Journey to Vancouver Island Part II

I ended part one as we boarded the ferry to Vancouver Island.

You can read part I HERE

The ferry docked in Nanaimo and we made our way to the Harbour Light Motel. We stayed there five nights and made Nanaimo our base of operations as we explored the southern part of the island.
There was a restaurant next door call the MGM. I wouldn't recommend it. We only ate there once. The service was bad and the food was not very good at all. They forgot Nina's order and I was almost finished by the time her order arrived.

The next day we decided to take a trip to the west side of the island to visit Ucluelet and Tofino.
We stopped in Coombs at this little place and had a bite to eat.
They had a whole bunch of stone carvings there.

I talked to the girl at the counter of the snack bar and found out that all the stone carvings were created by an artist in China and shipped all the way over here. None of them were for sale and I guess they were more of a tourist attraction.
Most of them were very beautiful.

Inside the snack bar, we were amazed to see a lot of wooden sculptures as well. I think they must have been done by the same artist, but I don't know for sure.

Quite amazing work!

From there we headed to Ucluelet. The thing that amazed me was the density of the growth on the island. The trees were packed together and I thought to myself that it must have been very hard for the first explorers to explore inland from the shores. I can now understand how the native peoples settled around the shorelines!

Some of the trees were pretty big!

Here is Nina and Danny beside one of the big trees.

I can't imagine trying to walk through this dense undergrowth!

We stopped briefly in Ucluelet and then headed towards Tofino.
There was some interesting sculptures along the way. They looked like stainless steel or aluminum welded together and must have taken some time to create.
This was at a surf shop.

We drove around Tofino. It seems like a real tourist town.
Here is Long Beach. Long beach is situated on Wickaninnish Bay

Danny was a little surprised when he tried taking a drink of the salty ocean water, but he loved splashing around.

There was lots of driftwood washed up on shore and this piece reminded me of a snake.

This was a waterfalls we passed, but for the life of me, I can't remember the name!
I loved the way the water had smoothed out the rock and there was a nice pool with water so clear!

The next day we took a trip to Victoria.
We got to Victoria and parked the car and near the parking lot there was a small Farmers Market.
We found some home made jams and maple syrup that was made on the island, which surprised me, as I didn't know they made maple syrup on the island!
We walked down to the parliament buildings and had a look around and took a few pics.

The parliament buildings were constructed and finished in 1898 at a cost of $923,000.

A cool Totem Pole on the legislative grounds.

They overlook the inner harbor. You can see the Empress Hotel, which was designed by Francis Rattenbury, the same architect that designed the parliament buildings.

Here is a seaplane coming into the harbor.

We left the downtown and decided to drive along the south road that faces the ocean stopping to take some pictures.
You can see it was still smoky from all the forest fires.

This is Mount Rainier an active volcano that is 14,410 feet above sea level located in the state of Washington, USA about 120 miles as the crow flies. I switched to my telephoto lens for this picture.

Sea kayaks in the bay.

As we drove around there was some beautiful trees and I have no idea what they were?

And this one had very red bark.

On our way back to Nanaimo we stopped at Petroglyph Park located just outside of Nanaimo.

There was a lot of moss growing on them but we could make out a few of them. These carvings are over 1000 years old.
It would have been more impressive if the site was cleaned up a bit!

We packed up our gear and the next day we headed for Port Hardy which is located on the north part of the island about 240 miles (386km). We took the island highway which was slower but a little more scenic.

We booked a place called Abusa by the Sea.
It is on a native reservation of the Kwakiutl Band.

This was the Kindergarten. Love the paintings.

There was a cemetery about 100 yards from our room.

On the beach there was a cool "dugout" made from one single piece of a tree trunk

Looks like the kindergarten class had a painting day and painted these shells. Beautiful!

Although the accommodations were not perfect (had a separate bathroom, which for old-timers like Nina and I, who always have get up in the middle of the night!) it was very peaceful and very quiet!

If you are up in Port hardy I highly recommend the Captain Hardy restaurant. They have a wonderful breakfast and their homemade bread is totally delicious!

We took a few trips to areas nearby. Coal Harbor was only a few minutes away.

There used to be a huge open pit mine near Coal Harbor but it was a really bad road so we never went to it.

Lots of fireweed on the island.

Not sure what these are but I love the colors and they seem quite popular.

The next day we went to Telegraph Cove. It's a bit of a sport fishing place and you can rent Kayaks.

Here is a guy cleaning his catch of salmon.

On our way out of Telegraph Cove I stopped and got a picture of a logging operation.

We left Port Hardy September 26th and drove back down to Nanaimo to catch the ferry back to the mainland. We drove to Chilliwack and spent the night there.

Goodbye Vancouver Island

Chilliwack

The next morning we headed back to Calgary. Along the way we got held up just outside of Sicamous. There was something happening and we waited for about an hour. It seems there was a fire by the side of the road and I kept seeing water bombers flying in the area.
There were about 7 firetrucks whizzing past us.

As we came up the hill a water bomber flew right close to the road and dropped its load. I didn't have time to take a picture but it was an impressive sight to see. Great flying guys!

The thing we noticed was the absence of wildlife during the entire trip. We only saw a small black bear on the island and it quickly disappeared before I could take a picture.

We made it home safely about 7pm on Sunday. It was a long trip and a lot of driving! It was unfortunate that there were so many forest fires burning!

4241km

Thanks everyone! Hope you liked this post!