Vancouver Island - Parksville and Ucluelet

 Vancouver Island Part 1 - Parksville and Ucluelet

We caught the ferry and hoped we would leave the smoke behind.  

The air was much better on the beach in Parksville but the smoke obscured the hills in the distance.

It was not the best beach I have ever been to, but there was a lot of interesting debris around.

The main memory of Parksville was one of the best meals we had on our trip at The Chameleon restaurant.  Great service and great food.

The next day was a drive to Ucluelet.  We stopped for an hour or so at Cathedral Grove.  This was a glorious example of old-growth forest, with some trees over 800 years old.

Some of the trees were huge!

Ucluelet will never win any prizes for prettiest town.  There is a charm about the place, but a lot of the town is a bit rough and ready and weather beaten.   

After a coffee in town, we did the Lighthouse Loop walk.  There were some amazing trees along the walk, bent into strange shapes by the weather. 

The weather was not great, but it was how I had pictured it would look.  It was rugged rocks with trees extending nearly to the tide line.  The greyness just emphasised the harshness of the area.

The shortest lighthouse I've ever seen.

Most of the walk was on the top of a cliff but we did venture onto the "beach".

The end of the walk had a "bog walk".  This had very different vegetation than the rest of the walk, with a lot more colour, but few trees.

The next morning, we had to be up at 5am to drive to Tofino along an unlit road! 

Then out on a RHIB to go bear watching.  In the area around Trofino bears will come down onto the foreshore after the high tide to look for food.  Searching among the rocks to find what the tide had left behind.

(Like a prize pillock, I forgot my telephoto lens!)

The trip was about 2.5 hours, and we were lucky enough to see 5 bears on different "beaches".  It was great to watch the bears in their natural environment searching among the rocks for sea critters.  They were obviously aware of the boats drifting 50-100m away, but totally oblivious to them.

The inlet / bay itself was very atmospheric in the early morning - the trip set off just after sunrise.

We also had the chance to get up "close" to Harbour Seal colony.

It was also amazint to see jelly fish in the wild, especially the lions mane.

After our boat trip, and a hearty breakfast, we headed back to Ucluelet.  We intended to stop at a few places en-route, but we were unable to get into any of the car parks other than the Long Beach.  The car parks were in all fairness pretty small.

Long Beach is another example of how many of the places have very literal names.  It was a beach and it was long.

Unfortunately it was also very grey.

There were plenty of strange sea weeds around.

The treeline was right upto the high tide level.

But some trees had made their way onto the beach

We headed back to our hotel to do the second part of the Wild Pacific Trail.

The weather brightened up!

The walk was around 10km - mostly at the top of the treeline but at times it did go further into the trees.

The two days around the Pacific Rim, were very different to the earlier part of the holiday.  It felt to be closer to the natural environment, rather than the expansive views in the mountains. 

We had a glorious chalet at the Black Rock Resort, with views out to the bay, and I spent my time enjoying the view with a beer rather than taking photos. 

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