Quote:
Originally Posted by MJinAustin
Where do you stay? I was looking at a place called Ashingdon Inn which doesn't seem to be on the water, but it sounds like you can walk or bike to Langley and in the area generally. Might do a day of whale watching out of Anacortes and maybe skip Victoria. Seems like the nicer B&Bs in Port Angeles, Port Townsend, etc. are $260-300/night, whereas the same quality inns are more in the $125-200/night range in some other towns.
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Hi. Well, in order --
I stay with friends, in a house deep in the forests curled up with my friend, their cat.... trees and cats are my great loves.
I ran Ashingdon's street address in Mapquest, and I get a walk of the equivalent of 5 city blocks to the water. There's a grassy but in places fairly steep park between the street closest to the water, and the water. Very quiet, very walkable setting. You can sit in the grass and gaze out at the water, Camano Island, Mt. Baker.... If you go at a sunny time of year, they're in the "rain shadow" so don't get many clouds; take a wide-brimmed hat to prevent sunburn.
So walking another 4 or 5 minutes to the left puts you smack in the center of the "bustling" small knot of shops and restaurants on 1st, McLeod and 2nd. From 3rd on up the hill are, I think, all private homes.
The Edgecliff restaurant in Langley is lovely fine dining with yummo seafood dishes. Two of the best restaurants, seafood ones, in WA are in Coupeville, one on and the other near the water: Mad Crab on the main street for lunch, and Oystercatcher for dinner (the chef is famous and she only cooks dinner). Both get their seafoods caught locally; Mad Crab sits right
on Penn Cove, the location of the world's first or second best mussels, and oysters. They're both Googleable (did I just invent a word?).
My personal choice of whale watching from Anacortes vs. Victoria would be the same as yours. Boat on the Strait and the ocean, natural scenery, cool breezes, harbor seals, eagles, whales, someone feeding you and doing all the work for 5, 6 or 7 hours -- for me that beats the heck out of endless shopping and walking in Victoria, which is very pretty and very English, and that's that! For whale watching, be sure to take whatever telephoto lens gadgets you have -- by new federal law, boats now cannot get closer than 300ft. to the resident Orca pods. There's a new baby in J pod, born less than two weeks ago... Whenever I go from Anacortes, I go with Island-Adventures dot com. They serve nice chili on board! Naturalist/photographer on board; congenial, smart people who've been doing this for close to 20 years.
You're quite right that the more well-appointed B&Bs on the Olympic Peninsula are quite a bit more expensive than on most islands or on the mainland. I think it's a matter of lack of land (and sewer, etc. facilities) and a much smaller permanent population on the peninsula.
Hope this helps!
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06-09-2008, 09:58 PM
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