By Celina Mau
I had the pleasure of taking advantage of a 2 night/3 day in Victoria a few days ago, organized by my girlfriend who felt that I needed a holiday. What a concept for us retirees to be ‘needing’ a vacation!
We chose to travel during the week because everywhere we went, there would be fewer people and less traffic. BC Ferries had a deal on allowing us to reserve our tickets in advance while Bear Mountain Resort in Langford offered an upgrade to our room. It was a perfect mini-holiday!
Day One: Shortly upon arrival on the Island, we drove to the Olympic View Golf Course for our
1pm tee time. The day was beautiful but cool. The grounds on the course were impeccable and the grass lushy green. We had a great round of golf with a couple who were friends of my girlfriend. After golf, we took advantage of its ‘Tuesday Date Night’ at Table Nineteen. The dinner at $70 for two, consisted of one appetizer to share, one each of a dinner entrée and one dessert to share. The four of us ordered a yummy Flash Fried Calamari and a Vegan Vegetable Pakora as appetizers. For dinner, two of us had an extremely generous portion of Moroccan Spiced Lamb Shank while the other two had a Braised Beef Short Ribs. For dessert, we had a hot pink chocolate torte cake! The meal was sumptuous, and we washed them all down over a glass of red wine. Yummy!
Day Two: As it was an extremely windy and rainy day, my girlfriend and I decided to go to Willow Stream at the Empress Hotel for a morning spa retreat after having our morning coffee and a light breakfast at a nearby Murchie’s. The service was fabulous and the staff there were all masked. All the clients were ‘in and out’ for a one-hour service within a two-hour period, unlike the pre-pandemic time. The service of hot tub, sauna and mineral pool and regular size swimming pool were offered, yet no one took advantage of it. We all convened in the relaxation lounge for both the pre- and post-service. Lemon water with several types of herbal teas such as Moroccan peppermint chamomile and peach ginger were offered along with cupful of assorted nuts. I sat there after my spa treatment and quietly sipped my tea listening to the soothing music! We had reservation for lunch at the B. C. Legislature Dining Room at one in the afternoon as that was the reservation time for the public.
Now, this was interesting as we had to show our proof of vaccination card as well as our photo ID. I had already forgotten this procedure as B.C. has moved away from it since April 8.
How fast we forget! . . . For those who have not yet had lunch there (that’s me!), the security guards told us that they would only allow us inside once the dining room was cleared from the Legislature employees. You might ask, so how would they know? Well, the guards would receive a call from the dining room staff, usually close to 1pm. Hence, if one were to arrive early, one had to wait outside to be queued up. Once seated in the dining room, we ordered our meal, and my dish was seafood linguini with toasted garlic bread while my girlfriend had the shrimp salad wrap with fries. The portions were extremely generous, almost like dinner size. We shared a slice of chocolate cake as our dessert.
Leaving the Legislature, we visited the Royal BC Museum and were welcomed by a HUGE manikin black bear with a mask on at the souvenir shop! How cute he looked! The display upstairs featured our Natural History of BC with a focus on the climate change from warm dry hills of Vancouver Island to the misty cool northlands of Haida Gwaii. This interactive exploration made us reflected upon how we ought to be more protective of our environment and what would be the negative implications for us, British Columbians! To end off our museum visit, we took in a panel display of Bats.
Once outside, we were almost gusted away by the piercing wind! In a split second and in unison, we chose to return back to Bear Mountain Resort and decided to anchor down for the night. We managed to enjoy our huge balcony overlooking hole 18 of the Bear Mountain Golf Course before darkness sat in.
Sadly, just before dusk, the hotel power went out. I called the front desk and was told that B.C. Hydro was trying to fix the problem and there was no timeline for the power to come back. So, our adventure began with no power for the rest of the night. Luckily, my girlfriend had the common sense to ask for a flashlight, and she came back with an ‘oil’ lamp.
We managed everything with this lamp wherever we went in our room. The experience I gained from this power outage was that we had come to rely quite heavily on electricity and have taken it for granted. Throughout the night, there was no TV, no cell phone, no surfing of the net, no texting, no listening to music from our favorite playlist, and definitely, no hot tea or coffee, as they all needed electricity. We consciously chose to conserve the little power we still had on our iPhone for emergency use only. So back to basics, my girlfriend and I chatted a bit before calling it a night!
Day 3: The next morning, and guess what? We woke up to no electricity! So, without talking to each other, we decided, quickly, to complete our morning routine before bidding good-bye to Bear Mountain Resort. We drove to the Roost in North Saanich for a good mug of coffee, a hearty breakfast and a delicious blueberry cinnamon bun, fresh out of the oven! After stuffing ourselves like ‘pigs’, we wandered around Beacon Avenue in Sidney.
The area had lots of great locally owned trinket-type boutiques ranging from women’s clothes, kitchen cookware to bath and beauty products. It reminded me of the shops on Granville Island, on South Granville Street in Vancouver as well as Steveston Village in Richmond. All in all, it was a beautiful get-away. I felt rejuvenated and relaxed. My girlfriend was right about me needing a much-deserved R&R! Goodbye to Victoria and Hello Vancouver as we took our ferry back to the mainland!
Vancouver – South-False-Creek-Seawall
Enjoying easy walking, cycling, & jogging in BC.
An excellent way to keep a daily exercise workout in retirement.
