Just Natoya

To kick off my three-part Summer’s End series. Lets begin on Vancouver Island. On the weekend of August 13-14th I decide that it would be really fabulous to visit Tofino! I had never been and i thought what better way to spend your birthday than in Tofino? I also decided this on the Friday and my birthday was Sunday. There wasn’t a ton of planning involved so we just winged it. this proved to be a bit of a mistake.

We took an afternoon Ferry to Nanaimo and just casually drove down to Tofino. The moment we got there we decided to secure some accommodations as we had no reservations anywhere. I was alarmed by all the NO VACANCY signs which lined the side of the streets as we made our way to the centre of town. There were literally no places to stay. We headed to long beach to at least see the beauty of Tofino and enjoyed our little time here before we headed to Ucluelet to find a place to stay for the night. Long Beach was the most spectacular place I’d ever seen in B.C….well so far. The shoreline stretched as far as the eyes could see and gave you the most serene unobstructed view. Long beach was everything I had imagined it would be. There were surfers catching waves, People burning campfires, people camping, drumming, just relaxing and enjoying their surroundings. It was beautiful.

 
Night was starting to fall so we headed towards Ucluelet for room and board and soon found out there is NO VACANCY there as well. We headed back through the mountain pass and towards Port Alberni. Where we found room and board atop of the only “nightclub” in town and when i say it was above the nightclub it was literally above the nightclub. At this point it was roughly 12 am and i was just tired of driving around. Not even the thumping sounds of Pitbull could keep me awake.

We got up early and headed out for some island exploring. YaY happy birthday to me. first stop Cathedral Grove. This is a must see a few very large old growth trees hundreds of years old. I stood in awe considering of how long these trees have stood here and what amazing stories they could tell. I felt like I had some sort of spiritual experience. Seriously!!

Since we are antique dealers amongst other things I wanted to see what the vintage shops had to offer. There was a sign on the side of the street which read.

” Old man selling cool things”

We pulled over to find an old gentleman in a barn selling cool things. I got a very beautiful old blue scale as a Birthday gift. The rest of the day was spent shopping around Victoria and doing the tourist thing. By the time we headed to the ferry I realized okay, We definitely cannot ever come back to this island without some serious planning. There had been some sport tournament and the intended Ferry we wanted to make was full even before it docked. We spent what felt like several hours at Schwartz bay playing on our devices and longing for home. All in all though it was a pretty great weekend. But if you plan to go to Tofino or surrounding areas a bit of planning will do you a world of good.

Next week we talk about our trip to Joffres Lake Provincial Park.

–Natoya.