Being on the south-east tip of Vancouver Island, the Big City of Victoria looks across the 20 odd kilometers of the Strait of Juan de Fuca at the northern end of the Olympic Peninsula. That’s a shame in a way, because it puts the lie to my claim of living “on the Pacific Ocean”. It’s salt water, sure, and they probably claim to be oceaners even further east in Vancouver, but I’m not sure it’s really accurate to say it’s the actual ocean.

On the plus side, it means that you get to look across the oceanic strait at the snow-capped little Olympic Mountains all day, which do neat tricks like fading in and out of the clouds, or suddenly becoming remarkably clear or remarkably pink. And it’s fun to see the lights come on in Port Angeles every night, a nice little town in a whole different country.

This photo doesn’t actually show much of any of that, but maybe that’s what some of the people in the cars are thinking about.