We got up, showered, ate breakfast, packed our luggage up and put it in the car, and went for a final walk around the beach. The tide was out, and looking at the first couple of pictures I took that day, I’m really wishing I’d taken a few more from the balcony. The light was really good, and the alternating pools of water and sand where the tide had retreated looked great.

The little cairns of rocks waited for us in the early morning sun.

We climbed back in the car and drove off. Due to a navigational glitch, we bypassed the “Nanaimo by-pass” and ended up driving through the city. (For the record, Highway 19 is the bypass, not Highway 19a.)

We arrived in Victoria with several hours in hand, so we parked the car in the Royal British Columbia Museum car park (we tried to use up our Canada money in the parking meter, but failed) and wandered into the museum, seeing Cirque du Soliel’s “Journey of Man” IMAX film before looking around the exhibit halls. There were three exhibits I remember in particular: a marine/coastal life re-creation; a First People’s gallery, with detailed descriptions of tools, clothes, houses, and particularly the impact of the coming of the missionaries and “modern” society; and a “modern history” gallery, complete with a rebuilt portion of “the old Nanaimo Hotel”, a cobbled street, a saw mill, and a boat dock inside the museum! It was all very interesting.

We left the museum at around 4:00pm and got the car returned to the Avis depot, and they kindly gave us a lift to the Helijet terminal.

We had hoped that this time we would be flying while it was still light, but alas, it was not to be. We waited until 5:20 in the waiting room, and by the time we boarded the helicopter – again, it was just the three of us on the flight – it was again totally dark.

I was on the right hand side of the aircraft again, and this time I saw the glow of the fading sunset, with Venus reflecting in the bay instead of Jupiter.

Sherri met us at the airport on the other side, after we’d come through customs again. It was great to see her! She drove us back to their house, and once we’d been shown our room, we took our shoes off and relaxed.