After our ferry delays we finally arrived on Vancouver Island to a very soggy evening where we travelled a short way up the east coast to our overnight stop in a little cabin near Qualicum Beach. This is supposed to be a great family beach resort – but we chose staying in the dry over an evening walk! The next day we were traveling to Tofino and Ucluelet on the West coast and our Airbnb host had advised us to get an early start to allow us to arrive there by lunch time. We should have listened, but a lazy morning was too appealing after arriving late the night before!
We eventually got going at 10am and headed to Catherdral Grove after a brief stop at the Old Country Market at Coombs for coffee and pastries, and to admire the goats on the roof of the shop. Catherdral Grove is an area of forest famous for its huge Douglas Fir trees which were far too tall to capture on camera. The trees were spectacular and climbing all over them was lots of fun!
We made a brief stop for supplies and petrol at Port Alberni, which we were told would be much cheaper than the tourist towns on the west. Then we were on our way again for a short while before we hit really bad traffic! We were stopped at the side of the road for about an hour for blasting on the only road to Tofino, so we had our picnic in the car and then got out to talk to our fellow marooned travellers. Once the road had been cleared of flying debris we were on out way again.
When we finally arrived in Uclulet we parked towards the south end of the peninsular and did the Lighthouse Loop section of the Wild Pacific Trail. It was full of amazing views made better because of the glorious sunshine. We had finally made it to the pacific coast! We then headed up the coast to our campsite, pitched our tent and headed down to the campsites private beach for a walk and to dip our toes in the Pacific Ocean. The ocean was very cold, but the beach was picturesque and near deserted.
In the evening we headed to a takeaway on the edge of Tofino that had some good reviews, “The Wildside Grill”. We ordered some shrimp tacos, some gumbo and a ceasar salad, the first two of which we had never had before. Both tasted absolutely fantastic and despite eating them by torchlight, we enjoyed from our first taste and will definitely have them again if the opportunity arises! We absolutely recommend the Gumbo to anyone planning a trip out this way!
The next morning we headed back to Tofino to get breakfast and investigate some kayaking options. Unfortunately we discovered that the trips that really appealed (particularly the Broken Island group trips from Ucluelet) leave at 7am-8:30am so we were a good hour late. We made a note to ourselves to research and book in any future activities that we really wanted to do, and after a wander around Tofino decided to continue with our journey back to the east coast (with yet another 1 hour delay for blasting).
Our orginal plan had been to camp on Newcastle Island the next night, which involved leaving the car on the mainland and taking all our supplies for the night across on the mini passenger ferry. A camping adventure on our own private Island! However, by the time we had arrived back on the west coast the weather had turned, and the prospect of a wet, cold, dark evening suddenly became less appealing (we must be getting old!). Instead we did a quick rethink, found an air bnb and spent an hour wandering around the Island (camping there on a warm, dry summer evening really would have been special) before catching the last boat back at 4:45pm for an evening of downtime!
Another benefit of last nights decision making was that we only had a 90 minute drive to get to Victoria the next day so could enjoy a later start, with plenty of time for a couple of stops enroute on a beautiful sunny day. First on the list: Cochian bay with fabulous views across the Strait of Georgia, a great little bakery (picnic supply restock time) and floating houses.
Our picnic stop of choice was Goldstream Park, a nature lovers paradise less than 20km from Victoria, followed by a afternoon walk. We had two options easy valley walk along the Salmon spawning stream to the ‘other’ Niagara falls, or tough hike to the top of Mount Finlayson. Can you guess which one we went for?
The walk up Mount Finlayson turned out to be a wonderfully challenging scramble (made more accessible by frequent route markers on the rock faces to show you which line to take). It was brilliant and Claire was happy we had snuck in another adventure (it went a good way to appease for our kayaking fail) and we both enjoyed the views at the top. Next stop: Victoria.
Claire and Gareth go travelling! 