshell Cat. We were so exhausted we decided not to go out for dinner and instead stayed in and had an early night.