We took two ferries to get from Seshelt to Nanaimo -- up at 4:30AM to make it happen too. The early morning was due in part to the fear of long holiday lineups at the Horsehoe Bay ferry terminal. So we beat the traffic by getting there at 7AM.
A couple weeks back I wrote a post about my first impressions of Nanaimo and frankly, they weren't very good. I had a couple folks comment that I missed all the good bits and made some suggestions on how to improve things. This time round I did a couple things differently:
- on the ferry ride over, I reviewed the comments from Mindi, Tratz and Jeff.
- First place we went was the visitor centre for a better map of the city. Nanaimo has a large number of streets that change names for no apparent reason, so it can be a little confusing to get around at first.
- Second thing we did was drive to the harbour and PARK.
I can honestly say that the harbour area of Nanaimo looks a lot better on foot. Earlier I bemoaned the lack of decent restaurants -- we really enjoyed the floating Mexican restaurant right on the harbour that I'm sure we drove past the first time without spotting. We also found 3-4 other places we'll be checking out this weekend. It looks like a really friendly downtown to travel on foot.
We took a spin out to the Nanaimo Aquatic Centre for a great swim and soak -- it's an excellent facility and we'll be going back.
Our hosts for the weekend are the excellent folks at the Painted Turtle Guesthouse and Hostel. it's a neat little place -- clean rooms, well lit common area (if a little small) and really friendly people. Looks like we're in for a great Canada Day weekend!