No Regrets!

Got dropped at the gas station in Parksville and was met with hugs from my mom and sister. After a week of solo travel, it was great be with family again.

Parksville is a small town nestled between mountains and rocky beaches. It’s filled with deer, black bunnies, and old people. We’d spend the days seeing the local sights: an international sand castle competition, Little Mountain, Horne Lake, Qualicum Falls, and Rathtrevor Beach, which is the most massive beach I have ever seen when the tide is out. It’s a half-mile walk to the water’s edge.

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So it’s actually a bit of a hassle getting from Vancouver to Victoria. You’d think there would be convenient departures from Vancouver, but it takes almost two hours of trains and buses just to get to the ferry terminal south of the city. Then another hour and a half on the ferry itself.

The boat is enormous, pretty much the size of a cruise ship, only a bit more industrial-looking. The ride is slow and smooth and rumbles with a vibration that feels kind of nice if you’re sitting in the right part of the boat.

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After zipping by the Canadian border that all the suckers in cars had to stop at, my train finally ended its journey at Vancouver’s Pacific Central Station. There’s no Uber in Vancouver, and oddly, there were no taxis waiting at the train station, so I began the long, hilly walk through the city with suitcase in tow to my hostel.

I immediately set out to explore the city. First, Granville Island Public Market, a 45-second ferry ride from downtown Vancouver. My favorite merchant was the Broom Company shop, where the Schweiger sisters make fancy, creative-looking brooms. As she used a machine to wind a new broom, one of the sisters told me that broom corn is the name of the plant harvested for its bristles. I also learned that broom bristles were traditionally “round” and unfinished, but it was in the 1850’s that it became fashionable to neatly trim them to make a flat edge.

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