Left Coast update

Greetings from the south island on the left coast.  Vancouver Island weather reports are almost always issued in 4 parts, all quite different and equally inaccurate according to locals.  Victoria is in the south island where rain and wind are in the forecast for today.  The morning didn't dawn; it just paled into grey.  I  woke up at 6:45 and decided to get up and turn on the computer to see if Jay was on line for a Skype call, so I saw the slow transition from black to a paler shade of grey.  Yesterday was supposed to be rainy, but it didn't come down much until late afternoon and there were good periods of sun.  I went to Gold Stream with Paula and Bill, and we hiked up Mount Finlayson, a rock wall that rises out of the ferns and moss covered trees just beyond Gold Stream.  Some of the firs and cedars on the lower part are enormous old creatures with thick moss-covered bark on one side, or all around if they're dead.  The path was carpeted in needles and huge maple leaves.  Near the top we almost entered the back yard of a golf club condo, a bit of a disappointment after a vigorous uphill walk in what had appeared to be the great outdoors, but beyond that we really got to the rock climb.  After rounding a couple of juts of wet rock that got me closer than I wanted to a formidable drop off, I snuggled into a corner of rock and sat in the sun while Paula went a bit farther and reached her limit and Bill went further yet and came back to join us as the dark clouds threatened imminent rain.  We walked down and reached Gold Stream in the dripping wet.  As we approached the water, we saw that people were gathered watching the beginning of the salmon run, so I finally saw that spectacle.  The fish were huge, grey and moving slowly upstream in a fairly large school until some native boys walking fully clothed in the stream with poles and fishing rods disturbed them.  Then they contorted their bodies, rose and turned making the stream a moiling mass of salmon.  A couple of the boys caught big ones after quite impressive struggles.  It was a great day.  Today I think we'll shop.