On the Friday of the week we arrived in Canada we took a bus to Tsawwassen and took a ferry across to Vancouver Island. Another bus ride later and we were in Victoria, the capital of British Columbia.

We spent the afternoon/evening walking around the waterfront, admiring the famous Empress Hotel which looks like a fairytale castle, the Parliament buildings and the harbour. There was a big yacht race on over the weekend so lots of expensive yachts were moored in the harbour and there were lots of people about, watching street performers and spray paint artists, and taking horse-drawn carriage rides.

The next morning we visited the Bastion markets. There were some beautiful artworks and jewellery there and we got talking to a few locals about their work. Next we went to the Royal Museum of British Columbia, which has interesting exhibits about BC’s history and wildlife. There is also a great section on First Nations culture (this is the politically correct name for the aboriginal Canadians) and there were examples of their huts and tools. It was very sad reading about how their population was decimated by disease and conflict with the settlers. After the museum we visited Thunderbird Park nearby, which had many tall painted totem poles with images of eagles and bears on them.

Unfortunately at this stage Sara was starting to feel nauseous so we went back to the hostel. And lucky we did because within half an hour she was praying to the porcelain god.

After about three hours of intermittent, spectacular vomiting, I braved the crackhead-infested streets of Victoria at night in search of a “drug store” to get Sara some anti-nausea tablets.

She continued to be sick every couple of hours, made much more horrific due to the fact we didn't have a private bathroom – so she had to keep running across the hall from our room and lock herself in the bathroom.

As it turned out, we discovered that several members of staff at the hostel had come down with something similar so I had obviously picked it up there.

The following morning we drove to Butchard Gardens, not far out of Victoria. It’s a massive garden that was thought up and designed in 1904 by Lady Butchard, who wanted to beautify her husband’s excavated limestone quarry. There’s a massive sunken garden with a big mound in the middle from which there was a good view of the rest of the garden, a big rose garden, Italian and Japanese Gardens, a massive manmade lake with a fountain. The gardens were lovely especially as a lot of the spring blooms were out, but very touristy and slow going for Sara as she still wasn’t feeling very well.

From there we headed north up the side of Saanich Inlet. For the first couple of hours Sara caught up on some sleep after being sick most of the night but I woke her up for the highlights – lovely views of the islands between Vancouver Island and the mainland.

Next stop was Chemainus, a logging town famous for the murals on many of the buildings around town. Most of the murals depict working life, such as loggers, steam trains and the famous mural of the First Nations people. We followed the signposted tourist walk past some historic houses and murals down to the waterfront.

We spent the night in Nanaimo (Nelly Furtado is from there), which was pretty quiet, but all Sara wanted to do by then was go to sleep anyway.

The next morning we had a look at the old Bastion at Nanaimo and enjoyed the sunny weather by taking a walk along the waterfront and watching a few seaplanes take off. Then we headed inland to Coombs, where there is a famous fresh produce market with goats living on the roof. I don’t know how it began, but the roof is now covered in grass and the goats happily munch away up there. It’s a bit of a novelty and the town markets it by producing T-shirts and the usual souvenirs with goats on them.

We headed across the island from east to west, which took about two and a half hours. It wasn’t long before we were driving alongside Lake Cameron, which was gorgeous. The scenery was like something out of a postcard - the blue-green lake and steep pine-studded mountains stretching high up on either side.

Upon reaching the west side of the island we got a motel room in Ucluelet, a small fishing town on a peninsula. We went for a walk and literally metres from our motel room we spotted a Bald Eagle, flying back to its nest in a tree not far away. We walked down to a jetty nearby as we’d seen its mate land in a tree on an island not far from the shore. As we walked onto the jetty we suddenly heard a big splash and realised that we’d disturbed a big sea lion, which was now swimming around underneath the jetty. Then we heard some noise on the other side of the jetty and three river otters popped up onto a pontoon nearby. We didn’t know what to look at first – the eagle, the otters or the sea lion! The otters grabbed our attention though as they are so cute and were having fun playing in and out of the water. The eagle stayed perched in the tree for ages so we got a good look at it with the binoculars, and we became aware that there were sea lions swimming about quite frequently.

We went on a 2km walk the next morning to a Amphitrite lighthouse, part of the Wild Pacific Trail. As we were admiring the view down the coast we saw another bald eagle fly directly over us and perch in the tree above our heads!

Later in the day we went on a three-hour sea kayaking tour around Ucluelet Harbour, which is a big inlet on a river as well as the sea. We were both a little nervous as I had been squeamish for the last couple of days too and Sara still wasn’t 100% so we hadn’t felt like eating for the last three days and wondered if we were up to it. However it was an absolutely gorgeous day, and so calm that our guide, Kevin, took us outside the harbour. Luckily the other couple on the tour, a nice American couple from Ohio, were confident kayakers too, so we paddled over to an island offshore to see a sea lion colony. Kevin explained that we couldn’t get too close as sea lions only see in black, white, and green, so in a kayak with our persons sitting up we can resemble orcas to them and they get nervous.

We saw lots more bald eagles around the harbour and got really close to a juvenile one – even it was huge. We also saw a cheeky river otter try to sneak some seafood from a fisherman’s catch, lots of huge orange and purple starfish, and some more sea lions which kept swimming under our kayaks. We were told to bang on the side of the kayaks to warn them so they wouldn’t accidentally bump us. Kevin knew lots about the area and the wildlife so he was really interesting to talk to.

The area along the coast of British Columbia usually has grey whales at this time of year, but they had all been scared off this year by some military operations. Apparently the Canadian, US and Australian Navies had been using a battleship off the coast of the island for target practice. They have stopped doing it now and the whales are starting to appear again.

That night we stayed at a lovely self-contained guesthouse in Tofino, on another peninsula north of Ucluelet. Tofino is a beautiful town – as well as being surrounded on both nearly all sides by water, there are beautiful views looking back to the snow-capped mountain range in the middle of the island. It is situated on Clayquot Sound, the first British Colombian UNESCO reserve.

We went for a morning walk along MacKenzie Beach the next day. We saw some people in wetsuits having a go at surfing, although the waves weren’t really big enough to stand up on.

In the afternoon we went on a boat trip up the passage between the many islands in the sound. We saw more bald eagles, river otters and a sea otter (these are fluffier and fatter than their sleek river cousins). Our First Nations guide also pointed out some of the reserves where many First Nations people still live.

Our destination was Hotsprings Cove, on an island in Maquinna Provincial Marine Park. You can only get there by boat, although there are quite a few companies providing boat trips to there. We went at the end of the day, so there were less people (and increased our chance of seeing wildlife). The hotsprings are a couple of kilometres from where the boats can dock but there’s a boardwalk through the rainforest. The hotsprings flow over a small waterfall and create about four pools, each one hotter than the next, until the warm water reaches the rocky shore about 50 metres away. When we first got there it was standing room only as the pools are quite small and there were about 40 people there, but by the time we’d been there an hour it was just our boat of ten people left. It was really nice to sit in the pools with the sun out and be able to see the water and another island in the distance.

Back at the small dock we were waiting for the boat to come back for us and got talking to our first fellow Aussie, a nurse from Newcastle. We were also watching a harbour seal playing around slapping its tail around in the water to stun fish.

On the way back on the boat we came back down the coast rather than through the islands, and were lucky enough to see three or four humpbacks whales! It was very exciting, but the swell was pushing the boat around a fair bit and we had to come in eventually as a few people felt nauseous.

Back in Tofino we talked about our amazing day over a meal in a pub overlooking (and overhanging) Tofino harbour. The views of the sun going down and reflecting off the water with the views of the mountains behind were incredible – I don’t think our photos can do it justice. To top things off we noticed a little river otter swimming backwards and forwards just in the water below.

The next morning we went to the Pacific Rim National Park, which is situated between Ucluelet and Tofino (there is only one road across the island to these places). We went for a walk through a forest to Long Beach. The beaches aren’t white sand like Australia, but they are sandy and look great with the forest and mountains as a backdrop.

We also visited the Wikkaninnish Interpretive Centre, which has information about the park, its flora and fauna and also information about the First Nations tribes in the area. The beach there was interesting as it had collected washed-up logs, and half the beach was filled with them.

Leaving the western side of the island, we headed east then north up to Courtenay. It was a nice enough town on the river but we really only stopped for the night, before driving to nearby Comox Valley the next morning. We visited a place called Goose Spit – strange name but great views of the mainland and the mountains on the island.

We had read that in summer you can take cable car rides to the top of Mount Washington for even better views, so we decided to head up there next. It’s mainly a skiing area so there were hardly any other cars on the road up. That worked in our favour because suddenly Sara noticed a bear on the side of the road! It took a few seconds for me to take in what I was seeing and tell me to stop the car. It was a black bear (there are no Grizzlies on Vancouver Island) and it was just happily feeding on some grass shoots at the side of the road, on an embankment. We had stopped the car about fifteen metres away and it wasn’t even bothered. Eventually another car went by and the bear moved further away over the other side of the embankment, so we continued our drive up the mountain. The scenery was nice and there was still snow around as we got higher.

When we reached the top of Mt Washington we discovered that there was nothing happening up there, but we didn’t even care as we were still excited about seeing the bear! The views from there were lovely though.

Back on the coast we visited Miracle Beach. It didn’t really compare to the beaches at the Pacific Rim National Park, but there were good views of the mainland and the Coast Mountains, many of which are as high as the Rocky Mountains.

We reached Campbell River in the afternoon, and went for a walk in Elk Falls Provincial Park. There was a beautiful big waterfall there and we were able to walk along the river. Campbell River itself was nothing special but a good place to do day trips from and is famous for salmon.

The next day we went on another boat trip. It was with a small local family-run business and there was just one other couple on the boat, as well as our guide, Gary. He had grown up in the area and had married a First Nations woman so knew a lot about the area. We felt glad we had picked his company to go with as he was a really nice guy, and his wife had died of cancer a couple of years before – it was quite a sad story.

We had hoped to see some bears feeding along the shore as they like to turn the rocks over to look for crabs, but I guess we’d seen our quota of bears for this trip because there were none about. It was a really warm, sunny day though, and apparently they don’t like the heat.

But we were even luckier – we saw some orcas! The whole trip we had been hoping to see some when we got to Campbell River, although it was a bit early in the season. We came upon pod of about eight of them near Bute Sound. They came within 50 metres away and we could hear the sounds of their blowholes as they surfaced. The backdrop was just beautiful and there were no other vessels in the vicinity. We watched them for about half an hour but they were moving north quickly and Gary had other sights to show us.

Next we went to see a colony of Stellar sea lions. These are the really big tan ones, different to the Californian ones we’d seen in Ucluelet and San Francisco. In the boat we were able to get pretty close and have a really good look at them.

Next he took us to see some ocean rapids. Apparently the tide changes so quickly in that area that it creates rapids and whirlpools and you have to be careful, even in a motor boat. It was pretty cool to see. There were some harbour seals having a great time fishing in the rapids.

Gary told us that the whirlpools created by the tides changing pull up fish from the bottom. The fish rise so fast they effectively get the bends and their stomachs explode! The seals weren’t the only ones interested in the carcasses floating to the top - there must have been at least sixty bald eagles flying around one section of the river, near the rapids. It was amazing to see – they were literally circling and diving for the fish right in front of us.

The rest of the boat trip mostly involved fantastic scenery, as we could see over to the Coast Mountains on the mainland and the mountains in Strathcona Provincial Park in the middle of the island. This boat trip was by far the highlight of our trip to the island.

The next day we drove inland to Strathcona Provincial Park, through beautiful forests and along Campbell Lake. We did some short walks to Myra Falls, Lupin Falls, and the Wild Ginger Nature trail which took us through the forest. Suprisingly there weren’t many other people about, even though it was Sunday, so it was nice and peaceful.

On the road through the park we saw a deer strolling along the side of the road – it nearly had a heart attack when it saw us and bounded up the embankment on the far side. We saw another one further on which wasn’t as skittish, so we got a better look.

We wanted to see some Elk but it was the wrong season and wrong time of day – however there’s always an off chance, so we drove to a common sighting place and walked down a little track to have a look. We came across an old guy who volunteers in the park and knew all about the plants. Sara was genuinely interested to start with as we didn’t recognise them, but he latched on and we couldn’t get a word in edgeways. Luckily another couple came up just as we were trying to extricate ourselves so he turned his attention to them and we escaped.

Driving down the road, heading out of the park, we saw a couple of cars stopped in the middle of the road and we also stopped to see what they were looking at. It was another bear but this one was even bigger than the previous ones we’d seen, with a big shiny black coat. It was feeding on some plants and seemed to be wondering what all the fuss was about. We got some really great photos from the safety of the car.

Back on the coast, we had a short stop at Parksville, a pleasant seaside town, before heading south back to Victoria for the night.

On Monday morning we returned our hire car, then had another brief look around Victoria before heading back to the ferry for the mainland. After over a week of fantastic sunny weather, the rain set in, a sure sign that our holiday was over and we had to get back to the reality of looking for houses and jobs.