Mayne Island

MAYNE ISLAND

Our last journey in Canada was to visit Cyndi’s sister’s (Maureen) friend Sue on Mayne Island, one of the Gulf Islands which lay off the south east coast of Vancouver Island.

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Leaving Vancouver Island

 We left Victoria on 2^nd July 2014, to catch a ferry from Swartz Bay to Village Bay on Mayne Island. 

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On our way to Mayne Island

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 First view of Mayne Island

                                  

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                                                                               First view of Mayne Island

We were met by Sue who took us straight to a local restaurant, the Springwater Lodge. The Springwater Lodge has amazing views from their balcony of the coast along Active Pass.

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Welcome drink at Mayne Island

Sue has a small menagerie of pets; three dogs and a duck!  The dogs are, Katie a large collie, Benson a small terrier who protects Sue and has a warning growl if you approach his food. 

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Bob  and Bella

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Cyndi and Katie

The other dog, which belonged to Sue's daughter Sarah, was tiny and called Bella. Bella would make herself comfortable by lying around your neck! 

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Sue and Bently

She also has a duck called Charlotte. Sue has had Charlotte since she hatched and used to carry her around in her pocket to keep warm and safe. Charlotte now assumes Sue is her mum and follows her everywhere.

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Bob  and Charlotte

Sue took us to various spots to get the feel for the island and that evening we walked along the coastal path to see the amazing sunset; Mayne is a very small island and it seemed everyone on the island knew her.

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Sunset

The 3^rd of July was our 43^rd wedding anniversary and we celebrated by taking Katie and Bella to a local park, whilst Sue had to go to work. The park was next door to a Japanese Garden www.mayneisland.com/places/japanesegarden  a peaceful area that was built to commemorate the Japanese families who had settled and worked on the island between 1900 and 1942.  

                               

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Peaceful Japanese Garden

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Peaceful Japanese Garden

The garden is now maintained by volunteers, who obviously work hard and industriously to create the ambience of a calm and tranquil place in which to sit and contemplate. 

Sue who is a superb cook had arranged a party to celebrate our anniversary and to meet her lovely friends; she even provided a cake- Thank you so much Sue! x

   

                                               

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43 years!!

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More than 43 calories

On Friday 4^th July, Sue arranged for Bob and her to have a guided sea kayak trip- she must have noticed Bob’s withdrawal symptoms! Cyndi, not a lover of deep, moving water decided to stay on terra firma. Sarah kindly met Cyndi and took her to the famous Sunny Mayne Bakery Café sunnymaynebakery.com for coffee.

  

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Sue and Bob  heading out

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Sue and Bob  heading out

The sea was mirror calm and after some instruction on how to manoeuvre their double sea kayak Sue and Bob set off in the capable hands of their guide.

Almost immediately they spotted a number of bald eagles and later on numerous seals and oyster catchers.

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Oyster catchers

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Bald eagle

They were very lucky to see a sea lion; who was probably too old to move on to his normal winter grounds. They prudently decided to give him a wide berth as he was a very big fellow.

On the way back they came across an otter – a very memorable day!

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Seals

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Sea Lion

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Saturday 5th July, our day of departure came too quickly; we caught the ferry to Tsawwassen on the mainland and had booked a taxi to take us to Vancouver airport for a flight to Manchester. U.K.

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Leaving Mayne island

 We had a small fright as we hit a traffic jam near a tunnel and yesterday the driver said they were stuck for 5 hours which if happened to us would have meant a missed flight. However the jam cleared and we made the airport in good time. We flew home to Manchester through the night and landed at 0930 on Sunday to be picked up by our son, Rhodri and a night's sleep in Chester.

  

 We found the AA World Travel Guides, “Vancouver & the Canadian Rockies” ISBN 0-7495-2458-8 extremely helpful. The spiral book is light enough to carry around with you and very informative. Our book was an old copy which we bought from Amazon but nevertheless it still did the job!

This was a trip neither of us would forget from the spectacular scenery of the Rockies to the blue and at times rough ocean; from the wide ranging temperatures 3˚f in the snow to 79˚f in the hot sun of Victoria; from the thieving raven to the baby black bear gambolling outside Jasper and especially the kind, well-mannered Canadians- an AWESOME trip in the true meaning of the word! A special thanks to Sue for making us welcome and feeding us so well!