Craigflower School Historic Site

I was back in Victoria for a few days of rest. After a pleasant night’s rest, I was ready to head out to a local park and activate it in the POTA program. I noticed from the map that there were a couple of new parks listed, and they both looked easy to reach and fairly close to my hotel. Once breakfast was settled, I set out for the park at 11am. The navcom sent me through areas of Victoria that I was not familiar with, which was a nice adventure in itself. After an 18-minute drive I was approaching the park. There was limited roadside parking near it, and I was surprised to see that it was full.  I turned south to see if the next parking lot had space. It held only seven cars, and all were taken but one car was loading up to leave. I waited and took the stall once empty.  Problem averted, I parked, grabbed my camera and set out to explore the park.

The area is part of a longer walkway that travels the length of the inlet and offers many views of the water and various points of interest. This location was added for the historic school which claims to be the oldest still in use in western Canada. The park offers some lovely gardens, a kids’ play area, and open grass with picnic tables. After walking through the park gathering photos, I decided on a table to use for my activation. I returned to the car, loaded my gear into the cart and returned to the table.

The table I selected was near the parking lot, so my time moving my equipment was brief and soon I had the tripod secured and the antenna raised. This table was only ten feet from the walkway, and I chose to sit facing the walkway and the water, this gave the numerous walkers opportunity to ask what I was up to, and many did. I set up my radio, but it was acting up today. It was not recognizing the amplifier. I could enable it, but it quickly shut off again. After trying a few things without success, I unplugged the amp once more and tried starting from scratch and this time it behaved and stayed enabled.

I scanned the 10m band and though I could hear some faint stations none responded to my call. I decided to move to the 15m band, and I spotted myself. I was the only one listed on the band. I very quickly had a response from a station in California and then Indiana followed by a Canadian in Thunder Bay. I was getting out well and over the thirty minutes I operated I competed 24 contacts from New Brunswick to North Carolina across to California, up to Alaska and over to Sweden. I was told by another station that a chap in France was hearing me, but I couldn’t hear him. Maybe next time.

It was a wonderful spot to operate with some nice views, lots of people to talk to and not overly high local noise. A good addition to the list. Just across the bridge over the inlet is another newly added historic site, the Craigflower manor home. I may activate it next. Done with radio I quickly packed up my station and then went for a walk along the shoreline. The inlet is tidal and as the tide was out, I was able to walk along the narrow sandy beach looking for a few interesting scenes to capture.  I managed to gather a few photos of the Autumn colours reflected on the water.  Between the walkway and the parking lot is a lovely flower garden. I was surprised to see so many in bloom this late in the year.  I stopped to admire some of the interesting shapes and colours of the flowers and took a few more photos of the most interesting ones. It had been a pleasant fall afternoon in the fresh sea air but now I had to face the roads for the short distance back to the hotel.