Mary Anne Lattimore gave a great resume of a Rotary Friendship Exchange visit to Vancouver Island and Washington State with Geoff Beecher and 7 others from our district. who have come to Australia on a similar exchange. The hospitality was amazing!!
Aspects that were visited on the island included National Parks with salmon breeding, beautiful coastlines, Marine station, wildlife refuge, Rotary meetings, whale watching and the Butchart Gardens.
The city of Victoria is the capital of British Columbia and has lots of English style architecture.
The visit to Washington State which is also in the same district as Vancouver Island, include a visit to the Capital city Olympia. In Olympia they were able to visit the Capitol building which is the equivalent of our state parliament. Washington State is known for its volcanoes, agriculture, lumber, fishing, IT and dams. The main river is the Columbia which is 4 km wide at its end. During their visit they met many ex pat Ozzies and others who had been to Australia or who had significant links with our nation.
Mary-Anne was thanked by Peter Draper who has visited most of the US and Canada except for these areas. Peter noted that Mary-Anne's talk was so comprehensive, he felt that he had now had actually visited the area.