Friday 16th August 2013, day 37 - Tofino to Victoria

Moose Tour part 1 - Vancouver Island

Day 3: Tofino to Victoria

After buying something to take for lunch at the great little bakery-cafe, we left Tofino at about 8:30am on Friday, and about fifteen minutes later stopped at Long Beach. The short walk through the rainforest was really nice, and the trees kept the worst of the rain off. The beach is lovely, but we couldn’t enjoy the half-hour walk along it to the car park at the other end because of the pouring rain. Everyone got soaked through and changed into drier clothes afterwards, though we couldn’t dry off fully so everything was still damp and uncomfortable for most of the rest of the day, and my shoes were still not dry twenty-four hours later.

We stopped next in MacMillan Provincial Park, at Cathedral Grove: a magnificent 157 hectare stand of ancient Douglas-firs. It cheered me up after the drenching at Long Beach, it was stunningly beautiful. The biggest tree there is eight hundred years old, nine metres round and at seventy-six metres is taller than the Leaning Tower of Pisa. We were more adventurous here than at Wally Creek and did follow John walking barefoot along some of the huge fallen trees, and on smaller ones at the edge of the lake. It meant that the inside of my shoes got dirty as well as went but walking barefoot on the slippery logs was easier than in shoes and actually really nice!

After that we stopped for lunch at Coombs Old Country Market, aka Goats-on-the-Roof (the main building has goats on the sod roof during the spring). I love it there! There are lots of different shops: a deli, bakery, grocery shop, ice cream place, souvenirs, gifts, clothes, restaurant, etc. It was a bit like a big farm shop, with extras, and you know how excited I get about stuff like that. However tempting the warm pies in the bakery were, I stuck with the lunch I'd bought from the bakery in Tofino, a cold but tasty slice of breakfast pizza.

The rain had gradually been lessening as we went east and there wasn't a cloud in the sky when we stopped at Chemainus, a town famous for its outdoor murals. Thankfully we dried off quickly as we walked round to look at them. The town is really nice, and still has all the frontier-era 19^th century buildings, which was really cool.

We continued through the lovely Cowichan Valley – rolling hills and farms rather than mountains – and our last stop before Victoria was the viewpoint on Mount Douglas. Wow! Incredible 360-degree view. It was so clear that we could even see the mountains of the Olympic National Park in Washington State, towards Seattle.

The first thing we did upon arrival at the waterfront hostel in Victoria was to go straight to the laundry room! Thankfully I had a spare pair of shoes to wear for the evening so I could leave my wet ones to dry. Four of us went across the road to a pizza place for dinner. It looked nothing fancy, just a take-away place with a few tables, but the pizza was great! Interesting variety, they all sounded good, and mine was very very tasty! I took a take-away menu so I can make pizzas with those sorts of toppings at home, hehe.

The same four of us met up with the guide at 9pm, and walked along the busy waterfront to see the Parliament building and the Empress Hotel all lit up, then continued into the main Downtown area. In contrast to the last two nights, it was dry and warm enough here that I only needed a cardigan, not jacket and raincoat. I guess you could call this my first pub crawl – we went to three bars in the end, though I only had a cider at the first, then soft drinks at the other two. The last place was out of the way and not one that tourists go to, but John took us just for the entertainment of locals doing karaoke. The other three got up and sang "Baby One More Time" but even though I am doing things outside of my comfort zone I'm not willing to do karaoke quite yet! So I didn't, haha. We left when the place closed at 2am.