Port Alberni, Big Trees, Tofino with Paul and Karen

We have been hanging out in Parksville near the water and playing with rocks and checking out some local wildlife and touristing around 😁

We decided to drive out to Port Alberni and have a look at our drive to Tofino. Kind of a preview. We were told about a place called Goats on The Roof. Naturally when we went there, the goats were on the ground and nowhere near the roof, but in several other drives past, we did see them on the roof. 🐏

It’s a really cool collection of stores. The markets place has international foods from Germany, Portugal, England, and as per one of our photos Newfoundland. We do plan on returning here when we come back in the spring and stocking up on other favourite European foods. 😁

During the drive, we stopped at MacMillan Provincial Park and looked at all the old growth trees, some ranging and age up to 800 years. It is an unbelievable experience to walk around there and see these trees. Cathedral Grove is what it’s known as. It’s something else. 🌲

In Parksville, we were staying on the beach and one night we got to check out the cruise ships going by as well as the beautiful sunsets.

We took an afternoon and drove down to Nanaimo to check it out. The liberal party of Canada was having a convention there at the time so there were some protesters. There were some police and I didn’t photograph any of those people. It’s a nice town and we had a beer and a really good prawn appetizer with a sauce to die for. We tried to buy some Nanaimo bars, but the bakery in downtown that specializes in them was closed due to all the political activity. We will be there again.

We were preparing for a drive to Tofino and went into one of the oldest pubs on Vancouver Island, and had a nice dinner before our departure for Tofino

En route we met with Paul and Karen Bowen and naturally as per everybody else in British Columbia they drive faster than us and met us in Tofino at our campground. They beat us by 45 minutes. After set up and when the rain subsided, we went down to the beach and it’s huge and it’s beautiful. We could hear the waves from where we were camped, not very far from it. We spent the evening catching up on what’s been going on and everybody’s lives.

Since none of us surf and a lot of people in Tofino, do do that we had to settle for walks on the beach and visits to the two main towns, one being Tofino and the other one Ucluelet.

It’s about a half an hour drive from one to the other along the coast and they’re super picturesque small towns

On Saturday night, as it was really nice weather us and it seemed like everybody in the campground, went down to the beach to watch the sunset over the Pacific Ocean. It’s heading in the direction of Japan. (Inside Joke 😂)

Absolutely beautiful.

We wrapped up our time in Tofino by visiting Long Beach and having a lovely afternoon of playing Ticket To Ride, which Karen won. After dinner packing up and getting ready for the drive over the hills and far away to beautiful Campbell River was the excitement. We will be stationed there for a few weeks 😄

Thanks for following along 😎