Tofino Trip 2006
Aug 23/06:
The description of the trip is a long one. So you better go and get a glass of water and your reading glasses because this might take a while. If you don't have time to read the section you can scroll down and I will give you the 10 second version. Also at the bottom of the section is a link to some pictures. Well lets get to it shall we.
We just got back from a two week vacation last weekend. We hit up the west coast of Vancouver Island and everything in between. It all started on the evening of Aug 6th.
Day 1 Aug 6th
After work we jumped in the van and started driving. With the van you never have to worry about where you will sleep. When you get tired you just pull into a nice rest stop fold out the bed and there you go sleepy time. We ended up driving until 02:30 before we made camp at a rest stop. It was a nice place in Revelstoke National Park . The parking lot itself was a ways back from the road and the trees in between the parking lot and the highway really cut down the noise.
Day 2 Aug 7th
In the morning we woke up and headed to Kelowna . The main reason for stopping in Kelowna was to pick up some skim boards from Ross and Laira's house. We took the back way into town and did the tour of Glenmore. We ended up stopping by Robertson Park for lunch. I showed Manou where Derek, Steven Lewis, Rob Johnson, Greg Dugan, Andrew Roberts and I used to get into trouble. Then we stopped by Oma's house for a visit. From there we headed to mom and dads. When we walked through the door we saw dad with a big blue cast on his leg. The day before he was water skiing and he hit one of the turning balls in the water ski course. That darn turning ball put him into a nice spinning crash, and he ended up breaking his heal. The poor guy will be out until October. So go and visit him if your in Kelowna and you have a few minutes to kill. My guess is he will be truckin around the house or on the computer. Back to the story. Our two heroes (Glen and Manou) jumped on the tandem bike and headed down to city park for the afternoon. We went swimming and hung out on the beach for a few hours. Just as we were about to leave, our good friend Kyle and his girl friend walked by. We chatted it up with them for a bit then continued on our way back to mom and dads house. When we got there I lit up the BBQ and we tossed some steaks on her. We then went up to Ross and Laira's house to pick up the skim boards and chilled out a bit. On a side note I feel bad for not helping out Rossco and Laira with the reno of their basement. That was in the original plan but things got changed last minute. It is really coming along though the basement is starting to take shape.
Day 3 Aug 8th
We woke up stopped by Grams and Gramps then headed west to Vancouver via Hwy 3 the Hope Princeton. I hadn't driven on that road for many moons. It was a nice drive. The whole time through the Southern Okangan i was wondering how much it would change if it became a national park. (if you haven't signed the petition for the national park in the southern Okanagan scroll down and do that right now before I come off the top ropes on you) The national park would bring so many good things to the area if it was a national park. On the flip side of things, there would be many challenges turning this area into a national park. What would happen to all the farmers who work this area. It would certainly be a park that would be like no other in Canada . Not only would you be able to explore the only dessert in Canada , but you would be able to learn more about the farming and first nations people way of life. It would definitely be something that is very unique to the southern interior of BC. The other plan this day was to go for a hike in Manning park. I had a spot all picked out the very last hiking area right before the end of the park. Well as it turns out it is a hiking area for horses. We pulled into the parking lot and all we saw were horse trailers. So we decided to jump back into the van to find another hiking trail. Well that trail never came and the whole hike idea went out the window. Oh well next time. Since we didn't get to go on the hike we decided to head into Vancouver a bit early to hit up Granville Island . i really wanted to go for a tour of the beer factory but they were closed so we had to settle for a nice dinner on the water instead. After this we headed back out to Burnaby to hang out with my good buddy BJ. We shot the S**t for a bit, had some beers, and he answered all my stupid questions about Major League Baseball.
Day 4 Aug 9th
We woke up to the beautiful smell of blue berry banana pancakes. If you have a chance to head to Vancouver you should look up BJ and try to stay at his house. The guy lets you into his home gives you beer, cooks you blue berry banana pancakes, and puts up with Glen's zany antics. Wow what a guy class act that BJ class act. The only thing we could give him was a cd of The Shins. I just hope it worked in his CD player. BJ headed out to work and we were heading to the ferry. The day was gloomy so we thought we would chase the sun and head over to Nanaimo to see Manou's Oma and Opa. As we started driving the clouds burnt off and the sun broke out. Change of plans a nice sunny day in Vancouver , you had better hit up Stanly park. What better of a way to see the park then to rent a tandem bike and ride the sea wall. During the bike ride we made various stops at all the stopping points. We got to see a ship from Japan roll into the harbor, airplanes take off and even a guy skim boarding. I tried to study what he was doing but it never really worked. Check out day 5 for more on the skim boarding. After the bike ride we made our way to the ferry. The one we were aiming for was full so we headed into horseshoe bay for ice cream. The ferry ride was fun we hung out on the deck for the most part then headed down to the Van for a bit of nap. We headed to Nanaimo and went for dinner then up to Manou Oma and Opa's place. Even her uncle auntie and cousins came up to visit. It was good to meet everyone and put faces to the names I hear of all the time. They have a real beautiful house that looks west towards the Mountains. Nice view nice place, I would like to go back and stay longer.
Day 5 Aug 10th
Opa got up early and made us some of his secret recipe bread. Man that's good stuff if your in Nanaimo you will have to look up opa and ask him if he will make you some bread. Anyway Opa headed off to play his usual Thursday golf game with his buddies and we headed out to Tofino. We got to Tofino at about 13:30 and checked into the camp ground in the national park. We had 2 nights in the park then 3 days at Crystal cove a camp site closer to town. After check in we headed out to long beach to do some skim boarding. I was having a heck of a time to try to get a good toss of the skim board. After a few pointers from manou I started to get the hang of it. By the end of the day i was doing some 180s to 270s. I was working on the 360 but it never happened. We then headed back to camp cooked some pasta made a fire and hung went to bed. It was kind of weird as it was the first day of the camping trip that we actually were camping. It took 5 days, oh well better late then never.
Day 6 Aug 11th
Well we got up and headed into town to get supplies. Before we headed out west I was in contact with my buddy Marcus who flies for Tofino Air. This is a bit of a funny story. A long time ago we did some float flying together. His original plan for the summer was to work out in Ontario for the summer. That went bust though and he was flying in Tofino for the summer. A week before we headed out I sent him an email to see what was up to and junk. At the end of the email I said we were planning a trip to Tofino. He wrote me back and said we had better give him a call and hook up. So this was crazy out of the blue Marcus was living in Tofino. Anyway day 6, we drove into town to pick up supplies. The first stop we made was the liquor store. So as I was trucking around the store and in walks Marcus. I was like hey Marcus what's up? He said he had to do a flight to the hot springs and asked if we wanted to come along. Manou was like yes, yes I do want to go to the hot springs . These hot springs are one of the best in western Canada . We had talked about them before the trip and decided that it would be to expensive to go. So we headed down to the dock jumped in the plane and headed out to the hot springs . First off we got to go for free. Normally the trip costs 175 bucks per person. The second thing that was the coolest for me was that Marcus let me fly the beaver. For those non flyers out there the beaver is the classic bush plane and i had never gotten a chance to fly one when i was doing my float flying. What a nice little plane, very very stable. It made me want to move out to the coast and do some real seat of your pants flying again. Non of this watching TV screens letting the auto pilot do all the work flying. When I took over we ripped at about 200 feet above the water all the way to the hot spring. Marcus then started to show me where to land. I looked at him funny and gave him the controls. The last time I landed the float plane was about 4 years ago. It was a good thing he was landing, because I would have rounded out about 50 feet to high and dragged the heels of that thing all the way down. So after a very smooth landing we headed to the hot spring. The dock is about a 30 min walk through the rain forest from the hot spring. The whole place was so beautiful I would have liked to stay longer and explore the whole little island. Once we got to the hot spring we put on our swimming trunks and went for a dip. Mother nature really was thinking when she made these hot springs . The hot water runs down a small stream then falls off a ledge into 5 little pools. The ledge is about 15 feet high and you can stand under the hot water as it falls into the pools. The pools themselves are in a small crevasse in the rock and flow down into the ocean. As you go down each pool gets a bit colder until you run into the chilling waters of the ocean. When you sit in the lower pools you sometimes get the bigger waves from the ocean washing up nice cold water that cools you off. All I can really say about the hot springs is wow awesome if your in tofino go. So after a good soak we headed back on the 19:30 flight back to Tofino. Marcus came to pick up us up and we took him to dinner then back to the camp site for some beers.
Day 7 Aug 12th
Surf day. We headed into town got some food and some beer then some boards and wet suits. In the past when I was in Tofino I rented my board from Live to Surf. The problem with them is that you can only rent your board for the day and you can't keep it overnight. Manou suggested we go to Long Beach Surf Shop. That way we could keep the boards overnight and also it was 10 bucks cheaper. After we got our boards we headed out to Cox beach. The waves were great for rookies like us. The first day I was getting frustrated in the waves. Manou was catching them like there was no tomorrow. We spend the day at the beach. We would be out in the water for an hour or so then we would have a break and play some freezbe or something, then head back out. That night we had a new camp site at Crystal cove. The site was awesome it even had free fire wood. We cooked some steaks for dinner then hit the sack.
Day 8 Aug 13th
We got up and went for a walk on the beach where our camp site was. A really nice beach and only about 100 yards from the site. Crystal cove also gives you free coffee in the moring so we had a little coffee and Irish Cream to start the day. We had to head into to get some food then we headed out to Cox beach again. Another great day at the beach. The waves were good and the sun was out. We did the same thing as we did the day before. We would breaks every hour or so to play some freezbe and hang out on the beach. I was getting better at catching waves. My paddling skills still needed work. Manou was doing great she was catching waves like they were going out of style. We tried to catch the same wave a the same time then hold hands like the surf movies from the 50s but it never worked. That night we had some pork chops then went for a nice walk on the beach at sun set. Manou took some great pictures that evening.
Day 9 Aug 14th
We hit up a different beach this day. It was way out in the national park. The name of the beach was Wickaninnish beach. The day was nice and sunny but it was also very very windy. The wind made waves that weren't in sink with the normal swell of the ocean. This made it very hard to read and predict the waves. It also made for a lot of pounding out there as there is no breaks in the sets, just continuous white water. Manou didn't like this beach she got pounded by the waves really hard. I was just getting used to getting up and catching to odd wave but there was lots of wasted energy trying to fight the waves. After a hard day in the water I took Manou out for dinner. We made it our anniversary dinner as we both had to work on our real anniversary. After the dinner Marcus came out for some beers at the camp site.
Day 10 Aug 15th
We had to have the boards back by 14:30 so that gave us the morning to surf. We liked the waves at Cox beach So we headed back there for the last day of surfing. By now I was starting to get more consistent in my surfing so I headed out to the bigger waves were the Locals all go. I did catch a few and got some nice long rides. It was a fight to swim out past the breakers though. Once you're out there you are good to go. You catch a wave ride it then cut out before it breaks. Well in my case i fell before it broke so you never got back into the white water. We then returned the boards in the afternoon and did some walking around town. Manou with her eagle eyes spotted the words sale 50% off at one of the surf shops. You know what happens next. it turned out not to bad though i picked up a few pairs of board shorts for 50% off. i should be good now for the next 5 years or so. Manou got some pants and a few different tops. That night we headed back to Nanaimo and stayed at Oma and Opa's again. This time Manous uncle auntie and two cousins were there from Holland . After dinner and a visit we hit the sac.
Day 11 Aug 16th
Manou's family from Holland had to head back to Europe so we had breakfast together then said our goodbyes. When they headed to the ferry we wondered around downtown Nanaimo . There is a really nice boardwalk down there to walk on. We even ran into a seal that mooches fish off the tourists. Manou got some pictures of her. I forget her name though. That evening it was Manou's aunt's birthday. So we all went for dinner then went back home for some ice cream cake. You have to try that new DQ blizzard cake wow it is good.
Day 12 Aug 17th
We woke up and packed up our stuff and headed out to the main land. I wanted to go the Sea to Sky highway up past Whistler and Pemberton. Manou had never been that way so she was in. she was pumped to check out Whistler. The drive was great very scenic. There is still a lot of work for them to do on that road before the 2010 though. Neither of us had ever walked through Whistler Village before. Man were things pricy and there was 3 Starbucks in about 400 meters of each other. Each of them had people in them. We checked out the place where they mountain bike. Man they have some crazy jumps there. After Whistler it was on to Salmon Arm and Manou's Dad's and step Mom's place on White lake. We rolled in late that night had a hot tub and went to bed.
Day 13 Aug 18th
Manou's dad wanted to head to a secret beach on the Shushawp lake. They have some nice cliffs there you can jump off of. It starts off with a 5 footer then 10 then 20 then 30 then 40. It was cool I hadn't been cliff jumping for some time so it was fun. Manou and I then took the quad back to the house. Man did we get dusty. I just went to the beach and jumped in with all my cloths on. That night Manou's dad took us all out for a nice dinner.
Day 14 Aug 19th
We woke up went for a swim visited with Manou's Dad and Step Mom, went for a quad ride then headed home. Manou's parents have a really beautiful spot on White Lake . I wish we could have stayed there for longer. Or maybe if we had a good ski boat. Yeah a ski boat that would rock on White Lake . The water was glass the whole time calling us out to go on it.
10 second version
Last weekend we got back from a trip to Vancouver Island . We went from Calgary to Tofino and hit up everything in between. We had a great time.