Day 35 and 36 – Pacific Rim National Park

September 4^th, it is Red’s birthday today! We drive in the late morning to the K^wisitis Visitor Center to learn a little more about the local First Nation. From there, we hike on Wickaninnish Beach. The fog is still pretty thick in some place, so thick you could almost touch it. But the sun is not far beyond it. At Combers Beach, we walk for miles on the shore, in the fog, feeling like we are almost alone on the beach. On these Pacific Coast beaches, there is one rule: “never turn your back at the waves”. Everybody has stories about people being kidnapped by the sea and never found again. A simple wave, a rogue wave, higher and more powerful than the other ones, during a moment of inattention. Long beach is our next destination. These beaches are one of the longest stretches of beach in western Canada, which makes for a very touristy destination.

 

Closer to Tofino, we hike again through a beautiful forest of Cedars and Hemlocks, opening up to Schooner Cove, where First Nations have been living for a while. Back to the camper, we start the birthday festivities, with a birthday snack: a White Russian with some local Canadian chips.

Back to the campsite, we get on our bikes and ride to the city of Tofino. We realize on the way that Yellow’s rear tire is totally bent. So bent that it is painful to look at the tire when he is driving. The tire was probably hit recently while backing up Bertha. And the rim was just changed a month ago. So sad. Well, we still ride to Tofino. The town seems to be in a very cute location, with mountains meeting the ocean all around. It is actually pretty hard to catch a glimpse of the scenery, as everybody is building on the shore. And resorts are piling up between the town and our campground.

 

Back to the motorhome, Yellow prepares the birthday bonfire and the birthday dinner: Spanish rice with duck gizzards from France, chocolate, and marzipan from Germany for desert. Delicious. We eat around the bonfire, the first bonfire of the whole trip so far.

And it seems that harassing the receptionists was a good idea in the end. We finally have internet on site, so Red can see that the whole world has been thinking about her on her birthday.  The bonfire keeps us warm until pretty late in the chilly night, and once inside the motorhome, we have our electric heater to help us get into our sleeping bags. The nights are definitely colder on the coast.

The next day, after cleaning and packing up, it’s already time to leave Tofino, which we do in the late morning. But before totally leaving Pacific Rim NP, we stop at the Shorepine Bog Trail. The trail leads us into a beautiful wooded area, very different from the old-growth forests and rainforests that we have seen. It is even supposed to have some insect-eating plants, but despite the fact that we searched for those plants very carefully, we didn’t find any.

 

 

Off we go, crossing again the 49^th parallel.  We stop at Ucluelet, the other town next to the Pacific Rim. We hike the Wild Pacific Trail, a 2.6 km loop around the tip of the peninsula. The fog is pretty thick, and the sounds made by the neighboring lighthouse add to the mysterious environment.

 

 

The main attraction on the trail is the presence of bald eagles. After going through Ucluelet on the way back, we felt like the town was much friendlier and laid-back than Tofino.

 

Back on the road, we eat lunch on the way, which ends up not being the best idea. We are driving that same crazy road we drove on the way in, which upsets our stomachs. We pass Port Alberni again, and drive directly to Duncan, BC, where we arrive around 6pm. We meet there Ron, Yellow’s Mom’s cousin, and his wife Jane, and Mike, Larry’s oldest son, enjoying some vacation days on the Island. We all get to know each other around a delicious dinner.