Christmas 2012 in Victoria

Finally getting into the Christmas spirit! My friend and I decided to go for a walk downtown to check out a few Christmasy things that happen in Victoria. It was a beautiful day in Victoria. It wasn’t very cold for a December day. So off we went! I love all the different lights around the place. Victoria definitely puts some effort into it.

First stop was to find free parking…. Soooo we ended up parking at Ogden Point and decided to take a stroll out on the breakwater. The sky was doing awesome things, and there was a pelican around the area which is rare around Victoria.

Next stop, gingerbread houses at the Laurel Point Inn. I wasn’t sure what to expect from this. We got there, and I was blown away! Wasn’t expecting the gingerbread houses to look that amazing! The people must have put so much time in making them. It was awesome! And it smelled amazing there!

The next one was one of my favs.

So much detail!

After the gingerbread houses, we walked over to the Empress Hotel to check out the Festival of Trees that they have every year. Pretty much a company goes in on a tree and they decorate a tree together.

Yes, that’s a really big gingerbread castle!

Mandatory reflection shot.

Afterwards, we just wandered/drove around town for a bit while taking a few pictures here and there.

And there you have it… A glimpse of what Victoria looks like during Christmas! Thought I would post a bunch more pictures because I haven’t been updating very often.. But hope you all have an awesome Christmas and New Years! Feel free to drop me a line any time!

Butchart Gardens in June

Matt and I had annual passes to the Butchart Gardens. Throughout the year we kept saying “yeah! Let’s go to the gardens!” But we would either be really busy or we’d forget about it. Since our passes are nearing the expiry, we decided to finally go. Matt’s friend, Shane came along too. It was his first time at the gardens, and I think he had a good time!

The weather wasn’t the greatest, but it was great to us because:
a) cloudy days = great shooting conditions
b) not crazy busy

Here’s a shot from the lookout point in the middle of the gardens. It was awesome!

Some of the old equipment. The Butchart Gardens used to be a limestone quarry. It’s really hard to believe that it went from that to a beautiful garden.

Shane’s first carousel ride EVER. It was magical.

The venue where they have live concerts everyday during the summer.

What can I say? I love symmetry.

I also love reflection shots.

One of the few roses that are trying really hard to bloom. It’s still too early for 95% of the roses.

This next shot is near impossible to take on a nice day because usually it’d be filled with A LOT of people.

Japanese gardens!

Not sure what it is, but I really like this shot. Maybe because of the tree? The colours? I don’t know.

So here’s hoping I’ll be able to visit the gardens at night because that would be awesome! And maybe catch a fireworks show in the summer.

Recon Mission at Sugarloaf

Nashira had a day off last Saturday, so we decided to do an exploring trip. Throughout the week I kept checking the weather forecast because the weather has been pretty bad lately. It kept going from being sunny to raining less than a millimeter to showers. So we had to play it by ear.

Saturday arrives and it was sunny, so we decided to go for it. We decided to go hike Sugarloaf which is a rock climbing area that we’ve never been before. There has been talk about a large loose rock on the face, so we were going to investigate this. We got to the pullout where we’re supposed to park, and we started hiking. About 15 – 20 minutes into the hike we had to cross a creek. This was the bridge to cross it… Could you tell it was made by rock climbers?

Just over an hour later, we made it to the top! Loved the views!

It turned out to be such a beautiful day except it was windy once we got out of the protected areas. We had lunch up on the top, and then scoped out the rock climbing situation. It looked like there’s a lot of potential there. Throughout the hike, we kept going back and forth saying how we should’ve lugged all our climbing gear up the hill… But we didn’t… And besides, the rock was sort of wet anyways, so it wouldn’t have been fun. Sigh…. This trip was such a tease. Can we have summer now, please?

I Think We’re Off to a Good Start to the Year

On Tuesday, John, Matt, and I decided to go snowshoeing just outside of Port Alberni. We decided to snowshoe the Saddle Trail which is a trail that leads to the saddle between Mt Cokely and Mt Arrowsmith. It’s about a 4km round trip, and this was going to be my first snowshoeing experience!! We weren’t sure if we were going to summit a mountain or not. Just had to play it by ear. So off we go! Here we are at the start of the trail. We were lucky there wasn’t that much snow on the roads so we were able to make it to the desired spot.

You can see in the next picture that is where we’re roughly going… Straight ahead into the mountains (and the trail starts on the right).

This was about halfway (or just over halfway). No one around. Beautiful views. It was perfect besides the fact that I’m totally out of shape, so I was really tired at this point, and it was also raining/snowing so I was pretty wet by then. This was also the spot where the snow was deep enough for us to actually start snowshoeing! Yay!

We’re almost at the top of the saddle! It was beautiful! This part got really windy I guess because we were out of the trees. But at least my feet were still dry!

We made it to the top of the saddle! The wind got a bit crazy here, and it hurt when ice hits you in the face… So we had to wait it out until we were able to get a group shot. We’re soaked, but we’re still smiling. Time to run down the hill on the nice soft snow! What a great trip. Hopefully there will be more to come! … Must… Snowshoe… More! … And maybe get a Gortex jacket.

If you missed my previous post (HDR pictures of the Saddle Trail), check it out here – Week 44 of HDR Project: Saddle Trail

Week 40 of HDR Project: Festival of Trees at The Empress Hotel

It’s hard to believe that it’s December already and it’s actually feeling more and more like Christmas. Usually I don’t really get into Christmas because a lot of places start playing Christmas music WAY too early, and people just go crazy. But this year it seems like things are going pretty well! I decided to check out the Festival of Trees at the Empress Hotel with my friend Matty. They display Christmas trees all over the place, and they’re really nice! All the trees are decorated by a different company/school/organization, and it’s to raise funds for the BC Children’s Hospital Foundation. So it’s pretty awesome. I’m going to try to keep a festive theme going for the next couple of weeks of my HDR project. So I suggest you all to go wander around downtown with a coffee/hot chocolate in hand and enjoy the city! Downtown Victoria is already really pretty too especially when (and after) the sun goes down. I feel so blessed to live in such a beautiful place!

13mm, ISO 800, F5

10mm, ISO 800, F4

50mm, ISO 200, F1.4

Week 32 of HDR Project: Fall in Victoria

Fall has arrived, days are getting shorter, temperatures are dropping…

I love sunny days in the Fall especially days like these. It’s beautiful outside. Not too cold and not too warm. And the leaves are going from green to yellow! This is the Gordon Head area. It’s a really nice place. I love the line of trees on both sides of the road. I’m definitely going to be on the look out for more amazing Fall locations (more reds and oranges). But yeah, just thought I’d snap a quick shot here.

12mm, ISO 800, F6.3

Finally Made It Out To Squamish!!

It’s been a pretty crazy summer this year! It’s been rainy and cooler than usual. It’d be nice every day and then it’d rain when I wanted to go to Squamish. It was weird! But finally August rolled around and the weather started feeling more like summer. So obviously I had to head out there and boy does it feel GREAT to finally meet up with the Chief once again! Me, Rachael, Lynn, and Emma did a day of hiking all three peaks (since I’ve never been to third peak yet). And the next day it’ll be rock climbing!! Super stoked!!

We started hiking it, and wow have they developed the area. There were SO many stairs now! (Boooo!!) It’s starting to feel like the Grouse Grind – hate hate hate!! I guess it’s becoming a really popular place to go. But anyways, here’s the first little stop.

There’s a cool secret path (sort of) that easily links up the first and second peaks without having to backtrack. So to get to the first peak, there was a ladder with steps made from rebar drilled into the rock. It was super cool! Rachael and I scrambled up there while the other two waited for us. This pic is up at first peak facing the other direction.

A panoramic shot of Second Peak! (click on these pictures for higher res)

And here’s the crew!

There’s this amazing chasm between second and third peak. I’m pretty sure this is where you can set up a highline…. Tempting… AND super crazy!

Third Peak!! Thanks for the awesome times!

Week 20 – Nanaimo River

Ok, quick post before I have to head off to music practice. I’m almost halfway through my year long HDR project! Yay!

Dion and I went rock climbing and camping at Nanaimo River. We were there for 3 days, and it was awesome! This is the view we get to wake up to… Not too shabby. This is Sunny Side where we spent a whole day rock climbing.

10mm, ISO 200, F8

The last day of rock climbing, we decided to check out the other side of the river which is called “Dark Side”. Amazing rock climbing. This place is so crazy! We hiked from the car and down a ladder and had to go through the underside of huge rocks. It was quite something. Here’s an HDR pic of what I’m talking about.

11mm, ISO 400, F4.5

Once you walk out from under the huge rocks and all that, you’re greeted by amazing looking rock faces on both sides. There’s a lot of amazing climbs here!

10mm, ISO 400, F4

So that’s a sneak peak of my rock climbing/camping trip. Stay tuned for a more detailed blog posting of the whole trip!

Week 15 – Berwick On The Lake

This week has been really busy for me – LOTS of road trips, rock climbing, and hanging out with friends. Life can’t get any better than this. But anyways, thought I’d do a quick post before I have to head out the door.

My friend Azn Matt and Lotta played two gigs on Sunday. One at a retirement home in Nanaimo and the other one at an old school house which is now an art centre. It was really cool! I decided to drive them to these gigs because I like road trips and I like to drive. So the HDR pics for this week were taken at the retirement home in Nanaimo.

10mm, ISO 200, F8

10mm, ISO 200, F8

 

Whatcom Falls, Washington

Week 8 of HDR photo project… The 2 Shannons and I decided to do some shopping in Bellingham, and obviously, geocaching. So Shannon started planning the geocaching route, and I started looking around Bellingham to see if there were any places where I could take an HDR picture while caching. The result, Whatcom Falls Park.

10mm, ISO 200, F22

It always amazes me seeing waterfalls and hearing the amount of noise these things make. As we kept walking around, there was another waterfall and a bunch of places where you can walk up to the water. It was pretty awesome, so I had no choice but to take more HDR pics. I also needed some backup pictures in case the first HDR picture didn’t work.

11mm, ISO 200, F20

14mm, ISO 200, F25