QUALICUM BAY, BC August 7-8, 2013

Our travels up the east coast of Vancouver Island continue all along this aptly named Sunshine Coast. The weather's fantastic, the town's quaint with beautiful beaches and views of the islands and mountains to the east.

From the travel booklets I collected at the Tourist Office I was reading a section called: What's Your Type? Since every traveler is unique, they created The Explorer Quotient, a tool to match personality and values to specific travel activities.  Fun to read, here's the gist of the different types:

CULTURAL TRAVELER: You are defined by your love of travel, enjoy new places and cultures, discovering the real heart of a community.

AUTHENTIC EXPERIENCER: You have an interest in understanding the history of places, enjoy the softer side of travel, preferring to stay away from crowds and family time is a priority.

FREE SPIRIT:   You live to travel and don't want to miss out on anything but also enjoy a day just basking  in the sun on a beach, preferring spontaneity to planned activities, experimental and adventurous.

NO HASSEL TRAVELER:   You search for worry-free and secure travel, relaxation, simplicity, enjoying the outdoors with family and friends.

CULTURAL HISTORY BUFF:   You strive to go beyond your own roots to understand history and culture of others.  When you travel you are pursuing a personal interest or hobby.

GENTLE EXPLORER:  You like returning to past destinations and familiar surrounding

VIRTUAL TRAVELER:  You tend not to travel very often, and prefer the comforts of home 

REJUVENATOR:  You want a chance to disconnect and just get away from it all. Rest, recharge and renew.

PERSONAL HISTORY TRAVELER: You travel to gain a deeper understanding of your ancestry and heritage and like traveling in style, comfort and security often as a part of a group tour.

So...What's Your Type of Travel???

Guess I'd say Paul and I are the Free Spirit style travelers, especially with the life we lead now, never knowing where we're going or what we'll see up along the road that might make us change our plans. In fact, with everything being so great here on the island we talked last night about staying here for another 5-7 days before going across to mainland BC.  That ferry ride to bring us over and back is a pricey thing so staying longer just makes sense. Plus, there's so much to see around here. There are over a hundred Provincial Parks on the island alone, not all are camping parks, but many are. 

We spent Wed. and Thursday nights here along Qualicum Bay, a tiny little bend in the road right across from the water at the Qualicum Bay  Resort. It has 102 sites plus cabins and a motel, and is VERY kid friendly! We used our Passport America discount once again so our 2 night stay was only $37. We have a sunny site but busy, as the kids ride their bikes up and down headed to all the play areas. There's the water slide (don't think Raging Waters, but nice and open 2-4 every afternoon), the pond-pool (a very large man made pool in the shape of a pond with grassy sides all around), pony rides a couple of afternoons a week, the play area with a child sized zip-line, trampoline and even a real diesel tractor to climb and an indoor arcade and pool table. 

 A perfect place to bring kids and relax, they can't really get into much trouble here.  For us, it's a little TOO kid based, but since we usually go off for the day it's not bad at all. 

We are going to be staying at the Elk Falls Provencial Park tonight, so we'll be back in our element of woods and large space. The bummer is that we are traveling at peak season for all BCers, so the parks are pretty much booked out. Since we don't make plans too far ahead, I wasn't able to get the weekend in the park but maybe better luck by Monday next week.  Their park system is interesting.  If I book online the price is $16 per night plus a nightly $6 reservation fee for the first 3 nights making it $22 per night, no hook ups. Better than California rates for sure, but I hate paying reservation fees, especially if our plans change. There really isn't much of a refund unless you cancel 7 days in advance, doesn't work for us at all. So, we'll take our chances and try a park that isn't on the reservation system and see how that goes.

On our first afternoon here we took a long walk along the bay and noticed lots of ocean front RV parks. When we looked into two of them we learned one was a "buy your own lot and bring your motorhome" for the cost of $46,000! Yes, the views and sites were fabulous but that's a big chunk of money to be at the same place all the time!  The next one down was a monthly stay park, for 6 months you pay $2300 for your ocean view spot.  Now that's a deal!!! Of course the manager told us that the same people reserve these spots each year and stay 6 months so there's never an available spot. Also not quite so nice, more closely spaced, not well tended, etc.   Then there was the one trailer and site for sale here in our park for $23,000.   Nice wooded site with deck all around. This one seems the most inviting, but of course it's not ocean front property. 

We like our style of travel the best anyways, but I'm always checking new things out...one never knows what a future choice might be. So, we continued our walk on down till we got a bit thirsty and stopped at a darling little cafe to sit on the deck for a beer and coke. Still beautiful views of the bay and our own little tugboat off to the right of us.

Yesterday we went back south to hike up to the Little Qualicum Falls in the park with the same name traveling along Highway 4 west. A beautiful walk with an amazing amount of water still in the falls at this time of year.

 PK cleaned up a coffee cup someone else left behind. He's such a tidy Kiwi!

 From the park we went east to the little community of Coombs to see The Country Market with "Goats on the Roof" notoriety. I know they don't show up well in the photo, but there are 2 goats on the roof eating the planted grass. The market was actually really good for stocking up on vegetables and fruit. best prices since we'd arrived on the island, not what I was expecting at such a tourist stop. Not only is there a veggie market, but an ice cream shop, coffee shop, international food market and then scads of other little shops.  Way too much for me, we got our supplies and drove into the little town of Qualicum Beach, much larger than our Qualicum Bay.

 I wanted to visit the Milner Gardens there, one of the top 10 gardens in all of Canada. So, while Paul stayed in the car under a shady canopy I toured the gardens and home of Veronica Milner. Built in the 30s the property is 70 acres of woods and rhododendrons with her home, a 10 acre estate,  looking out over the Strait of Georgia , "An ancient Forest and Garden Oasis by the Sea".

 Tea was being served in the Camellia Tea Room in the quaint house where the Queen once stayed, but I just enjoyed the lovely grounds.

 The Milner Gardens and Woodland was gifted to Vancouver Island University in 1996.

 Veronica Milner was a painter.  It was with that painter's eye that set out to creat a garden to combat the "monotony of the native evergreen trees" by planting over 500 specimens of rhododendrons! The small shrubs she planted so many years ago have grown to tree-sized proportions. Sadly, I'm here in the wrong season.  Nothing in bloom except an occasional hydrangea bush.  Best to be viewed in May and June for the full effect.

 A photo of the lovely dining room

 Once we were back to our place, I did a load of laundry, caught up on some emails and made dinner.  Too hot to cook inside, we couldn't use our briquette BBQ due to fire restrictions so our little 2 burner stove did the job. Then a walk to the beach for sunset...at 9:30 PM.

 As we were sitting on a bench this little motor boat came ashore.  A young totally devoted fisherman got out and brought his gear ashore.  Then the fun was watching as he lowered 2 wheels at the back of his boat to pull it up to his truck. Very creative one man show.

 Soon he was packed up and on his way, we watched the sky darken then back home we went.

DUNCAN & CHEMAINUS, BC August 5-6, 2013

It's 7AM and I have wifi, hurray!! Nobody's on and the service is strong so hoping I can get this all written and posted this morning before it takes a dip. 

After saying good bye to Harvey Monday morning we drove about 80 miles north to a park just north of Duncan. But since Harvey lives on the eastern peninsula of Vancouver Island we had to go south before we could head north. So going south on Highway 17 we turned slightly above Victoria and joined Highway 1 for a beautiful 2 lane highway through forested and rocky cliffs climbing a small grade then on to our 2 night stay at Country Maples RV Resort, 6 miles north of Duncan. Its one of only 2 Passport America stays here on the island so we wanted to take advantage of our 50% savings. As we are learning, BC is a pricey destination.  Gas is now over $6 per gallon for us and everything seems at least 50% higher including groceries and our camping. This must account for the surprising notice that we havent seen ANY license plates from the US since we got off the ferry. "Of course you know what BC means, don't you? ...Bring Cash" someone told me. So, our stay at Country Maples helped. Once we drove down into the park I realized that we had actually tent camped at this park many years ago on our first visit to BC, what are the chances of that happening????

The camping parks up here really provide lots of fun things for families with children.  This one had a beautiful pool, with a rotating schedule for children or adults only time, and also a miniature golf course besides the usual large playground area. We had a beautiful site, 21A, wooded, shady and very private and completely away from the sound of the highway.

We set up by noon and just relaxed in our pretty site, reading and checking out maps.  There's a province-wide ban on any campfires during the month of August due to the dry and warm weather here which also includes the use of our small charcoal BBQ. No use unpacking the wood or BBQ we have with us...guess we wont be using it until we return to WA.

Since the days are wonderfully warm, almost hot, and long we knew we had plenty of time to take an afternoon ride to Duncan to see the Totem Trail the city is known for.  Monday was also British Columbia Day, or BC Day, a holiday in the province so everything was closed. Really closed, very few stores other than US chains like Wal Mart or Mcdonald's. It was created to recognize the early pioneers of the province and is celebrated on the first Monday in August. It was a great time to walk around the little town of Duncan, with very few cars or people on the streets. We parked and looked up to see we were right at the Duncan Elk's Lodge. Too funny, I didn't know we'd see any Elk's up in Canada! But, like everything else it was closed. Hidden behind the sign in my photo was the first of the 80 totems around the city. 

The City Hall was right down the street with beautiful hanging the flower baskets we see everywhere.  Duncan has a cute downtown area with lots of small shops and galleries but it is also the larger district for shopping, so just outside of the downtown are all the chain stores and larger shops. We were able to get a SIM card for our phone to provide us with a local phone number to use here in Canada for local calls. That's going to be a great help when trying to make camping plans along our way.

 Along side the City Hall we found this interesting sculpture which actually incorporated a water dish for doggies at its foot.  How thoughtful!

 Then we started following the yellow painted footsteps around the town to see the totems.

 This one, Cedar Man Walking out of the Log,  was unique in that it is the world's widest totem with a diameter of 5'11".  The original tree was over 750 years old when a forestry company donated it to the city.  The top of the log was left natural so people could see the size of the log.

 Along our route north we had seen signs that say Use U TURN ROUTE.  Since the very busy highway was only 2 lane with a concrete barrier along the middle it was impossible to make a left turn so instead you use the U Turn Route meaning you make a turn onto a side round, go down a bit and use the large paved area to turn around and then go to a stop light to cross the street.  For us, that always meant that we had to go south from our campground about 2 miles before we could continue north; an interesting way of dealing with left turns.

 Tuesday morning we did go north just two miles to the town of Chimainus.  It is known for its painted wall murals all over the town. We had done the walking tour of the murals when we were here several years ago, so I wanted to get info from the nearest visitor Center and it was here. The young woman that helped me was fantastic!!! I walked out with maps of the local area, maps of camping in the whole province and booklets with tons of information, more than we could ever really do or so, but now I was equipped for a few days.

 I also got the name of a little shop to get my hair cut, so that's what I did next, while PK looked around the town. The 2 ladies in The Hair Shoppe were both Brits and chatted the whole time I was there about "The Royals" and the new baby. Too fun

 We did stop to look at this amazing mural, my favorite, and several others.

 Then using the maps and directions for all back roads, we put the top down on the car and drove along the bay first stopping at Maple Bay for a "car break" and look.

 Then on to Cowichan Bay and time for lunch at the park. The bayside road had been bolstered in recent years with huge logs and boulders to prevent the constant erosion that would have eventually washed away the only way to get into the town.  They added the little wayside park, perfect for lunch.

 The little marina in town was busy as were all the shops and hard to find a parking spot.

 Loved this bike shop with its display of old bikes and flowers.

There is a wooden boat association in the area and they're renovating this old wooden pier

There were a few houseboats in the marina too, but this one really caught my eye! Yes, the red and blue one...I'd make that one mine, for sure!

 After a day of driving all over the  Cowichan Valley on beautiful back roads and temps in the mid 80s all day,we got back to our campsite for an early dinner of salmon burgers. After a long walk with Foster all over the campground we went back to Chemainus for an evening outdoor concert....and a look at a few more murals.

 Trying my panorama feature on the phone...love that!