Vancouver Island – Our Journey Begins

We left our home early in the morning to pick up the 5th wheel and onwards to Tsawwassen Ferry Terminal to catch the ferry to Swartz Bay. We were too early for our reservations plus we provided them the wrong length – vehicle and trailer. We made it on the noon ferry and the fare was $296! It was a beautiful sailing – the only complain is the greasy White Spot burger and fries, ugh. Not long after we got off the ferry we were part of the infamous island traffic – it was “rush-hour” to Goldstream Provincial Park campground.

On July 1st, we headed to our province’s capital. We parked at Beacon Hill Park, far away from the downtown core. We walked along the seawall, passed by the cruise ship terminal and Fisherman’s Wharf.

Beach by Beacon Hill Park

Fisherman’s Wharf is… a place for tourists with little stores and restaurants – there were also private residences, I don’t know about living in a place like that.. The highlight of Fisherman’s Wharf was seeing the seals.

Seal

Fisherman’s Wharf

When we arrived at the Provincial Legislature, we picked up tickets for the free public tour of the building. The tour was extremely informative. We learned some interesting facts about the building and the BC Coat of Arms. The kids kept on sticking out their tongues after the tour – because the tour guide said a tongue sticking out represents power, just like the elk on the BC Coat of Arms. You can imagine that became quite annoying – fortunately that stopped once we talked about food.

After lunch, we visited the Royal BC Museum where we spent a good 3 hours there.  After the museum, we saw a few of the acts on the esplanade before heading back. We were quite tired when we got back to the campsite, we walked about 18km that day.

On Saturday, we explored the park that we are staying at. There are a few hiking trails and a couple waterfalls to see.

Goldstream Falls. 185 steps down from the trail

The trails were not very well marked and did not quite correspond to the map. We did not find the second waterfall but saw a trestle that is part of the Esquimalt and Nanaimo Railway that everyone seemed to be hiking up to see. We hiked about 15km that day – uphill grabbing on roots, downhill sliding on dirt, too many steps to climb and even crossing a shallow creek/river by rock hopping – very fun but quite tiring.

Today, we drove to a small town called Chemanius. This town is famous for the murals on many buildings all over town. It is a quaint little town where bus loads of tourists stop to explore this little community on foot.

3D mural with sound effects too!

We are off to the next campground tomorrow. I end this post with something Jeff said which I thought is hilarous – but I’m sure no humour was intended on his part: “How many pairs of shoes does a woman need?”