After leaving Tofino, Julie and I were headed back to the eastern side of the island. The drive over the previous day was fairly treacherous with torrential rain coming down. We had passed numerous lakes, mountains and even a grove of giant Douglas Fir trees. As it was a beautiful day today, we wanted to be able to enjoy some of what we had missed on the way to Tofino.
Sproat Lake
Our first stop was at Sproat Lake. We stopped at a park with multiple beaches, parked Bubbles and headed down. While the beach was a little small and a bit rocky, it was a beautiful day. The sun was out, birds chirped, kids played, and we watched boats and wave runners zip across the lake. We could see people in their yards adjacent to the lake and a few restaurants dotting the shore as well. We sat enjoying ourselves for a few minutes before jumping in Bubbles and heading east.
Cathedral Grove – Giant Douglas Fir Trees
Before long we saw cars parked alongside the road and we knew we were at the giant Douglas Fir grove, Cathedral Grove. We found parking right up front and got out. The grove was just alongside the road with a circular half mile path going around the grove. For those wondering giant Douglas Fir trees are very similar to Redwoods. The Douglas Fir trees in this grove were roughly 800 years old and the larger ones were over 250 feet tall and 30 feet wide. They are huge! We were extremely happy to have seen these as we were not expecting to see trees of this size until we were back in Northern California. We walked the path around the trees staring in awe at just how big these were. Julie and I are tallish for people (5’8” & 6’) but compared to a 250-foot tree we felt completely tiny. We walked among the trees for about 2 hours or so before hopping into Bubbles and driving to our campground just outside of Parksville.
Parksville Summer Fest
The next morning after a quick breakfast we drove into Parksville. The town is located on the eastern shore of the island and as the downtown didn’t seem to offer too much we headed down to the park along the shore. We just wanted to check out the shoreline but as it was a Saturday in the middle of the summer, we stumbled upon the Parksville Beach Festival. This consisted of food trucks and a huge sand sculpture contest. The sand sculpture contest area looked pretty interesting, so we paid the $5 entrance fee. There were about 20 sculptures created by artists from Canada, the USA and a few from other parts of the world. As it was a contest judged by everyone that came to look you were given 3 tokens as you entered. Each sculpture had a little box next to it and if you really liked it you would drop one of your tokens into it. The sculpture with the most tokens in it at the end of the festival would win.
From the sculpture area we walked along the path along the beach watching people swim a bit as other families strolled along the path. Parksville was really nice we thought. It has a great waterfront park & beach, pretty little downtown and it was within an hour’s drive of beautiful lakes and mountains. It was a great little town.
Nanaimo & its World Famous Dessert
From Parksville it was time to check out Vancouver Island’s second largest city, Nanaimo. We found parking downtown and walked to their harbour area and to the cities Harbourfront Walkway. This was pretty neat as it was a multi-level walking path that curved in and out of the city’s marina. Restaurants and stores lined the walkway and as it was a beautiful day, people were everywhere. Since it was the middle of the summer, we stopped for an ice cream at Waterfront Confections. If you were not aware, Nanaimo is famous for a dessert named after the city, the Nanaimo Bar. The bar consists of a coconut crumb/nut base, a middle layer of custard and a top layer of chocolate ganache. Much to our surprise, Waterfront Confections had an ice cream version of the bar. We ordered a cup of it and it was great!
We then walked down closer to the water out to a pier where we saw people that we thought were fishing. It turned out that they were “fishing” but not for fish, they were trying to catch crab! They had small crab traps that they would put bait into then throw them into the water attached by a rope. After they felt movement in the rope, they would pull the trap back in to check to see if they had caught something. This was pretty neat as we had never seen anyone crab fishing from a dock/pier before. Some people were pretty successful and were going home to a very good seafood dinner!
From the pier we walked into downtown hungry for an actual Nanaimo Bar. We found one at Mon Petit Choux. This was a French style café that looked to have some delicious desserts. We ordered a Nanaimo Bar and a coffee and sat down. Both were delicious and we really felt like locals; sitting down, having a coffee and a dessert named for the town. It was pretty cool. While here we also found out that the town has a Nanaimo Bar trail in case you have a large sweet tooth and need more than one bar! Here is the link to the trail: www.tourismnanaimo.com/what-to-do/sip-and-savour/nanaimo-bar-trail
Blue Grouse Estate Vineyards
As there are quite a few wineries on Vancouver Island we really wanted to check out one. We looked online and Blue Grouse Estate Winery looked promising. It was a bit off the main road, and we were a bit nervous as non-main roads on Vancouver Island can be a bit narrow, but we made it. The winery turned out to be absolutely gorgeous. The building was closed off a bit from the front, but the back side was open with views out to the vineyards and the mountains in the distance. It turned out to be one of our favorite wineries of the trip. We had a tasting then wandered through the vineyards for a bit taking in the scenery before hopping back into Bubbles and going to the campground for the night.
Our campground for our last night in Canada turned out to be one of our favorites. We stayed at the Oceanside Resort – Parkbridge. From our site we were able to see and smell the ocean. They also had a path that led directly to a beach. It was so much fun grilling dinner on our side while looking out towards the Gulf Islands then taking a walk through the woods to a beach where we walked along and watched the sun set. It was a perfect last night.
Butchart Gardens
As good as the campground was, we were excited for our last day on the island. Our first stop was the world famous Butchart Gardens. The Gardens are without a doubt the most famous place on Vancouver Island. The gardens were created by Jennie Butchart at her home and her husbands former cement business. They started to build the gardens in the early 1920’s and kept expanding them until the 1950’s with improvements and further additions going on to this day.
We parked and paid our admission and started to stroll the gardens. All in all, there are five sections to the gardens, the Rose, Sunken, Mediterranean, Italian and Japanese. We wandered from garden to garden oohing and awwwing at everything. It was pretty impressive. There are over 900 plant varieties in the gardens, 55 acres which are maintained by an army of 50+ gardeners. For Julie and I our favorite part was the sunken gardens. The Sunken Garden was Jennie’s husbands quarry that he used in his cement business and after the rock from the quarry was gone, Jeannie turned the big hole in the ground into the Sunken Garden. It was pretty awesome.
Sidney
Once we got our fill of the garden we headed over to the small town of Sidney. Today was British Columbia Day and the town was ready to celebrate. We parked Bubbles and walked through the towns downtown to its waterfront. Sidney sits on the eastern side of the Saanich Peninsula looking out toward the Canadian Gulf Island and the US state of Washington. As it was a clear day, we were able to see Washington’s Mt. Baker in the distance. It was a pretty neat sight to see especially from such a long distance away.
We then headed to the towns waterfront park where a band was playing. We stopped and watched for a bit before wandering back into the town stopping at the Sidney Bakery for a small mid-day treat (Nanaimo Bar). We wandered the town a bit longer stopping at a nearby diner for an actual lunch before making our way to Vancouver Island’s largest city and the capitol of BC, Victoria.
Victoria & British Columbia Day
We were not actually staying in Victoria, this just happened to be our departure point. It was an exciting day to be in Victoria though. Our ferry line, Black Ball Ferry’s terminal was in the central part of Victoria Harbour. As it was BC Day a floating stage was set up in the center of the harbor with people sitting on the lawn of the BC Parliament building waiting for the show to begin. We drove Bubbles to the ferry terminal’s waiting area then were told that we had a few hours until US customs agents would arrive, so we were free to wander around.
We had been to Victoria a few times prior, but the city looked totally different today. All the roads around the harbor in the center of the city were shut down and were pedestrian only. People were lining the streets in their camping chairs excited for the concert to begin. We wandered past artist booths, food trucks and even the BC milk council giving away free chocolate milk. It was a beautiful afternoon, and this seemed to us to be the perfect sendoff of our monthlong stay in Canada, from the north in the Yukon to as far south as you can get in British Columbia in Victoria.
Black Ball Ferry Line – Victoria, BC to Port Angeles, WA
As we were heading from Victoria to Port Angeles, WA USA we had to go through American customs. The way it worked for this particular ferry company was that an hour prior to departure time you had to be back in your vehicle. A customs agent then walked to each vehicle and asked how long you had been in Canada for and what you did/where you went. You were then given a form stating that you had been seen and for one person in your vehicle to take your passports and go to their small customs house. Once that was done, we were instructed to wait back in the vehicle for boarding. Unlike the BC Ferry system which covered numerous points between the mainland and Vancouver Island (and everything in between) the Black Ball Ferry consisted of one ferry that had its one route. The boat was a bit older too than our ferry to Vancouver Island as it has made its first crossing in 1959. Nonetheless we were excited to be going back home to the USA.
After getting onto the ferry we headed up to the bow of the ship. The concert had just gotten underway and a mass of kayakers had paddled up to the stage. There were a few police boats around our ferry and they were shooing away a few small boats to get out of the way. We stayed at the bow of the boat until it left Victoria Harbour.
The trip to Port Angeles is only about 90 minutes. We went down to the ships cafeteria and had some dinner before heading back to the top deck again. The sun was setting and we had a perfect view. We could see a few cruise ships in the distance which were between us and the sun. This created some amazing photos. We snapped as many as we could before the sun went down.
A little while later we pulled into the port of Port Angeles, WA and drove off the ship. Just like that our time in Canada was over. Through the course of the summer we had spent roughly 2 months in Canada driving over 4,500 miles. Through this we saw prairies, mountains, rain forest, arctic and coastal communities as well as major cities. We saw moose as big as our van and trees that were almost 300 feet tall. Most importantly of all though we met amazing and friendly people along the way that hopefully we will be able to keep in touch with the rest of our lives. Canada is truly an amazing place!
Next up…. Back in the USA! Washington States’ Olympic National Park and the rest of the Olympic Peninsula!
