April 29 – Craigdarroch Castle and Fisherman’s Wharf

The forecast today called for mostly cloudy and a good chance of rain in the afternoon so we decided to do something inside and go to Craigdarroch Castle in downtown Victoria. It turned out to be a clear blue sky day so afterwards we walked around Fisherman’s Wharf.

The castle was the home of coal baron Robert Dunsmuir. Once the children had spent all the money and could no longer afford it, it first became a veterans hospital, then Victoria College, then a music conservatory and finally a historical museum.

The estate used to have 28 acres but now it has little more than the ground that the castle stands on.

Admission was about $18 and you just wandered around the 4 floors of the building at your leisure.

Wood everywhere. This is the view up the main staircase.

And down from the top floor.

One of the volunteers said that a lot of the furnishings here now did not belong to the Dunsmuir's because it had been auctioned off but the preservation society had tried to make everything as authentic as possible.

We loved the bookstand with a candle holder.

One great things about the house was that most of the windows were stained glass.

The pictures are going to be a bit boring but we were in each room so this is our record of the visit.

We loved the ornate serving table on the right side of the dining room.

We were told not to touch anything, even the walls as the oils on your hand would stain the wood. All the chairs in the hallways had little ropes across them.

A very messy panorama of the stairwell landing.

Another amazing stairwell landing.

The Tower Room is a circular room at the top of the turret at the front of the house.

Even the doors were curved.

The smoking room with the window of Sir Walter Raleigh.

This little dog was in a corner.

One more window that I liked.

By now it was around 2 o’clock. We had brought our lunch so we drove down to the nearby waterfront and the point with the parasailers where we had turned around on our hike the other day.

It was just a terrible, cloudy and rainy day.

Since it was so nice and we were close, we moved the car a little farther west to Ogden Point. We first walked out along the breakwater and then along the shore to Fisherman’s Wharf and back. Altogether it was about 5.5 km and after all the walking around the castle in the morning we we pretty beat.

Along the shore.

And then out the breakwater.

And back.

Ogden Point is where all the cruise ships land. One of the volunteers at the castle said that they should start appearing next week. Downtown will be much more crowded.

We walked farther along the shore to Fisherman’s Wharf. Part of it is actually used by fishing boats.

The other is is made up of floating homes. Most of the ones close to shore are businesses.

Even though we had had lunch a short time ago we succumbed to the smell of fried fish and chowder.

The rest of the ones out each pier were private homes and most were very unique.

Remember that these are all floating on the water and just tied to the pier.

One the fish shops sold plates of cut up fish so you could feed the harbour seals.

They actually gave you two plates. You had to use one to keep the other one covered or the seagulls would dive bomb you and steal everything.

This one guy kept splashing with his flippers to get your attention to throw him some fish. It was very competitive.

The ones on the end had a great view of the harbour.

The middle pier had a spot for the little harbour ferries that you can take, hop on / hop off, to various points around the bay.

And for those times when you need a very quick sight seeing tour, triple 250 hp outboards.

There will be no mention as to what happened at this shop and you do not see Jennie in line. (We did not have any dinner back at the RV)

We headed back to the car and when we got there it was around 5 pm so we plodded back to the RV in rush hour.