Panographic Honeymoon

Rightfully, we've been receiving a few calls for photos and words about our recent trip to Vancouver Island.

As Natalie's briefly mentioned, it was a good time with a number of solid highlights. There were a number of pictures taken and memories made, which we will give elaboration in the coming days. But, to satisfy the hordes, here are a few bits and pieces that are notable mostly because we used Autostitch to take some panoramic shots.
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We made our way to Vancouver Island on a quick 12-hour trip from our door to the door of Natalie's Uncle Fred and Aunt Barbara. To ensure we got a spot on the ferry from Departure Bay to Horseshoe Bay, we made a reservation. While that was a good idea, we were a bit too keen on our driving and arrived about 2 hours earlier than our reservation. So, instead of waiting in a lineup for a ferry, we took a quick detour into the Departure Bay townsite and found a nice park. From there, we had a pretty view of the city of Vancouver, which really can't be seen that well from this distance.

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On our second day in Nanaimo, we took a day trip to the other side of the island to visit Tofino and Long Beach. Natalie was excited to dip her feet in the Pacific ("not some straight!"). You'd think we'd take a pano of the beach, but, um, that didn't happen. Instead, after some time spent burning on the sand, we went to Tofino and found Tuff City Sushi, a nice sushi restaurant on the Tofino harbour. A picture of our local sashimi will follow in a future post, but from our patio, we could see a nice view of the Tofino harbour.

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On the way to Tofino, we stopped at Citadel Park to see the big Douglas Firs. I think that was the first time (that I can remember) seeing trees that big. I was in awe. We took two panos there.

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In retrospect, there were so many potential panoramic shots we could have taken in Nanaimo, Victoria and along the way, but we just seemed to forget about all those. There are photos, to be sure, but nothing capturing the vista in this way. Actually, we took a lot of pictures of ourselves at various locations. At least we'll remember what we look like :)

On the way back home, we took a few detours to places we'd seen going the other direction. The Last Spike, SFU, Roger's Pass and Moraine Lake. I've never been to Lake Louise and Moraine Lake, so it was a neat experience. Since it's easy to get to by bus or car, the place is packed with tourists, but if you go in with elbows up you can get a couple of shots that almost seem serene.

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It was a good trip. There'll be more to come and postings on Flikr, I promise.