This week’s walk is based off of John Crouch’s walk #3

I say based off as many of his walks take in the same areas.. .and although it is nice to see how spring is arriving little by little each week, it does get repetitive. So this walk is a bit shorter. 3.98km.

We (Dragon-kun, Ryuu-chan, and I) started our walk in Cook Street Village at Moka House (all walks must have coffee). Walked south, past the croquet lawns, the bowling green and the cricket pitch to the Robbie Burns monument (don’t ever say that Victoria, British Columbia was not colonized by the English and Scottish).

We then walked past the Children’s Farm up to the flag pole on top of Beacon Hill.

This was also an important place for the Lekwungen peoples whose unseated territories Victoria is located. (I will be doing a blog on the signs of the Lekwungen people in a future blog).

There is aspindle whorl in each of the important areas. The one here is to mark the place where the Lekwungen played a games similar to field hockey, a village was at the bottom of the hill and camas bulbs were harvested as an important food source.

There is also a place fenced off where there are burial cairns.

Walking along Dallas Road we came across some interesting art and people paragliding.

We then entered Ross Bay Cemetery and visited the grave of Lorne Lewis, a pioneer black policeman, the Kakehashi monument (which honours the 150 Japaneses people buried here), and Emily Carr’s grave. If you visit the cemetery, there is a pamphlet with all the “notable” sites on it that you can pick up at the caretaker’s office.

We then made our way toward Government House. On our way, there was an elderly Asian woman who looked confused and approached us speaking Mandarin or Cantonese. I tried to use Google translate, but it didn’t help. There a young man she also tried to get to help her . I called the police and they also tried to help, but not knowing what language she was speaking made it really hard. In the end, a neighbour of hers recognized her and brought her home.

In the excitement Ryuu-chan lost her tassel. We will see if we can mend Ryuu-chan. Ryuu-chan said not to worry if we can’t as she thought it made her bum look big. Dragon-kun and I decided to ignore this comment.

We walked to Government House, but the flowers weren’t in bloom (the Royals sometimes stay here when they visit).

We then walked to Pioneer Square and saw more graves and memorial.

We then walked back to Cook Street Village exhausted. But did find interesting graffiti on the way back.

If you are interested in this walk (lost elderly woman, not guaranteed) there are several places to park on this circular route:

In front of the cricket pitch, or by the Children’s Farm (both in Beacon Hill Park), along Dallas Road, and at the Fairfield Plaza( in front of Ross Bay Cemetery).