Parksville, Friday afternoon

We are sitting on lawn chairs at Rathtrevor Beach in Parksville and have a couple of hours to enjoy the sunshine and light breeze as we listen to all the kids enjoying this  beautiful place.

We are going to have supper at Klebes before heading to Nanaimo later tonight.

This morning we were on our way hiking by 10 AM. Ucluelet has a beautiful 2.8 km loop trail called Wild Pacific. After completing that we drove a few kilometres out of town to complete a couple more trails at Florencia Bay. The weather was not sunny but at least wasn't raining so we enjoyed all trail walks today. Caro tells me we walked 13000 steps this morning!

The weather turned sunny as we drove toeards Port Alberni. This time we drove a different way through that city and saw some modern shops and houses; a city no so run down as we felt before.

We had a great b-b-q supper with Helmut and Ruth and I am using their internet to upload this

Night two in Ucluelet

After a very comfortable sleep we got up and went to the Co-op deli/cafe where we purchased some food and ate our breakfast.

With tummies full we headed north to Long Beach where  after walking the beach for a kilometre or two we ate a picnic lunch right on the beach using our lawn chairs that we have been dragging around all this trip. Very very nice meal (purchased at the Co-op deli). Shortly after that we began working our back here to Ucluelet. 25,600 steps later (according to Caro's fit bit) we had completed both loops of the rain forest trail, the south beach trail and the bog trail. All were amazingly beautiful and awe inspiring. As  well as that we saw the Kwisitis Visitor Centre to learn more about the native tribes.

Evening saw us trying a local delicacy. Raw oysters!!  Yup in a moment of insanity we each decided to try a raw oyster. Ummm let's just say that after sliding it down my throat my thought was "OK done that;time for fish and chips",and that is what we did!

Tonight we are staying in a different motel from last night. At first glance our reaction was "oh no-we made a mistake"-we had pre-booked through Hotels.com so we had to take the room,but looks were deceiving as the room is clean. As I write this we are sitting on the veranda outside the room looking across to the town fishing marina. Kinda neat to see all the charter fishing vessels ( which is what this place caters too).

All in all another fabulous day!!

Wednesday July 13th in Ucluelet

Well another totally awesome day. We left Port Alberni sometime shortly after 8 and headed straight to Tofino. We lucked out and arrived 15 minutes before a whale watching tour took off so away we went. We were out on the ocean in a few minutes and soon spotted a small humpback. We and a half dozen other tour boats enjoyed a few glimpses but no breeching or tail shots so off we went to look at a colony of sea lions. Near the sea lions we spotted another small humpback,this one gave a bit more of a show but nothing spectacular. The captain heard on the radio that there was a humpback in a channel about 30 minutes away giving a bit more show so "away we go!". By the time we got there the whale had quieted down so we saw only a bit of it and by then we had to return to port. Oh well at least we saw something!

After that it was a fantastic meal in a highly recommended restaurant called Seafood Shanty....Mmmmmm good

Hiking, hiking and more hiking  was our activities for the remainder of the day. Caro tells me we did 16000 steps.

We ended the day in Ucluelet and have already booked another motel for tomorrow (this one is great but unavailable tomorrow)

We watched the sunset from our motel window and while the sunset itself was not that great the bald eagles  that kept flying across our fields of vision were a perfect way to end our day.

Tues July 12th in Port Alberni

We left Nanaimo at about 10:30 and proceeded to Englishman River Falls. It was a very nice walk to both the falls and we remembered taking the kids there when we visited the Klebe's all those years ago.

After that was the mandatory stop at Coombs to check out the neat general store there ( the store with goats on the roof). The store always has different cool things to see.

Next stop , Cathedral Grove, where we took the time to walk the trails on both sides of the road. Beautiful as always.

Our night stop was Port Alberni. We first got our motel, then proceeded down to the main quay. Not a whole lot happening but still nice.We had picked up a map of a hiking area called Roger's Creek Trail.  The area was tremendous;rain forest with moss covered trees but the trails were very poorly marked (there were multiple trails leading all over the place) and because it was a rain forest it was hard to tell where you were. I finally got the point of saying we better go back because it was too easy to get lost. One time I took a wrong path but Caro realized the mistake after a short while and got us straightened out.

We drove around the city for a bit (definitely a town past its' prime) before grabbing subs and  after eating heading back to the motel to veg out.

The photos below are, first Englishman River Falls and the second the forest at Port Alberni.

Nanaimo Monday July 11th

Well we ended up in Nanaimo which I hadn't thought would  occur but did! What a pretty harbour front!

We left our  fantastic B+B  just after nine and drove almost 400 km to Vancouver.It was another gorgeous drive through the mountains  with stops at Princeton and Hope.

We arrived at the ferry terminal shortly before 2 just missing the 2:30  ferry but being one of the first on the 3:10. We arrived  in Nanaimo about 4:30 ish and decided to stay at the harbour front at the Howard Johnsons.

A couple hours were spent walking around the Harbour Walkway and eating at a fish and chip place located on a floating harbour dock. Pretty cool.Time to relax

Unable to get ahold of cousin Chris.

Beautiful B+B

We had two fun filled days with the kids in Radium playing lots of card and board games.We had a trip to Fairmont hot springs but the weather was not good so there was no point setting up picnicking at the pools so we decided to go to the hot springs at Radium in the evening and that is what we did.

Caro mentioned that she heard there was a good Austrian restaurant in town so we went there for supper last night. We all ordered Austrian traditional food with Michelle ordering a plate of bratwurst sausage. When the meal came Michelle's bratwurst sausage was not cut up in small pieces but instead was the traditional  looking piece of sausage which lead to side splitting laughter after Vanessa's comments about what it looked like. A super funny comment!!!

This morning we said our goodbye's at 10 AM. The kids headed back home and we carried on on our vacation.

We headed south to Cranbrook in order to go to the Boston Pizza sports bar to watch the finals of Euro Cup with Portugal beating France 1-0.  We started motoring along highway 3. Before that I went to hotels.com and quickly made reservations for tonight without paying enough attention  in the planning side of things.

I didn't realize how far it was to our "motel" at Keremos. Once we were on our way we realized it was a 6  hour drive (and it was already 2 PM!).OOPS and double OOPS!!

Upon arriving at Keremos there was some initial confusion as I thought I had booked a motel.Turns out it was a B+B  in a vinyard outside of town. It is wonderful!  We spoke to the owners about the soccer game today and then proceeded to have a glass of wine (produced by the winery at the B+B) as we sat outside looking at magnificent scenery in a location that I had no idea even produced wine (we are one valley away from the Kelowna area). A super cool, and unexpected finish to a long day.

Radium Hot Springs

Second attempt to write this entry.

After a few days rest from the Norway trip it was time for our annual vacation.  Caro and  I, Mike and Michelle and Vanessa and Brody are now in Radium at  Michelle's  Uncle Marks two rental trailers located at The Canyon. A gorgeous site located on Sinclair Creek. After a quick orientation of our trailers we headed to Invermere for groceries and liquor.

We spent the evening playing a game called Severe Aggravation outside on the deck at the main trailer.  Loads of fun ♡