First let’s slingshot back to where we left off from the March shakedown tour of Vancouver Island. The blog was at the point of crossing the island over to Long Beach and Torino. As we headed onto the highway at Port Alberni, there was an overhead sign indicating that was going to be heavy snow conditions ahead. Well this was not really a part of our plans, hmmm. We had planned to stop at a beautiful lake for a trailer lunch on the way, named Sproat Lake. We did this and noticed that they had several dry camping spots in the Provincial Park (Dry camping = no hookups). We were thinking maybe the weather was going to improve so why not just stay here the night, so $14 dollars later and we found a nice site. Sproat Lake is a wonderful waterskiing lake in the summer as well as has a great history with pictographs as well as home to a Martin Mars water-bomber aircraft.
The weather the next day was much better but we did drive through some light snow as well as waited until the snow ploughs had done their jobs and cleared the highway for us.
Tofino is a wonderful laid back surfer community on the west coast of Vancouver Island but here, unlike Hawaii, bring your thick wetsuit or better yet a dry suite. Surfing is big over here, picture vans, trucks and cars all with boards on the roofs heading to Long Beach. We stayed at the spectacular, Bella Pacifica campground, right on Mackenzie Beach. The off season rate here is $70 per night with full hook ups. Any site on the Seaview Terrace is excellent, sites, 21 to 32, we were on site 25 which like the others back into the view. We had 5 wonderful days here, I will let the pictures tell this story.
Heading back across island we made another overnight stop at the Sproat Lake Provincial Park before settling into our 3 night stay at Qualicum Bay Resort. The Qualicum Bay Resort, plays the resort word very loosely, perhaps it is more resortish during the high season. For us, they put us in site 51 (avoid this site), it is supposed to be a drive through site but for perhaps a van or small class C motor home. Because there was a fifth wheel trailer right next to this site, the camp site guide had me come in the wrong way, this means that all the services (water, sewer, electrical had to run under our trailer). This may not seem to be a big issue but when draining your tanks you need to walk your hose up in the air to make sure it is completely drained, almost impossible here without having to crawl under you trailer. Anyway long story short, in the morning I decided to turn the trailer around, let’s just say that I got really familiar with how to use pro trailer back up assist on the new truck. Qualicum is beautiful and worth a return visit, great places to eat are the Qualicum Beach Cafe, Cookoos in Coombs (the goats on the roof place) and the Tidal taco stand right across the street from the “Resort”
I’ll end this update here, some pics of this time over on the island… hope you enjoy…
Beautiful Sproat Lake with the incredible pictographs
Martin Mars Water Bomber
Beautiful drive through the snowy pass on the way to Tofino
Bella Pacifica Campground, incredible views from our seaview terrace site number 25
Fantastic dining at The Schooner restaurant in Tofino
Long beach in BC is fantastic
An airstream park in Tofino
The mussels here are huge, edible, hmmm not sure
A lovely granddaughter visit at the Qualicum Beach Cafe
Yum.
No comments:
Post a Comment