Our second to last day here started out much the same as all the others with a relaxing morning and breakfast . After breakfast we headed south.
Some of you may know that we have always been interested in the little piece of the US that is situated south of Vancouver. Point Roberts is a small part of Washington State, USA, which is mainly accessible by car through British Columbia (BC). This type of land cut off from its country is called an exclave. So that is where we headed.
A 15 minute drive south and another border crossing (not too many questions) and we were back on US soil again.
The whole of the Point Roberts area is 12.65km2 (according to Wikipedia) and so it didn’t take long to explore. But a piece of US that is completely separate from the mainland (and only accessible driving through another country) was always a fascination of Danielle’s (and Dulcie’s too).
After driving over most of the area we could (which didn’t take long) we headed to the northern part to check out the border with Canada. Here, apart from a marker, a row of houses and a little yellow barricade that one could easily get over, there was nothing between the two countries. Seems amazing, given the lengths we go to in NZ to travel to another country. We explored the marker and the monument there, which records the longitude at 49 degrees (we disagree, but that is for another day).
Then we travelled along one side of Roosevelt Way, which straddles the two borders. There are no houses on the US side, but the houses on the Canadian side have little gates out into their backyard, which is out onto the border line (essentially a back gate to another country). Because you cannot build on the border, these property owners use this area as their gardens to grow fruits and vegetables. International fruit anyone? Also some houses had trampolines, one could literally ‘jump across the border!’ Check out some of the photos, its really an amazing site.
After we finished exploring the top area, we went to the bottom. Here is a good place for whale watching during July, August and September. Sometimes also in October, but we didn’t see any. There was a beach (a mix of sand and stone) and a lovely walkway which we didn’t go too far down. What we did find was a little monument acknowledging the exclave. The plaque mentioned that the other half of the monument is on another exclave in the Minnesota state, so we will be hunting that one out one day and going there too.
Point Roberts is an interesting area. Most of the houses there are beach houses for those who live in Canada, because Real Estate is cheap here. A lot of Canadians travel to Point Roberts to take advantage of the cheaper US prices (gas and alcohol) and when they shop online in the US, they arrange for delivery there so they can easily cross over to collect their items without having to pay international shipping prices. There are big discussions as to whether to combine Point Roberts into BC, and there are arguments on both sides for or against.
After this, we headed north back over the border (many more questions this time, but still no extra searching) and located a mall in the general area where we were staying. Here a bit of retail shopping, before heading back to the hotel for the afternoon. Our room has a large spa in the room, so that was very relaxing.
We went out for dinner at a place called The Old Spaghetti Factory, which was delicious. Free bread and whipped garlic butter to start, a choice of a salad or soup for an entrée included in the cost of your main dish (the salad also had the 1000 island dressing – yum!) then our mains of pasta and chicken, finished off with free ice cream. The food was amazing, we will be going back there if we come back to Vancouver.
Finally a late night for us, we are trying to get into NZ time zones by staying up to midnight local time (8pm NZ time) though Danielle only made it to 11.30pm.
Last day tomorrow,
Chris & Danielle