Ireland day 0966. Tuesday 21 May 2024- Tofino 1

Today’s summary	Drove down to Horseshoe Bay to catch the 0905 ferry across to Nanaimo on Vancouver Island. An ideal day to be travelling as it poured with rain most of the day. Drove further west across to Tofino in the Pacific Rim national park. Sun came out just as we checked in to the Pacific Sands resort. A brilliant walk on the mostly deserted beach and then alfresco salmon burger as the sun was setting. Joined by the rest of the family later in the evening.
Today’s weather	Heavy rain from about midnight until late afternoon then clearing to blue skies and brilliant sun. Strong north westerly wind. Appx 12c

Today’s overview location (The green mark shows the location of our route)		Close-up location (The orange line shows where we walked) (Click button below to download GPX of today’s walk as recorded, or see interactive map at bottom with elevations corrected): Tofino Cox Bay

Commentary

(Summary blog only. Last full blog was Day 0368).

Well all I can say is that we have been extremely lucky with the weather for our Canadian trip so far. Mostly bright and sunny for the whole of last week until the middle of last night when it started to pour down and it didn’t really stop until late this afternoon. But as luck would have it, today we were leaving Vancouver and moving west, so as we ended up travelling all day, the weather really didn’t matter.

Our journey started with a ferry trip across to Nanaimo on Vancouver Island from Horseshoe Bay, all which went straightforwardly despite the rain. Once across the Howe Sound we picked up Highway 4 and drove right across the island to the Pacific Rim coast. We had hoped to stop off to see the trees at Cathedral Grove but there was no parking so we drove on, reminding ourselves to pause there on the return journey.

We soon arrived at Port Alberni where we stopped off for a quick bunch at Tim Hortons (making a mental note while we were there of the typical physique of the clientele and pondering what the correlation with the diet we were about to enjoy might be).

Once fortified with bacon and coffee, we resumed our travels and soon pitched up at Ucluelet. The staff in the National Parks office there weren’t particularly helpful other than to advise us that we would have to pay about C$10 each for the privilege of walking on the shore. That’s certainly a new and not entirely welcome development since we were last here 33 years ago.

A little further on we reached Wickaninnish beach, hoping to see the Inn which we had enjoyed visiting back in the 1990s. Only, in the second disappointment of the day, to discover that it had closed and been converted into a visitor centre. A shame but not a disaster as a “new” Inn at Wickaninnish has opened at Tofino and we will be checking it out tomorrow.

We’re staying for the next couple of nights at the Pacific Sands resort on Cox Bay at Tofino and we arrived on site by about 4pm. Once checked in, we took a walk on the wonderful, windy and wild Cox Bay beach, feeling like we really were at the end of the world. We followed up the walk with an alfresco salmon burger and a couple of beers while watching the sun set over the Pacific. The rest of the family joined us later in the evening, after taking a later ferry.

What a truly wonderful day.

Today’s photos (click to enlarge)


Onboard the ferry to Nanaimo	The sadly abandoned Wickaninnish Inn – though it is slowly being converted into a visitor information centre

Massive starfish and other exotic wildlife decorated the rockpools on the beach	Beautiful beach – but pretty windswept and feeling chilly

By the firepit awaiting our burgers	Just managed to capture the sunset over the beach. Magnificent (though sadly no aurora is predicted tonight)

Giant treestump on the beach. Goodness knows how it got here, but it will certainly take a while to rot away