Honeymoon Day 3

Goodbye Victoria. Goodbye Beautiful View.

I tried for the sunrise again, but the clouds weren't havin' any of it. I went back to sleep a couple of hours, then we woke up, had breakfast on the balcony again, then we had to pack up and check out. While we were having breakfast a gull decided to stop by and hang out on the ledge of the balcony.

Glaucous-winged Gull

Full Body

We walked to lunch at Mo:Le. (Erin had mac and cheese, I had fish tacos) After that, we wandered for a bit more.

Fan Tan Alley

Then we set off for Nanaimo. We made a stop at a viewpoint along the way, got some nice pictures, then continued on.

Great Sights from the View Point

Erin Enjoying It

One Last Shot from the View Point

Once there, we checked into our hotel, the Best Western Dorchester. It wasn't the Delta Victoria, but nice enough. We got our stuff in, relaxed for a little while then headed to the Buttertubs Marsh. We had a little bit of a struggle finding it, it's actually surrounded by a residential area and it wasn't clear at first where exactly it was. After closer reading of the website, we found a trail entrance. There is a short (~2km) loop around the marsh, with plenty of birds to be heard and found. There is also a man made structure for Osprey nesting, though there was no nest there currently. Perhaps the coolest feature of the park was an elevated platform for bird viewing. We did spot two types of birds we hadn't seen before.

Spotted Towhee

Bushtit (I think)

Along with a couple of other things.

Spit Bug (There were lots)

Red-Winged Blackbird (This is probably the best picture of one I've gotten)

Squirrel (Also probably the best picture of one I've gotten)

Once we finished at the marsh we were getting hungry so we headed to dinner at Penny's Palapa. It was a floating Mexican restaurant. Erin had a vegetarian plate, I had red snapper molinera.

Cute

After dinner we walked the marina, found a place that had some gelato so we stopped in for a treat. Erin had  white chocolate raspberry and I had spumante. From there we saw a pier with a lot of people on it, so decided to walk down there. That was a great decision, we spotted a bald eagle hunting for fish. The people on the pier were crabbing, so we saw a lot of crabs, and one of the people was also using some of her crab bait to feed a seal! Unfortunately, I hadn't brought a camera, so all I was able to grab were phone shots. None turned out worth posting, so we planned to return the next night. After all that we decided we were tired and headed back to our hotel to relax for a bit more and turn in for the night.

Tim Horton's count - 5