Adventure at the end of the country

Tofino truly is a wonderful place. I'm left with no doubt that this place has lived up to its reputation as a resort town. Basically anything you can do in BC you can do in Tofino, weather you want to Kayak, go whale watching, climb a mountain, go to a beach, etc, etc you can get there from Tofino. Often within a few minutes of the town. The only complaint I have is that the weather wasn't very nice for the time we were there. If it was a sunny day I think we could have taken in the town in it's true glory.

We started off going to Tuff Beans, which has a really amazing breakfast. As well, I got to have a Hollywood moment when I realized it was the same store that the main character ate at in "One Week". The tea is pretty awesome as well, great start to the day.

We chartered a boat to take us over to Meares Island which apparently has really big trees and an awesome walking trail, but we had some time to kill so we went over to the town's boardwalk. The boardwalk itself wasn't very long, but it led down to a really nice beach. It was very pristine and once again, if it wasn't raining and cold would have been quite a beautiful spot.

Imagine this picture as if it was sunny out!

After wondering around the beach for about 30 minutes and scampering up some rocks we decided to head back into town to check in with the charter and make sure we had everything we needed. At around 12pm we were on our way across the bay to Meares Island.

I'm on a boat!

Once we got to Meares Island we were given two hours to do whatever we wanted before the water taxi came to pick us up. There was a nice board walk that went into the interior of the island, so we started there. The thing about Meares Island and many of the other islands that dot the coast of BC is that there really isn't much reason to settle there other than to build cottages. In this case, Meares Island was native territory and they only occupied one part of the island so the majority of it was undisturbed rain forest. The big thing about this walk are the trees themselves, they have a few there that are upwards of 1,500 years old! You could definitely tell based on the size of them (Although Geoff says this is a poor way to determine a tree's age).

What does the scouter say about that tree's power level?

Look at that tree, we don't know how old it was but it was wider at it's base that Geoff and I are wide, which is saying something. What's more is that this wasn't even the biggest tree, this is just the best picture I have representing the trees of the island.

The boardwalk ended about 800 metres in and was replaced by a trail, a very muddy trail, which led to... you guessed it: The Mud Flats! Other than that it went through undisturbed rainforest which was almost like stepping back in time. The trees are so big and so covered moss it seems like no human has been through this place in all of history, other than this muddy trail. It gave us the opportunity to see places like this:

That muddy strip in the middle of the picture is the trail

We were also able to see some of the local wildlife on the trip. I have to say it was less than inspiring:

We didn't linger long, this is the slugs territory.

Finally, what was really interesting about the trail was the minimal environmental impact. The trees in the area are really resistant to decomposition even after they've died. So the boardwalk was made out of planks cut out of a downed tree on site with saws and other traditional methods. In particularly muddy areas there were cut up trunks of tree as hopping pads, and in other places fallen branches were just used as impromptu bridges. There was no modern machinery used on site to make the place and nothing had to be shipped over. It also made for some really interesting furniture.

The boardwalk made from trees, chairs made from trees, EVERYTHING made of trees!

On our trip across Meares Island there was another couple with us and their dog. They were troopers and we kept close together for most of the hike. Sometimes we would be leading ahead and sometimes they would take the lead, that was until the later part of the mud trail which got a little rough. What ended up happening was their dog kept running ahead to us and then back to them, until we got too far ahead and it just started following us. When we got to the end we had the dog, and their owners were nowhere to be found. We weren't sure what happened to them, and there was only 20 minutes to spare, but we went back into the path and managed to find them after much back tracking. They were looking for the dog so they were glad to have it back. We all caught the boat together and returned to the main island and Tofino.

Our motley crew.

Once we returned to Tofino and made our way out of town. Not before stopping at Long Beach of course! Apparently this is the go to destination in all of Vancouver Island, if you go to one place on the whole island it better be there. This was concluded after exhaustive research involving the questioning of one shoppers cashier in Nanaimo, BC. So we went to Long Beach and it was a very nice spot, sandy beach, long shores, it was sort of like Parlee Beach in ShediacNanaimo, BC. So we went to Long Beach and it was a very nice spot, sandy beach, long shores, it was sort of like Parlee Beach in Shediac. Of course it would be much nicer if it wasn't freezing and raining the whole time.

The tide was out, so we had to walk forever to get to the water

Even though it was cold, wet and windy, we still took the tradition step of walking over to the true Pacific Coast, and yes Nancy, I even stuck my feet in the water. Once again, the Pacific doesn't seem that much different from the Atlantic, it's cold, it's powerful and it's really nice to be close to. I guess you'd have to live by it for longer than 20 minutes to start to see the difference.

My feet are white with terror, frozen and not ever getting exposed to sunlight.

After that experience we made our way over to Nanamio to catch the ferry and get back to the mainland. We stopped over at Cathedral Park to take a look at more trees. I have to say, if there is one thing that BC does really well at making you rethink what you know about something, it's trees. Although Geoff thinks differently, he thinks that it may be the best province in Canada, it has pretty much everything, mountains, coast, beaches, hiking, trees, clean cities, everything. I personally think it has plenty going for it, but I'm reserving my judgement for now.

This is what BC looks like when it isn't a city or a mountain.

We managed to catch the 7:30 ferry over to the mainland so we ended up getting in at a reasonable time. Tomorrow if the weather is nice we'll be taking the Sea to Sky highway to get to Kamloops and then Jasper, but if it isn't we'll be taking the Transcanada and then the Yellowhead trail to get to the same place. You'll know tomorrow!