With Canada Day mid-week this year, we decided to spend the whole week on Galiano. We were headed over on Friday night (26th) and staying through the following Sunday. Canada Day was in the middle, and since we had a longer stretch, we decided to spend the weekend on Vancouver Island visiting our friends Stuart and jo and their girls. It had been a while so it was good to see them.

With the days being so long this time of year, it was still light when we arrived off the ferry and got up to the cottage. I gave everythign a good water and sent the Lymow out to mow the lawn. As we were not leaving until about noon on Saturday, we had some time to get some projects done around the place and to get the rest of the lawn cut.

Even in the dark the little guy can get the job done.

It’s pretty great to send it out to cut and I can do other things, like water the gardens.

Lymow in action.

As mentioned, we were off to Victoria on Saturday morning. The ferry from Galiano to Victoria (with a stop at Saturna en route) is a non-bookable route, so we headed to the ferry a little bit early. Unnecessarily as it turned out, as we were one of the first cars there. Still, better than missing the boat (literally). It’s about a 2-hour trip, with the stop at Saturna. I needed to get some work done, so sat at one of the workstations and made some progress. Justine went up top and enjoyed the views, the sunshine and the great start to our weekend.

Heading out from Galiano en route to Sydney.

The route actually goes out and back between Mayne and Pender to get to Saturna, before continuing on to Sydney.

It was a glorious day - looking off the back of the ship.

Pulling into the timny harbour at Saturna. We’d be back to this island in a few days.

While it was a lovely day, it’s still cold sitting up front, out in the fresh air.

I worked for most of the trip, but joined Justine up on deck for the last 1/2 hour or so. It really is amazing, cruising through the Gulf Islands on a ferry! We pulled into Sydney a little bit late, but in decent time. From there we headed over to Stuart and Jo’s place. Stuart was home solo - the girls were doing sleepovers and Jo was out with her mom. So the three of us headed out - Stuart was tour guide, to show us some of his favorite spots in his hood.

Our first stop was the Victoria Cider Company. I’m usually indifferent on cider, but this place was amazing. They were working out of an old barn on this amazing orchard (6,000 trees!), with this great outdoor space with lots of different seating options. We got flights of cider to try, and this was probably the best cider I’ve had. It was amazing.

We each grabbed a flight to try and managed to give most of their offerings a taste. There were some definite winners.

Always a good time with the three (and soon four) of us get together!

It was a fine start to the afternoon. Stuart was definitely 1/1 on this choice.

We had some fun with a round of cornhole. Sadly we had to hand the trophy to Stuart on this occasion.

Such a lovely spot.

From the Cider Company, we headed over to Small Gods, Stuarts favorite brewery in the area. We’ve been to this place a few times - they make amazing beer. We had just sat down and had a drink when Jo joined us!

We finished up our drinks, as we needed to head to the restaurant for our reservation. They had picked a local place that was about a 5 minute walk from the brewery. It was a cool little spot in downtown Sydney. It was more of a tapas type place - we did charcuterie and a couple salads, along with flights of wine. This was heading in a dangerous direction… The food was amazing and the wines were good. We had a grand time chatting and eating and getting caught up.

The restaurant was in this little covered alley, and they had this fun umbrella display set-up. It fit the vibe perfectly.

We were all set for a fine meal!

The food was amazing. Such a good choice. I hate to admit it, but Stuart was 3/3 on his choices for the day.

Justine had a flight of sparkling wines; I went with roses and Stuart had reds. Jo was the sensible one and just went with a glass (as our designated driver).

We had a really great meal and it was so much fun to catch up with them. It had been way too long and we need to fo this more often!

After dinner we headed back to their place. We have a long standing tradition of playing board games and euchre, and tonight ended up as a euchre night. The drinks continued to flow (both Stuart and Justine were hurting a bit the next morning), and we had a super fun night of it.

In the morning, we slept in a little bit, then headed over to this local bakery/restaurant for breakfast. They make amazing breakfast sandwiches, which we partook of. Damn you Stuart - 4/4. We had t pick up their girls at around 11:00, so the timing was perfect. From there, it was back to their place to hang out a little bit longer. They have a lovely backyard and we hung out for a bit, until the Canada World Cup game started.

Ready to cheer for Canada!

Butterflies in the backyard.

We had a dilemma on this trip - we had 2 ferry options to get home. Either around 2:00 or roughly 6:00 p.m. As the Canada game started at 1:00, we didn’t really want to miss it, so we decided to wait for the 6:00 ferry. The risk there was this was another route we could not book, and it was the last ferry of the day. MIss it, and we were staying with Stuart and Jo another night!

The other thing we needed to do was grocery shopping. As we were going to be on Galiano all week, we need groceries - specifically fresh fruit and veggies. So we decided to take the later ferry - stay at Jo and Stuart’s until the game was over, then do our shopping and run to the ferry. It was all sure to work out fine!

The game went well - we were playing South Africa in the first round of the knock out stage, and while it wasn’t the best game ever, the boys pulled out a late winner that left us all yelling and screaming. It was pretty exciting! After that, we said good bye and headed out.

We took a quick run back to the cider place and picked up a few to take home with us. Then we ran back into Sydney and did our grocery shopping. We got everything we needed, and still had a decent amount of time. We made a stop at a local nursery (always a bad idea), and of course I ended up buying a three. And not any tree, but a giant sequoia to replace the two that had already died on me. Hoping this one will do better.

From there we raced to the ferry and were there with lots of time to spare. We keep forgetting how bad the food options are at that terminal and so were stuck with not a lot to eat. From there it was another 2+ hour trip back to Galiano and the rest of our Canada Day week!

Heading for home. Mount Galiano straight ahead.

The sun was setting by the time we got home.