Vancouver Island, or Plans Gone Astray, and It Was Great!: October-November 2015

    Recently Marilyn's son was looking for our post on Vancouver Island, as they are planning a trip there this summer. I assured him it was there, but I looked backward and forward through the blog and couldn’t find it either. We loved that trip in the fall of 2015—how could we not have written about it??? 

View from our campsite—Right there: a great beach to walk. Bella Pacific Beach, Tofino, Vancouver Island, British Columbia.

Vancouver Island:  12,400 sq mi. Canada's 11th largest island. 555 miles of roads.

    Doug wrote about planning for the trip and making his way north to Seattle. He even proposed a title for the Vancouver Island post in the Seattle post. But we never got around to writing the post. We're thinking of going back there ourselves, so why not a belated revisit?

Our route from Seattle to Vancouver Is to the Olympic Peninsula.

    After our friends' October wedding in Edmonds, WA (Doug was in the wedding party), we visited friends in White Rock, BC, then took the ferry from Horseshoe Bay north of Vancouver to Nanaimo on Vancouver Island. Our destination was Tofino on the west side of the island, one of the few towns accessible by road. Well, we came to an intersection with Tofino to the right and Uclulet to the left, and thought, Why not?

Our amazing Island West Resort campsite #1 in Uclulet. Water on 3 sides—perfect!

Evening, Uclulet.

We walked a portion of the Wild Pacific Trail & encountered Gumby!

Love Lock Pole on Wild Pacific Trail.

View from our campsite.

    The west coast of Vancouver Island is called the Graveyard of the Pacific, with 100s of shipwrecks recorded. The previous year, we'd camped on North Carolina's Outer Banks, known as the Graveyard of the Atlantic. Ironically, the name Uclulet comes from the name of the First Peoples indigenous to the area and means "people of the safe harbor."

Story of shipwreck of 1905 British ship. Bottom left is the ship's bell, recovered in the 1960s by the Uclulet Wreck Checkers.

    Not that we wanted to leave Uclulet, but it was getting to be late fall, so after a couple of days it was time to go where we initially were headed, off to Tofino, the "Surf Capital" of Canada. Tofino claims that it, not Victoria, is the true western end of the Trans-Canada Highway.

As the crow flies, Tofino is 125 mi west of Victoria. By car, it's 196 mi. AND it's on the Pacific.

We camped on MacKenzie Beach at Bella Pacific Campground.

So many textures & hues.

Marilyn sorting pictures at the picnic table alas did not lead to a post of the trip.

    This was our 2nd trip together in Mz Agnes, the 2003 PleasureWay Ford Traverse Poptop Van (think a VW Westfalia on steroids). In April of that year Doug flew to Maryland to pick her up, and 3 days later she was in our driveway. Mz Agnes replaced the "MRV" ("Marilyn's RV") which we'd bought from a friend in 2014. We'd needed a smoother ride than the VW after Marilyn's back surgery, but the MRV proved much too big and complicated for us.

Our van stable: 2004 PleasureWay Excel TS (the MRV). 2003 PleasureWay Traverse Poptop (Mz Agnes). 1987 VW Westy.

Guess which van we still have?

Doug & his son, Andrew, took the VW to Death Valley in spring 2023.

    Since 2019, we've been the happy owners of a 2019 Dodge Promaster 17.5 ft, 136 van. When Mz Agnes died after 60,000 wonderful miles, we sold her to friends, who installed a new engine and have since loved and enjoyed her for many more miles.
    Meanwhile, back on the beach in Tofino...

Doug enjoys the picnic assortment his son and daughter-in-law had gifted us.

Even as it was getting cooler many families continued to enjoy the beach.

Doug chatting with a young father finishing up the family sand castle.

Pretty amazing results.

    Both Tofino and Uclulet are on peninsulas that jut out into the ocean. Tofino is surrounded by islands. Water taxis crossed back and forth to the First Nations community on a nearby island.

Water taxi headed from First Street Dock to First Nations village across channel. 

First Nation people came to Tofino for supplies.

Foggy evening at First Street Dock.

View of Marine West Marina from Jack's Pub, where Marilyn had a memorable salad with 3 gigantic, succulent scallops. 

Marine West Marina.

Float plane landing in the harbor. Obviously, this got Doug's attention. 

A Western Red Cedar nurse log along Tonquin Beach Trail that meandered through the rainforest.

Another nurse log.

Artistic bench along the trail.

Wonderful deck view point.

View from the deck.

Nurse log.

King of the Rainforest.

South end of MacKenzie Beach.

Sunset from our campsite.

How do you say good-bye to beauty like this?

    How many times have we written "we left reluctantly"? 

Fall colors along Hwy 4 back to the east side of the island.

Doug's entertainment.

Marilyn's entertainment: crochet supply box, which doubled as a foot rest. Those were the most comfy shoes!

Begonias in Port Alberni.

    Now off to Victoria to catch the ferry. After such a grand time in nature, visiting a town wasn't in the plans. Besides, we'd been to Victoria before. 

    But our attitude shifted when we entered town. There was nowhere we had to be, so Marilyn got online and found the James Bay Inn, located on a side street less than a half mile from the main downtown area. It was an older inn, quaint and comfortable.

Our home in Victoria.

We loved the inn—and Victoria—and stayed 3 days.

Parlor next to our room.

Deck off parlor, where Marilyn enjoyed her morning coffee.

The bathroom radiator didn't clang!

Horse-drawn carriages passed outside our window. 

The Empress Hotel, which we've visited in the past, though not for afternoon High Tea. We've heard there are other places just as satisfactory & rather less pricey.

Across the harbor from downtown Victoria.

British Columbia Parliament building.

Float plane taxiing in Victoria Harbor.

Irish Times Restaurant, where Doug ate his favorite, Shepherds Pie.

Marilyn loved this front yard fence designed to look like a fish with the head on the left and tail on the right (and a tree in between). 

Colors of Victoria.

More colors of Victoria.

Waiting for the ferry to Port Angeles, WA, on the Olympic Peninsula.

    We took the ferry from Victoria across the Strait of Juan de Fuca, aka Samish Sea, to Port Angeles. Unlike the small flat- bottom ferries that work Puget Sound, this is a sea-going ship—the Strait can get rather rough.
    After a couple of days with young friends who had moved to nearby Sequim from Visalia, we spent the next 10 days working our way down the West Coast.

Our route home down the Pacific Coast.

Camped on the beach at Quileute Oceanside Resort on the Quileute Reservation near LaPush, WA.

Quileute Beach & a rather large piece of drift wood.

Black dots are surfers at Quileute Beach.

Nature's log flute.

Quileute Beach: perspective on our place in the cosmos.

    Across the Quillayute River from Quileute Beach is Rialto Beach. It's well worth the drive 5 miles upriver to the bridge and 5 miles back downriver to get there.

Rialto Beach.

    We continued down the Washington Coast, next stop Cape Disappointment State Park at the mouth of the Columbia River.

North Head Lighthouse on Cape Disappointment.

    Our next stop was Beverly Beach State Park, which Doug often says is his favorite campground on the Oregon Coast. In a short 1/4-mile walk under the 101 bridge, you are at the ocean.

Hwy 101 bridge at sunset from Beverly Beach State Park Campground. 

Mz Agnes had the option for electricity (cord on right)—occasionally we do enjoy campground hook-ups.

Doug walking Beverly Beach.

        South of Beverly Beach, between Yachats and Florence, is Heceta Head Lighthouse. On another coastal trip in fall 2021, we stopped and took the trail up to the lighthouse.

Heceta Head Lighthouse.

    One of Marilyn's favorite Oregon Coast Lighthouses is Coquille River, just north of Bandon.

Coquille River Lighthouse. 

Marilyn's favorite shot of Coquille River Lighthouse.

    Another favorite campground on the Oregon Coast is Humbug Mountain near Port Orford, though the sites closer to the ocean are often closed in winter.

Doug on beach at Humbug Mountain State Park.

    Our last Oregon stop was Harris Beach State Park in Brookings, a campground up on a hill with wonderful views of the Pacific—if you can get one of the front row sites.

Mz Agnes enjoying her last Oregon campground of the trip, Harris Beach SP.

Sunset, Harris Beach.

    After entering California the next day, we stopped a few miles before Eureka at another favorite spot, Trinidad State Beach, CA.

    Trinidad State Beach.

    South of Trinidad, 101 turns inland to go around the Lost Coast. At Leggett, you can continue south on 101 or turn west on 1.  On this trip, we turned west, though Doug contends this is one of the windiest roads he's ever driven and definitely not a favorite. The reward is the breathtaking view of the Pacific when you reach the end.

Finally arrived at the Pacific & looking  north toward the Lost Coast.

    Further down the coast, we stopped at Fort Bragg, where we've often camped at the mouth of the Noyo River.

Pacific Ocean at Fort Bragg.

    After we pass Jenner on Highway 1 at the mouth of the Russian River, we start to look for a group of houses on the west side of the road, at Gleason Beach. Each time we go by there seems to be at least one fewer home hanging onto the cliffs. After the Pacific got through eroding the cliffs, it continued on to the houses.

 

Stopping at Gleason Beach to look at foundations, all that remain of former homes.

Looking toward the ocean from a foundation of a home that was standing a few years prior.

By 2021, repairs to Hwy 1 were no longer an option. Since then, a road realignment of up to 400 feet inland and including a new bridge has been under way at Gleason Beach.
    Our final stop of the trip before visiting Marilyn's children was Porto Bodega Marina & RV Park. Marilyn has fond memories of Bodega Bay from her parents living there for about 25 years in retirement.

Fog at Bodega Bay is not unusual.

    It's hard to believe our Vancouver Island trip was 8 years ago, though we've traveled the Pacific Coast northbound and southbound numerous times since then. 

    Now to ferry to Vancouver Island again.