Day 11 7/21/2011

Last night we took advantage of the warm cookies in the lodge at 8:00. We decided to take a few extras for our breakfast as we would be leaving too early to eat there.
Today was mainly a travel day. We took one last look at our wonderful ocean view and left about 6:00 a.m. Just as we were leaving the park we were excited to see a mama bear with her cub on the side of the road.
We drove to Nanaimo to catch our ferry. We made our trip in that direction much more quickly than the other and were able to get on an earlier ferry than we had planned.
That was our last ferry as we landed on tierra firma. We drove to our room in Langley just outside of Vancouver. We checked into our room and ventured out to see Fort Langley which is the birthplace of British Columbia.
We came back to our room and changed for our trip to the temple. The temple is only open in the evening for sessions on Thursdays. We were very excited to be able to do a session. We were also happy to get out of the 72 degree heat.

Day 10 7/20/2011

This morning the lodge served us a wonderful breakfast. It was continental but had wonderful granola and great croissants and a boiled egg. We have to leave too early tomorrow, so we will miss it.
Today we walked to McKenzie Beach (10 minutes away from our lodge). This was the beach that we camped on two years ago. It brought back fond memories of sleeping to the sound of the waves. We then walked to “our private beach” and found a lots of sea shells. It was low tide so many had washed up on the beach. We also waded in the ocean. We spent a couple of hours on the beach walking and relaxing.
We then drove to Wikinnish to see the exhibit at the museum. They had a film about the area that was very informative and interesting. We ate dinner at the restaurant there. Patty had her last seafood chowder and I had a crab salad that was wonderful. While we drove back to the lodge we stopped at a few other sites in the park along the way.

Day 9 7/19/2011

Rathevor Beach has the warmest ocean water in Canada. I was surprised when I felt how warm it was. It has a low tide of a third of a mile. We had great beds and slept late. We drove to Cathedral Grove with 500 year old trees. Then we went to Port Alberni to buy donuts. When we were here two years ago we happened upon a donut shop with the best donuts ever.
Today we drove to the Pacific Rim National Park on the west side of Vancouver Island. It is a rain forest with miles and miles of coastline. We are staying in a lodge on the beach. The lodge is small, maybe thirty rooms, and we have our own private beach. We visited some of the beaches in the area. I usually don’t like beaches that much, but when it is cool and not a lot of people it is quite pleasant and peaceful. We especially enjoyed walking around our private beach with no one around.
We cooked our dinner on the deck overlooking the ocean. It has been overcast, but not raining. We went inside to a roaring fire and played a couple of games of chess. It is so relaxing and peaceful here.

Day 8

Today we left a very overcast Victoria and drove to Duncan. We drove through some gorgeous scenery, but it was pretty cloudy. In Duncan we had a nice breakfast and drove around to see some of the totem poles in town. There are around eighty of them.
From there we drove to Parksville where we went to the Rathtrevor Beach. It was still overcast, but sunny. Patty walked to the water which was quite a ways away as it was low tide. I napped and read in the lawn chair we brought. She picked up quite a few shells. It got really warm, so we were glad it was overcast. We then drove into Qualicum Beach and did our laundry and had fish and chips for on the dock overlooking the beach. It was a perfect day—sunny and a cool breeze. Our room tonight is in Parksville. We have a very nice room.

Day 7

Today we attended Sacrament Meeting and Sunday School in the Victoria 1st Ward. The rest of the day was pretty relaxing. We walked along Island View Beach and picked up shells. Then we went to Beacon Hill Park. It was very spacious with lots of paved walks so I was able to push Patty around the ponds, flowers and such. We ended up at Goldstream Provincial Park where we cooked our dinner. This is where we had camped when we were here about twenty-five years ago. It is very peaceful and dark because of the large trees. All in all it was a very quiet day.

Day 6

Today we woke up to a hard rain. It looked like it had been raining most of the night. We changed our plans a little and headed to the city to see the Royal B.C. Museum. We are really glad that we went. It was a very well-done and interesting museum. We spent a couple of hours there and headed to our other destinations as it had stopped raining.
We went to Sooke Pot-holes Provincial Park, Whiffin Spit Park, and French Beach. We especially enjoyed the later even though I got a little wet from an unexpected wave.
On the way back to Victoria, we stopped off at a grocery store. We then drove to the wharf to have a dinner of seafood chowder and fresh steamed crab. It was delicious.

Day 5

Today we took the ferry to Vancouver Island in Canada. We landed at Sydney and drove around there a little bit. Then we headed for Victoria. We found a parking place and got out the chair and headed for an underwater aquarium. We then walked around the harbor and bought a few cool souvenirs.

We ate the sandwiches we had made and headed to check into our motel. Not the best, but the cheapest, place to stay. We rested for a few minutes and headed for Butchart Gardens. It looked like rain so we took our jackets and an umbrella. We also took the chair, but were hoping they would have motorized wheel chairs to rent as there are lots of major hills. We didn’t see anywhere to rent them so we ventured out. It was gorgeous. It was originally a hole left from digging out limestone so you begin by looking down into a massive garden. We spent hours there and really enjoyed the beauty. It started raining lightly, but we had our rain jackets so we were fine. We ate some more chowder and a salmon salad and went back to view the gardens some more. We did some shopping. I was dead tired by the time we got out of there. We had been there four hours. We headed back to our room and immediately to bed.