Victoria, British Columbia

Sat 25^th July

Took a bus tour, open top bus

clean affluent city, oozing wealth

old money families who founded trade here

must have been a bit of a gateway to the Pacific.

Apologies about my geography booboo last letter too

heading up to Port Angeles we left Oregon and into Washington state

Some famous old hotel

Spaniards here early on, then Capt Cook, the man's been everywhere

same old story, settlers squeezed in beside indians

did a treaty deal to reserve them their patch

then gold got discovered and the patch got too valuable for the indians to have anymore

so they got moved on, the tour guide didnt say where to.

I havent seen any around, but he did say they were settled for 10,000 pounds per family

whether this means hapu or whanau or iwi size family I dunno

but you could hazard a fair guess.

Actually, I felt a little sick about it, surrounded by so much sense-palpable wealth

as the tour bus took us round and through the snob rock mansions.

Not that I'm a subscriber to digging up the past...

in previous mention about the % of cars on the road being predominantly Japanese

I omitted the other noticeable marque is BMW, and mercedes

so i reckon, if you get onto a scrap with honkies, the best plan is to lose as long and magnificently as you can

then beat them at their own game later if at all possible, (or marry them if they arent too ugly).

Speaking of wealth, did notice in the Oregon newspaper, a political protest movement run by a white woman against financial control by the wealthy...

this is the land of the free after all!

Lots of machinery to drool over here

Canadians, definitely un-hillbilly compared to the Yanks...

you can feel the difference, and a natural 'kinship' leaning towards you.

In a sports bar last night we were intrigued by a couple of girls engrossed in game of aussie rules on the big screen...

the were aussies!

Richard struck up a conversation with a scottish couple on house-swap 5 week vacation, a retired Glasgow policeman, mentioned the sectarian violence in Glasgow, (ie Catholic vs Protestant), was actually worse there than in Ireland

which is basically a Northern British Ireland vs southern Irish Ireland problem.

I forget exactly what colour he said, but like the Mongies and Black Power back home, it's patch related

reds vs greens, or whatever, so you be very careful what colour scarf you wear.........

just by way of a bit more trivia for you.

Local Parliament Building I think

Speaking of colour, the Canadian money is nice, big notes, bright colours

bit better than ours I think.

The US dollars are quite dowdy, you have to be careful shelling them out, its very easy to confuse them

and they're real nutters at using $1 bills for change

but i suppose its better than a pocket full of shrapnel.

Just read the local rag, found some indians, First Nation they're called

they're down on the west coast of the island, looks like a reserve, main centre Tofino

where the streets are dirt streets

pretty incongruous so close to all this affluence.

One of their chiefs has just been elected national president of the First Nations council

and the local iwi are hopeful its going to lead to an improvement in health, substance abuse, housing, and employment issues...

sounds familiar.

We've passed several tribal casinos on the way up

some of them seemed so remote you'd wonder they get enough patronage.

Seem to have their share of murders here too

and even here, you get panhandled, hustled, and otherwise touched up in the street

2 per block this morning.

GST is a  big issue. They're in the thro's of trying to combine sales tax and a thing called PST which is discrimanatory on all sorts of items (underprivileged get a food PST rebate), into a general 12% GST so we're well ahead on this one.

Also on the cellphone business too...

global roaming is simply a worthless dog outside of main centres

and i dont know if Vodafone's carrier partner AT&T are any better.

I've enquired about buying a local sim card but it simply isnt worth it, coverage is so bad.

It looks like competing carriers have set up in each state, so national coverage is a joke

and within-state coverage less than 50%.

With 97% 3G coverage, NZ's in dreamtime compared with the leading nation in the world.

My cellphone GPS isnt working, GPS chews battery power, and the bike dosent have a power outlet

and havent yet been able to work out how to enrol for Nokia maps USA, when the cellphone dosent work anyway.

But free wifi internet at all hotels, working as well as it is, incl email service, is a worthy alternative

we can just google map the tricky bits night before.

I've bought a couple of post-it pads, (yes, you can get them here, all bic stuff as well)

put each intersection instruction on consecutive pages

stick it on the tank, or in the dash glovebox, and peel and go.

Found a pub screening the AB 's Springboks tri-nations game this afternoon.

Thought the boys played well, Stephen Donald much improved steady game, Conrad Smith tackled and worked well, Isaac Ross too, Piri was naughty holding that ruck feed so long.

so.....

nice place Victoria, but a bit expensive.

Asked the room service girl where i could get a good steak

she didnt know because they didnt eat out, nice place to live, but very dear, about sums it up.