Vancouver Island May 22 to June 13 2024

Days

Saanich
Victoria
Ross Bay Cemetery
Abkhazi Gardens
Botany Bay
Botanical Beach
Sooke
Sooke Potholes
China Beach
Sandcut Beach
Duncan
Hand of Man
Cowichan Bay
Kinsol Trestle
Cathedral Grove
Port Alberni
Wally Creek
Long Beach
Cox Bay Beach
Tofino
Tonquin Beach
Tofino
MacKenzie Beach
Middle Beach
Tofino
Sproat Lake
Goose Spit
Robert's Lake rest area
World's 2^nd biggest burl
Storey's Beach
Port Hardy
Fort Rupert trail
Port Hardy
Port McNeil
Ferry to Sointula
Sointula
Bere Point
Beautiful Bay trail
Sointula
Pulteney Lighthouse
Sointula
Sointula
Quadra Island
Quadra Island
Open Bay beach
Quadra Island
Denman Island
Hornby Island
Sandpiper Beach
Whaling Station Beach
Ford Cove
Fossil Beach
Fossil Beach Farm
Fowler Road beach
Gull Road trail
Qualicum Beach
Qualicum Beach
Ganges
The Glass Foundry
Southey Point Beach
Fernwood Point Beach
Salt Spring Island
Beaver Point trail
Salt Spring Island
Sidney
Coal Point
Sidney

Like most voyages, it all begins with a stressful and unpleasant airplane experience.

For our first couple of nights we'd picked a hotel in Saanich, both due to the high cost of Victoria hotels and also to be closer to our friend Olivia. We checked in and immediately conducted a careful inspection of the plumbing fixtures. All seemed to be in order, with fresh blood suggesting repairs were recent.

We then went out for a walk. Vancouver Island is of course well known for its dense population of trees. Thankfully, they don't just let them run free in the city. Here's one they captured, gutted, and put on display. The binding and heavy metal straps were added to ensure the safety of passersby, although we did note that the tubular shape could still allow it to slide out, if it wanted.

In most places, however, trees made way for the delightful world of heavy industry.

Tired and jet-lagged it was a short day. We did manage to see one of the local gates to hell though.

The next morning we drove into downtown Victoria. The town itself is pretty.

The harbour is too. And with puns!

And of course there's the requisite totem pole.

Just outside of downtown there's a small, but apparently lovely garden. We were too early, so we killed time checking out the local Ross Bay cemetery. Deer roamed here, perhaps drawn by the abundant, delicious vegetation all that compost creates.

Steve O's weirdly long neck though was the highlight.

The Abkhazi Gardens finally opened and we went off to explore.

It was indeed a dense, flowery experience.

There were purple things.

Violet things.

And so many pink things that they littered the ground.

There were even some just plain green things!

We left the urban joys of Victoria for the vacation-lands of more rural Sooke. We arrived in the town way too early to check-in, so we continued along the south coast to the Botanical Loop Trail leading to Botany Bay and Botanical Beach. The trail consisted of an easy hike through the (very cool-looking) forest.

We saw many murdered trees along the path.

Finally, we emerged at Botany Bay.

Botany Bay is small, and quite rocky. We do like rocks though.

Botanical Beach is along the same trail, so off we went.

A short forest-journey later...

...we emerged to a larger beach area. This is a view to the right.

And this is a view to the left.

There were many interesting rocks, but contrary to our hopes the tidal pools didn't seem to harbour much of interest at this time. We did, however, find a sea urchin.

We returned to town, and found our hotel, Salty Towers.

It was a cute place, consisting of a few rooms in a large house right on the water.

Here's looking back, so you can see the building. The little brown shed on the right housed the hot-tub.

The only other thing we did that day was to check out nearby Whiffen Spit, where a large carving commemorates the sense of surprise and dismay one feels on finding this large, geographically interesting breakwater is really just an ugly bit of land that the locals drive up to let their dogs run around and poo.

By far the most well advertised Sooke attraction is the Sooke Potholes, an area where the river has eroded divots into the rock which apparently form delightful places to soak in warmer weather. The park includes a large section of the river though, and today wasn't warm anyway, so we only observed an arbitrary part of the river from afar.

Still, it did have some nice forest, with trees well coated in spanish moss.

And lots of blooming yellow flowers—apparently Scotch broom, an invasive species.

There certainly is a lot of broom.

As we left, we happened to catch a glimpse of the rare, endangered forest fire-hydrant.

Ok, let's try another beach instead. Off we went back to the coast, to China Beach, again accessible after a short forest hike.

Banana slugs! Named for their large size and yellow colour.

And other slugs, maybe still banana-like, just well over-ripe.

We emerged at a large, but also relatively empty beach.

We wandered around looking at rocks. Off to the side was a cliff, made quite colourful by the green algae, moss, or whatever that is.

Let's get a closer look at that green stuff.

Closer...

Ooh, holes too.

Slightly to the side, it was also dripping a lot.

Drippy, green looks very cool.

One final beach for the day: Sandcut beach. Once again, a short hike is required.

This time, however, we had the distinct sense of being watched.

Not sure why.

But we felt observed.

Hmmm.

Anyway, we finally emerge to a large, pebbly beach.

Lots of driftwood here.

Enough, in fact, to build a shelter. Or maybe phonebooth, since we had to wait for someone to finish using their phone in this to be able to photograph it.

The next day we headed out to Cowichan Bay. With time to kill, we went a little bit past to check out the larger city of Duncan, claiming to be the city of totem poles.

Indeed there were lots of totems placed throughout downtown.

Even in otherwise uninspiring parking lots.

Other artwork too!

Outside the downtown core though, Duncan quickly became a less appealing, somewhat run-down suburb. We did find the world's largest hockey stick and puck, if a little disappointing to find it mounted on a building rather than as something we could pose next to.

To further kill time we went a little northeast of Duncan to Maple Bay, to look at a private museum called the "Hand of Man". Or maybe "Hahd of Mah"?

Among many other things it includes an abundance of taxidermied creatures. Here is the horn section.

And here's more.

Not everything had skin and fur, giving us the unique opportunity to look up a moose's backside.

Steve, the creator/owner, was apparently a big-game hunter, but it still seemed like an awful lot of animals to have killed. At least one of them he was unlikely to have killed by himself though.

It's actually a fascinating place, at least if you can suspend your sense of ethics in the presence of so many needlessly murdered animals, and swallow the slightly disturbing air of old-school colonialism.

With the afternoon waning, we made our way to Cowichan Bay itself, where we were staying at Dream Weaver, a charming, downtown B&B.

Cowichan Bay turned out to be a very small town, consisting of a single strip of businesses along the coast. Here you can see pretty much the entire thing.

It was pretty though. Here's a shot of the main pier out into the harbour.

Like many coastal towns there was a fish motif.

We walked the length of it in maybe 10min, heading out to the other side where there was apparently, and then actually, a blue heron colony.

Along the way we noted the presence of caterpillars, likely progenitors of the spongy moths that the island has been spraying to get rid of.

On the trees the caterpillars didn't seem like a personal threat, but as an invasive species they don't seem to discriminate much in their food supply.

Our only big effort the next day was to visit the Kinsole Trestle. Like all things, it began with the a short walk, this time along a large gravel road.

The end of the road included this Trevor-donated step-down, presumably to accommodate horseback riding, or maybe piggyback.

The trestle itself was indeed large and interesting.

Off in the distance, also crossing the valley you could also see what we initially thought was a very large fallen tree.

We took a walk through the forest valley to get closer. Along the way we navigated past a large snail. Everything's big here!

We eventually reached the "tree", only to discover it was actually an awkwardly placed natural gas pipe.

A conspicuous notice informed us that venturing inside was forbidden. You know, we hadn't considered that crawling inside a large, likely actively being used gas pipe might be a good idea, but now that the option is in front of us it seems weirdly enticing...

The next morning we left for Port Alberni. The route there took us through the famous Cathedral Grove, so we stopped there on the way. Oddly, for perhaps Vancouver Island's most well known tourist attraction, the access was really small, consisting of a tiny parking lot on each side of the busy, 2-lane highway.

An easy path led through the big, mossy forest. Well, easy at the beginning anyway, before it turned into deep mud ruts worn by so many visitors.

But still, beautiful forest.

And it wasn't just trees. The Devil's Club plant apparently has many medicinal uses, as well is the ability to be quite irritating to touch.

And there was bark!

Lots of bark.

Nature experience satisfied, we continued on to Port Alberni, with our first stop being an all-important pause for laundry. (It wasn't really that slanted though, that's just bad camera-work.)

Most people we encountered seem to regard Port Alberni as a waypoint between other places, but it does have a fair bit of natural beauty as well.

But, as a central port in a tree-laden island, it is also a place focused on heavy industry.

Along the river is an interesting, mostly enclosed sculpture of early, indigenous whaling.

Which apparently they did naked.

Dinner at a weirdly empty greek restaurant later, we retired to our room at the surprisingly nice Riverside Motel. We didn't take any pictures of the outside, so this is just one of the decorations inside.

Next stop Tofino, a drive that took a few hours, and which led us through some quite nice scenery.

Just outside of Tofino we stopped at Long Beach, famous for the amazing surfing, and of course its longness. A bit cold for surfing today, but it was indeed long.

There was sand.

Some of which was wet, making nice patterns.

Lots of dead crabs.

Some of that floaty seaweed.

People who can walk on water.

Giant beach sperm.

Which may have come out of this.

There were actually several large rocky areas. At high tide they probably made the surfing more interesting/treacherous.

But at low tide held pretty tidal pools.

Tired of windy, cold long beach, we moved a bit further up the road to the next beach, Cox Bay Beach. It looked much the same initially.

But had more rocks, well covered in barnacles.

Some of which even looked vaguely alive.

And some of which were actually mussels.

There were also lots of anemones, which did not look happy outside of the water.

Or particularly interesting in the more leaf-stained pools.

But in the more clear tidal pools were quite pretty.

Oooh.

Finally we reached Tofino itself and checked-in to our room by the ocean at the Duffin Cove Resort.

The view from our little balcony was indeed spectacular.

We wandered a little bit around town. From the bay you can take all sorts of excursions, by boat or sea-plane.

As a final beach for the day, we walked to nearby Tonquin Beach. This required a less pleasant walk along city streets, some under construction, followed by a short and steep, but well maintained, pathway.

The beach itself was small, and in the waning afternoon seemed to be where the local teenagers congregated in small groups to build sand castles and sometimes yell at each other, so we didn't spend much time there.

But it did have some nice rocks.

And more sea anemones.

We returned to town and spent the remainder of the day of shopping, drinking, dining, and finally watching the sun go down.

The next day we went out to MacKenzie Beach. Once again, a nice, large (at low tide) sandy flat area.

Sure, the waves of blood were a bit disconcerting, but otherwise it seemed like a perfectly normal beach.

At least there were the usual, healthy signs of dead crabs.

But most interesting was near the north end, where piles of smooth rocks closed off the beach.

Also oozing blood of course. A good sign, we looked for ways further north, which would lead us to the adjacent beach, Middle Beach.

We found a path through the forested area, but it didn't quite get us to the next beach, leading instead to a rather nice campsite with big tree trunks. Still, we persisted...

...and eventually emerged at Middle Beach, with our quick steps forward easily outpacing the slower vegetation behind us.

The locals celebrated our arrival with rockets.

Like the other beaches, Middle Beach had sand.

The poo of lugworms, all nicely coiled up.

Beach hair.

We even watched a snail, slowly pushing its way along through the sand.

And like the other beaches, there were rocks. In this case, bracketing the beach at either end, and including many crevices and tidal pools.

These rocks were in places well worn and pitted.

And up to the tide-line, well covered in barnacles and mussels.

Lots and lots of mussels.

Most interesting though were the tidal pools, and the abundance of anemones.

Here's a nice clear shot of a green one. You can see right into its anemone hole!

And here's a much rarer orange and pink one.

But must unusual of all were the starfish. So many starfish, most either bright orange or purple.

We started finding clusters of them almost everywhere, often sharing the space with anemones too.

After a couple of hours though we felt it necessary to leave, walking back through the short forested path.

Returning to Tofino, we walked over to a local pizza place, noting the pretty view as we waited for our pizza to be ready.

We returned to our hotel room and ate as the sun began to set.

And finished the evening watching the redening sky.

This time we even managed to stay awake until sunset was (almost) finally over.

The next morning we headed out toward Courtenay. This was mostly along the same highway we took getting to Tofino. We did make a brief stop to observe the view at Sproat Lake, with the experience slightly sullied by someone rushing ahead of us to pee on the side of the path.

Approach the turn-off to Courtenay, we managed to get a picture of the giant, inflatable bong, emblematic of B.C.'s well known affection for cannabis.

Arriving in Courtenay with time to spare, we drove over to Comox to look at Goose Spit, which despite being mostly a Canadian military training area still allowed for walking along the beach.

It was mostly rocks (although we love rocks).

Well, with the usual assortment of dead crabs.

But we did spot a jellyfish!

Even a real one!

We walked pretty much to the end, and then reversed course along the much calmer bay. Here the sand was littered with nautilus shells.

As well as the interesting patterns of drying seaweed.

Sections were blocked off with signs warning against disturbing the local plants that were under threat of local extinction.

We only spent one evening in Courtenay, splurging on the luxurious Old House Hotel, and then started our journey to Port Hardy. This was a long drive, but a sign indicating a viewpoint prompted us to stop at the Robert's Lake rest area. Not much of a view, but the cedar smell and clean air was delightful.

At least the rest area part was true.

Just outside Port McNeil we felt a need to check out the world's 2nd biggest burl. The rain, however, was quite heavy at this point, so our investigation consisting of pulling up nearby, rolling down the window, observing it was indeed quite big, taking a quick snap, and then continuing on toward to Port Hardy.

With the rain stopping and time to kill before checking into our hotel, we went to look at nearby Storey's Beach, known as Tayagut to the Kwatiutl people.

This long strip of beach was known for expanding dramatically in low tide, giving us lots of room to look for whatever interesting things may have washed up ashore.

There were of course the usual dead crabs.

Some of different colours even.

Cool sand/water textures.

And lots of interesting seaweed. Here's some green stuff and orangey leafy stuff.

Some puffy, orangey stuff.

Brown, veiny and leafy stuff.

Lots of that brown, ribbony stuff.

And stuff that even looked like a boot!

Off in the distance was a large lump, which turned out to be the most interesting find on the beach! WTF is that!!??

Closer inspection showed the tubular things to be some kind of tube worm.

And the cluster of flaccid, penis-like things to be well, some kind of flaccid penis-like cluster.

Wandering onward, we reached the far end of the beach, where it transformed into rocks and forest. With the rain potentially returning, we turned around at this point.

Higher up on the beach we did encounter fields of dying seaweed, with their own special texture.

And, as on many of the beaches, lots and lots of weirdly textured driftwood.

Finally, we made it to Port Hardy, a woody place of tiny bears, giant salmon, fisking, logging, and mining.

The little downtown park containing the city sign also had a totem pole.

And we jokingly identified a large carrot statue in the same park, which in the end turned out to be a large carrot statue.

Still high on beach finds, we explored the beach near the port. It was small, but did have some interesting textures, such as from this bulbous seaweed.

Large patches of vibrant green seaweed were there too.

And some seaweed patches even mixed textures.

We had hoped for some kayak experiences on the island, but, off-season, the only local place we saw didn't look very trustworthy.

We did have opportunity though for an up-close view of an eagle vs. crow fight.

For a hike the next day we drove out to the Fort Rupert trail, a 4KM (each way) walk that crossed the peninsula between Beaver Cove highway and Storey's Beach. It's not much of a trailhead, a small divot on the highway with just room for at most a couple of cars and a large billboard with all sorts of warnings about encountering wildlife.

Bears specifically.

Suitably bear-phobed, we headed out.

While eerily quiet, there were some signs of human activity beyond the trail itself.

The trail first led through a lightly forested area, with some effort at making a path to avoid the muddy ground. We appreciated the fabric and roofing tiles stuck on to make the wooden planks less slippery.

It skirted past a small lake or pond.

Through a dense forested area.

And emerged in a wetter environment, near the beach.

Along the way we did spot some weird, pineapple-like plant (or mold).

And the remnants of a previous hiker, probably after the bears ate them.

The trip back was less interesting, partly because we were just retracing our steps and partly because of the intensifying rain.

The next morning the weather cleared, so we made a quick re-visit to the downtown for some purchases and to look at the bay in nicer light.

And then reversed our way out.

Our next destination was the small town of Sointula on Malcolm Island. To get there we had to take a ferry from nearby Port McNeil. Luckily enough, Port McNeil hosts the worlds largest burl, nicely complementing our 2-photo collection of large burl pictures.

With a bit of time to kill before the ferry left, we checked out the dock area.

Lots of warnings here. Best not create a wake as you accidentally slip into the sewage-laden, electrified water while harassing marine mammals with a drone, at least not without wearing a lifejacket.

Despite all the warnings birds could survive in the bay.

We'd seen numerous ads for roof de-mossing. This is one of the places could use that service.

The nearby "Devil's Bath" micro-brewery sounded like our kind of place, so we wiled away the last hour or so having a slice and beer, and then went back to the car.

We left Port McNeil behind and began the 1/2hr-ish ferry ride to Sointula, Malcolm Island.

Out in the open, the ferry was fully permitted to leave a wake.

Pretty, splashing water.

Finally, we approached Sointula.

We stayed at the Orca Lodge, one of 3 rooms (or mini-apartments) in an ocean-side cabin in Sointula.

Right on the water, we had an awesome view from our little deck!

Our first venture was out to Bere Point, to walk the Beautiful Bay trail over to Whale-Rubbing Beach. That's a lot of place names, but it started by driving past the end of the single asphalt road to a gravel path leading to Bere Point, a popular (for Sointula) campsite on the beach.

We walked through the campsite to get to the trailhead. The trail itself was a thin path, almost a hedge-maze leading along the coast.

The wall of bushes made for a different kind of hiking experience, fun even, except for the many patches of muck made unavoidable by the narrow path.

Eventually we emerged at the rocky beach.

The beach itself was quite cool, a quiet and seeming endless field of pebbles and rocks. Beautifully serene, but no whales rubbing today.

Eventually, with rain once again threatening, we headed back.

For dinner we walked out to the only restaurant open in Sointula, the Burger Barn. It wasn't really a restaurant, more of a food truck, but the journey there was well marked, at least for fish.

The journey did take us past some delightfully dilapidated buildings.

Some more dilapidated than others.

Things move slowly in Sointula, so getting our burgers took more than an hour. We did meet some friendly locals though. Eventually our burgers were ready, and we carried them back to our lodge to eat (they were delicious) and observe the waning daylight.

As the evening wore on, the tide came in, right under our deck in fact, giving us an awesome experience of falling asleep to the sound of waves.

The next day we drove again past the asphalt and onto gravel roads (which, btw, were still much nicer than many Montréal roads), this time continuing further toward the Pulteney lighthouse on the southwest tip of the island.

At the very end of road, well past the point where we wondering if we'd missed it somehow, next to a small cleared area next to the road was a small sign pointing toward the trail that should lead to the lighthouse.

A short walk along a trail that became increasingly ambiguous...

We emerged to the coast, albeit with no obvious lighthouses nearby.

Walking along in the general direction, and a little further than seemed reasonable, we eventually found it. The area around it, supposedly a great place to look for sea glass, was surprisingly small even at low tide. We also found only a few tiny and unimpressive pieces of sea glass.

Well the main structure looked in good shape, and while there was evidence that it was at least sometimes staffed not all of it was in good condition.

Still convinced that the forest path might have had an exit closer to the lighthouse we tried to go through the forest between some of the little buildings near the lighthouse, but in the end had to give up and trace our steps to get back out.

Another evening of impressive views.

The next morning we had to leave our lovely little lodge-room.

We drove out to the dock and parked in the ferry boarding line, queued up the other half-dozen vehicles waiting.

Nice view here too.

Well, in one direction.

And another interesting pebble (rock) beach next to the ferry to explore while we waited.

Not just rocks, either; we found a rare sea-spark-plug!

Eventually though the ferry did arrive, and we had to finally leave, and begin our multi-hour journey to our next stop, Quadra Island.

We drove along the coast to Campbell River to take the ferry to Quadra Island, where we were staying in a chalet at the Jade Resort. From here we had a balcony view of the water and a little pier area. Note the strange, sinking house structure on the center-left. This was a luxury resort that someone else had built and towed over to the island, which sank while temporarily moored at the pier. The owner had then gone bankrupt, leaving the sinking structure for others to eventually cleanup.

The chalet itself was quite a luxury step-up from some of our other accommodations. It also came with a harmless, but surprisingly large spider.

And what does one do when arriving at a luxury chalet early afternoon? One drives to the local laundromat, obviously.

Then one comes back and spends the afternoon drinking, until the sun sets again.

Weather the next morning was great, so with navigational advice from one of our hosts we plotted a hike out to Open Bay beach, one of the few sand-covered beaches on the island, and generously made available to the public by the We Wai Kai nation.

One winding drive later, we were at the access, starting (as usual) with a short forest hike.

The trail reached a large bay.

Although low-tide, the bay was segmented by a (very very cold) creek that separated the forest exit from the sandier parts.

We initially explored the rockier area most accessible from the trail. Cool smooth rocks.

At least one giant head.

We did encounter some wildlife beyond oysters, mussels, and tiny crabs. For instance, there was a snake of some form.

And those awesome bright purple starfish.

With the rocky area explored we looked for ways across to the inner, sandy part. Carrol opted to cross the frigid creek, while I chose to shimmy along a log that spanned it instead.

OMG, is that a living crab??

We walked around for some time, enjoying the warm sand and water.

We returned to the resort and decided to try out the kayaks they had for cheap rental. As usual, Carrol did not want me to take the picture.

But that was a lot of fun, cruising around the bay. We eventually returned, and got a closer look at the sinking chalet.

For dinner, our hosts mentioned a nice restaurant at the Tsa Kwa Luten Lodge, down at the southern tip of the island near the Cape Mudge Lighthouse. We checked out the lighthouse, which turned out to be relatively uninteresting, but later returned for dinner at the lodge.

Our final night on the island (not a real fish).

Next stop, Hornby Island. This required two ferries. First, we took the ferry from Buckley Bay to Denman Island. Waiting here, we were treated to an informative infographic of the...scenery? fauna? maybe just abstract art?

Once landed we raced off to the other side to Gravelly Bay to catch the ferry to Hornby Island.

And once landed there, we raced around the main island road to get to the littleblackcabin, a small but private and quiet B&B we were looking forward to, despite the requirement to bring our own sheets that was revealed after paying the non-refundable deposit. Outside, it looked adorable.

Inside, downstairs was very pretty, and tastefully decorated too. Upstairs was still unfinished plywood, but quite functional.

But it got a little weird when we discovered the garbage, which apparently we needed to take with us. I suppose in itself it's not that big a deal, but why? Whether we throw it out or our hosts throw it out, it still needs to be thrown out. It's not like we were going to pack it in our luggage and take it on the plane with us home, so it came across as a bit strange to make us make it someone else's problem, without even suggestion of where we might do that.

Recycling too.

And toilet paper?

Yes. Supposedly because it clogs things. That seemed more of an excuse than a justification—the toilet flushed better than most and septic-friendly toilet paper has been around a long time too. Anyway, whether the justification was valid or not it certainly seemed unappealing to accumulate used toilet paper in a plastic bag and drive around looking for someone else to dump it on. Indeed, as we eventually found out, 2 days of used toilet paper doesn't smell great, and we were glad we only rented for two nights rather than a week.

Still, it turned out Hornby Island had some interesting geography, and Sandpiper Beach turned out to be a very cool place.

It was hard to walk anywhere without the crunch of baby barnacles beneath your feet. Sorry barnacles.

But among all the rocks and tidal pools were many oysters.

The most interesting part though was all the different rock textures.

So awesome.

Layers too!

The unusual textures made things quite alien. The usual dead crabs, however, restored some familiarity.

We continued north for a bit, but the stratified rocks seemed endless, so we shifted attention to the south end, which had more green patches.

Well, rocks too.

But the green was quite striking.

And looked like fur as it dried and turned white.

Here the rock texture created neat, smooth shapes.

Which housed small, round and deep tidal pools.

Horrifyingly though, each step through the rocks would send waves of isopods scattering. These bugs were surprisingly large, but at least they were avoiding us as much as we wanted to avoid them.

Next stop was Whaling Station Beach, a popular (in warmer weather) sand beach in the north-east corner of the island.

This was a fun beach to walk around barefoot. There were many small, clear jellyfish slowly and near invisibly dying in the sand though, so step carefully.

A few orangey ones too, which were at least easier to see.

And large patches of sea anemones near the rocks.

Some of which were wearing little spiral hats.

And of course lots of dead crabs.

Lots and lots and lots of dead crabs. A crab life is apparently short and brutal, and almost certainly ends by being eviscerated by a bird.

From Whaling Station Beach we drove down to Ford Cove.

Ford Cove has a small, relatively uninteresting marina.

Well, except for the enormous anemones, which looked suspiciously like old tires.

But the real reason to visit is the amazing rock formations of the adjacent beach area, just southwest of the restaurant.

It looked positively organic.

And it continues on for a few hundred meters at least.

Water makes it look especially nice.

Our feet. Carrol was brave enough to go barefoot.

It was hard to get enough of it, but at some point we did have to leave.

But not before noting an actual anemone.

And some local chooks, unfortunately, almost certainly destined for the nearby restaurant.

Ok, off to the north end of the island to check out Fossil Beach. This required parking at the entrance to Fossil Beach Farm, and walking a short, slightly overgrown and muddy path down to the beach.

Lots of rocks here. We didn't find any fossils, but we did almost lose our hiking shoes to the rising tide.

Hot and tired, we decided to proceed into Fossil Beach Farm, which was advertising cider tasting. It turned out to be an interesting, lively place, and we tried 6 different ciders.

Unfortunately, beyond drinking cider there wasn't much to do. We could observe some interesting old wrecks on the farm of mild and purely local historical interest, but the beach area was reserved for their glamping customers.

Next, we walked out to the nearby Seabreeze Lodge, hoping to look at a more curated beach, and perhaps have an evening drink at their restaurant/bar. Sadly, we couldn't find any beach roads, and the loud music emanating from the restaurant was unappealing. We started to walk back, but noticed a nearby vulture, and took that as a good omen to proceed to the Fowler Road Beach trail at the end of the short road.

The beach itself looked nice, but at this point pretty similar to others.

Dead crabs of course, with the slight novelty of starting to float around as the tide rose.

Seaweed of course.

Perhaps even living jellyfish.

Actual fish, however tiny.

And Carrol barely escaped being eaten by a starfish!

The rising tide was a little too late for this starfish though.

We walked back along a local trail, which seemed more appealing than walking along the road.

There were pretty foxgloves.

And lots of mosquito breeding grounds, despite the relative lack of mosquitoes.

The next day we left the trauma of carting around used toilet paper behind and left for a more welcoming and normal hotel experience at the Shorewater Resort in Qualicum Beach, where we had a large room, a full, and this time more usable kitchenette, and a balcony view of the Salish Sea.

And importantly, laundry facilities.

After laundry we headed out to the beach to explore. Being on the cheaper side of the beach strip, we had to go through a more rocky area to reach the sandy area.

The rocky area, however, is often the most interesting. There was some weird, almost fabric-like seaweed.

A (quite large) seagull eating a clam.

A clam, hiding from seagulls by cleverly disguising itself as a vagina.

And even something burbling up from the deeps to have a look at us.

Eventually we reached the sandier portion of the beach.

It wasn't all sand, some of it was sea grass.

And some of it, naturally, was dead crabs.

There were lots of clam holes. We were amused by the little squirts of water they sometimes spat out as we walked by. Carrol tried stomping near one so I could get an action shot, but we were only partially successful. I also stomped near a few, and was rewarded with me and the camera being doused in a surprisingly large and far-reaching jet of clam juice, which put an end to that amusement.

For variety we walked back along the road. Along the way we spied a weird, seal-shaped rock, which on closer inspection turned out to be a dead seal. Our macabre interest, however, dampened when we shifted a bit downwind of it, and were exposed to the corresponding horrific rotting stench.

Further along was nice viewpoint though.

Finally, we got back to the hotel and drank wine on our balcony. Not only did we see the sea, there were bunnies!

Eventually the tide came back in.

With only one day in Qualicum Beach we had to leave the next morning.

But it was a pretty morning sky.

And we momentarily stopped along the road for a picture of the beach at high tide. A lot less sand now.

Another ferry later, we arrived in Salt Spring Island and headed to the main city, Ganges, for lunch and to see what the city has to offer. Ganges has a small, concentrated downtown near the harbour of course. It was cute and very tourist-oriented, other than a curiously low number of drinking establishments.

It was still early afternoon, so we drove over to look at The Glass Foundry. This was a tiny place, but with a variety of interesting creations and a friendly owner. Carrol quite likes insulators and expressed admiration for the large collection of glass insulators outside, which prompted him to show us his actual museum of insulators inside, which was quite impressive.

We then drove all the way out to the northern tip of the island, Southey Point Beach. This had a tiny parking lot next to a set of stairs down to the beach. The water scene was pretty, and there were lots of oyster shells, but it's less of a beach and more of a pile of large, jagged rocks, so walking around was neither easy nor much fun.

Hoping for a more interesting beach experience, we drove back toward our B&B and stopped at nearby Fernwood Point. Maybe we were just beached out at this point, but walking through the muck just didn't seem appealing, and we didn't stay very long.

Finally, we checked in at The Carriage House B&B. It was quite nice and relaxing, and included use of a private hot tub (which we made good use of for both nights we were there).

We relaxed for a while, drank too much to drive, and so walked out to the restaurant. Although the walk was entirely along roads, some of it was quite pretty.

And we got a nice view of nearby St. Mary's Lake.

The next day we spent the morning hiking the Beaver Point loop trail in Ruckle Provincial Park. This was a 2hr walk (for us) going around a peninsula on the southeast end of the island. We started the loop by parking near the road, and followed the trail counter-clockwise through a nearby farm.

We did see some deer too.

Our first stop was Grandma's Beach While nice, this turned out to be quite tiny beach, and thus only a brief pause in the hike.

Anyway, we followed the trail onward, at least as much as we could find it.

Finally, a trail marker.

At various times the trail passed by clearings that enabled lovely views of the surrounding water, along with its natural inhabitants.

We did have to deviate around the quarantine area though.

And after passing by a group of volunteers killing the offending plants, and failing to find the lighthouse that was supposed to be right along the trail, we made it to the eastern-most tip of the peninsula, which did facilitate a more natural landscape scene.

The more scenic places along the trail also had benches, so you could rest and admire the view. These benches all had individual names. This is Gordon.

This is Gwen.

And this is Mark.

The trail mostly wound its way through the geography. At some points though I guess the trail-builders got tired of winding around nature and just decided to go through it.

Eventually it opened up into a gravel-paved road, potentially suitable for wheelchair hikers.

Well, if they could get past the snail.

Not quite ready to abandon nature entirely, we continued on a short loop further through the forest, giving us some of that nice, green and mossy nature path.

And textures of course.

Returning to our B&B, we relaxed for the afternoon and in the evening parked ourselves in the hot tub. From here we had a nice view of surrounding trees.

And as dusk continued we watched the bats fly around.

The next day we drove out to Fulford Harbour for the ferry to Swartz Bay in order to get to Sidney, our last stop.

As ferries do, we floated across the water.

And across whatever this bit of water is called.

Upon arrival we drove around a little, stopping for a quick look at Coal Point a tiny lookout grudgingly made accessible between the wealthy houses on the coast.

It had a single bench, this one named Jeff and Barbara, which apparently merits a built-in flower vase.

And then it was off to downtown Sidney itself. We wanded around downtown for the afternoon walking between the highway and the coast looking at different shops and sites.

One last glimpse of the water.

After which we checked into our fancy hotel, drove back to Saanich to visit our friend Olivia, and then returned to sleep in order to make an early morning departure home.