Y Walk Nov. 2 - St. Stephen's Church, Saanich

 

During our walk on Tuesday we stopped for our break at St. Stephen's Anglican Church.   Built in 1862, it is the oldest continuously operating church in British Columbia.  It is a small church with dark wood interior and wooden pews.  There is a lovely stained glass window behind the alter. Outside, the surroundings are very pastoral and calming.













The trees in the graveyard are draped with "goats beard" a type of hanging moss.

The entrance sign into the church 

Geocashing

About a year ago, when doing research for an automobile GPS, I came across information on a relatively new sport: Geocashing using a handheld GPS. I thought, what fun and what a great way to be outside.   After much debating with myself I decided on a Garmin Dakota 20 which I bought in Calgary on my drive out West.  It is small, light and easy to use. 

Victoria, in fact Vancouver Island, is a mecca for geocashes and geocashing is a great way to explore the area.  I particularly enjoy finding the earth (natural environment) caches. The GPS helps the searcher get to the vicinity of the cache but actually finding it is not always easy.  For each cache I have found there are two others that I haven't.  This week's search in the Dallas Road area was fun and successful and since I now always carry a camera with me I made a mini documentary of the event which I am adding to this blog (another first). 

Geocashing is so popular that visitors to Victoria and people on cruise ships spend  time searching for hidden caches during their time here (and Tourism has started to capitalize on this interest.)  Each geocasher is encouraged to enter the date of their find in the cache logbook, and Granma's cache logbook had an entry by a geocacher from Germany!! 

Y Walkers



Victoria, in fact Vancouver Island, is a walkers mecca and there are numerous walking groups to choose from.  After joining the YMCA-YWCA I decided (for now) on the Tuesday morning women 50+ walking group.  Many of the walkers don't belong to the Y but our $30.00 a year "fee" is a donation to the Y's Thunderbird Camp in Sooke.  I've learned that many of the walkers are retired librarians by and with my arrival it was a toss up whether to call the group the Librarian Walkers or stay with the Y Walkers.  No competition here, we stayed with the Y Walkers!!  The walks average 2 hours each with a snack break.

 

Brentwood Bay



S.V. Duen





On October 5th we walked from Brentwood Bay through Gowland Tod Provincial Park to Tod Inlet which at the foot of Buchart Gardens.  Before starting the walk we went down to the public dock at Brentwood Bay and were delighted to see numerous pink starfish in all shapes and sizes in the water. 

When we arrived at Tod Inlet we were treated to the sight of the S.V. Duen at anchor.  Acccording to their website, The S.V. Duen is one of those lovely sailing ships that offers exploration trips around the West Coast.  We ran into the exuberant young students from Calgary who were preparing to go for their adventure sail. Tod Inlet itself has an interesting history as an early settlement of the Vancouver Portland Cement Co.  Remains of the settlement and the cement company were clearly evident.

On October 17th the walk followed the water along Dallas Road (and we saw a sea otter!!) meandered past the Chinese cemetery (http://www.oldcem.bc.ca/cem_ch.htm), then made our way via a rocky pathway and steps via King George Terrace to get to Dennison Road so we could get to the lookout on Walbran Park.  Walbran Park is a small undeveloped natural area with an historical WWII lookout and marker cairn.   We rested at Waldren Park and enjoyed fabulous views of the ocean, mountains, and urban settings before heading back via Fairfield and Ross Bay Cemetery. This was a longer walk of about 2.5 hours with around 200 steps (my fitness regime at the Y is paying off!). We had ample time to enjoy gardens and nature.   I am getting to know more of the women.  They are a diverese grooup and I am really enjoying hearing their stories of how and when they came to Victoria.  So far only two walkers can claim long-term residency here.



Below are pictures of the WWII cairn from Dennison and the view from the fence around the cairn.

Graves, stories and deer: Ross Bay Cemetery October 17, 2010



Kit Pearson

 

I have walked by the Ross Bay Cemetery many times during my four months of living here in Victoria but Sunday past was the first time that I actually went into the cemetery.  I couldn't resist after coming across a notice in the paper informing the reader that the Sunday tour would be led by Kit Pearson reading from her juvenile award-winning book "Awake and Dreaming".  The story takes place in Victoria and features a ghost and graves at RBC.  This was so close to home that I had to go.



I am a more visual person than auditory but found myself pulled into the story as she read passages describing the cemetery, the graves, and the old house nearby which are featured in the book.  We were also treated to the history of other graves by a member of The Old Cemeteries Society that do guided walking tours every Sunday afternoon including the grave (of course) of Emily Carr.  The headstone of Emily's grave was surrounded by gifts of pencils, pens, pine cones, sayings and even a tiny cushion.  As the tour guide said," Why not rest in comfort as well as in peace" (or something to that effect).

Halfway through the tour we came across a six deer (3 stags and 3 does).  The deer have become so urbanized that they really were not bothered by our presence.  At one point, a stag grazed near the group as Kit was reading.  As one person said, "Only in Victoria!!"(but others on Vancouver Island would say also in Comox and other areas heavily populated by deer).

The Society is looking for volunteers - umm, perhaps.