November in the Park

                                        Our first and only snow..........so far.

             

 Monday mornings about 12 of us head out to one of the many beautiful trails within 15 min of the park. One of the Park owners is our guide explaining the history of the area and pointing out the many different trees there. 

                           Our resident Pileated Woodpecker, about 17in high. The hole he was working on was about 4in wide, 6in high and probably 8in deep.

 Along the water all the campsites are full. There are 75 trailers here for the Winter, most are from Alberta, but there are four of us from Ontario. There are four ladies alone in their own trailers and about the same number of men. I may have previously mentioned all the activities here, Card night, coffee morning, mens breakfast, Wreath making, bake sale, pot luck, hiking, etc,etc.And then there is church with lunches and dinners, and the Holly Daze Tea, that Bev worked at. They made $2,000!!!!

                            Sunny mornings seem to be the norm for our hikes.

                          A beautiful example of the many Arbutus trees here, with Nanaimo in the background.

                                        Gabriola Island across the water

 The more snow they get on the mountains on the mainland the closer they   appear.We find them mesmerizing, and right from our window! You can't get tired of beauty. Oh, look see the blue sky. (see below)

Monday Hikers.

                                              Nanaimo River hike, see the blue sky?

 A trail in our park along the water. Actually all the trails have been along the water.

A pair of Eagles have moved into a tree next to our campsite during high tide when their island is under water. At low tide they go back out to catch more Salmon.

I have mentioned the blue sky as so many of you have emailed us to see if we are still above water due to the torrential rains you heard about on the weather channel. The mainland is divided into Vancouver, central coast and north coast. Vancouver gets more rain than us (and snow), central and north coasts get far more. When the weather folks were talking about 100mm of rain, that is central and north coast. The Island is 500km long north to south and 200km wide. It is divided into north island central island and south island. We are central island and are protected from most of the heavy wind and rain by the mountain range which runs down the centre of the island. Port Alberni and Tofino are on the west coast of the island on the other side of the range and have had some very wild storms. Many people go to Tofino to "storm watch", but for a while they could not get past the snow in the mountains. So we are fine here, with very few "days" of rain, most is at night.

"The Eye"

Again many of you have asked how my eye is. Well the short story is, no better than it was in July. It is extremely sore and I have no useful vision in it. After two GPs, an Optomotrist and Two Opthomologists, I have been told it is Severe Dry Eye. The "treatment" was to put a temperary plug in the tear duct so as to moisten the eye. It would disolve in about ten days. If it was successful they would insert a permenent plug. It was not, so they will not put one in. What now? I have no idea and my fear is that the right eye will become the same way.

We wish everyone a very wonderful Christmas and good health to all.

Bev and Colin.  

Round and about the park

Beside the road into the park

After the shower

                                      One of several Bald Eagles in the park

                                A pair of eagles by our trailer. They are here for
                                       the migrating Salmon in the Nanaimo
                                       River which runs in front of us.

                                         Welcome to the Living Forest

                                     

                               Mount Washington 0n Vancouver Island from
                                           our campsite.

Park Entrance

Eagles everywhere!

                                                              Twenty!!!

Trail around the shore in the park

Nanaimo Waterfront

The harbour is just 2miles from our park

                                   Harbour Air. Very busy coming and going
                                   to Vanvouver and many other towns along
                                   the coast. Several other float plane companies service
                                   the more remote areas.

The walkway is about a km long past all the shops and eateries, then

connects with a paved walkway along the water that goes out to Departure Bay

about 6km.

Voted best fish and chips in Canada

One chilly evening

Out for a drive

                             Five minutes from the park lots of roads like this

                       We came upon this little farmers market along the way.

                                                                                     

Gabriola Island

The sky was perfectly blue on thanksgiving Sunday morning, as we boarded the 9.30 ferry over to Gabriola Island, a pleaseant 25 minute ride. Our friends, Lisa and Andy who live on the island, had invited us for Thanksgiving dinner. There was a three day openhouse tour of about 37 art studios on the island and Lisa had selected about 10 for us to see. We picked up a studio tour map and drove off the ferry to start our tour.
The island, which is about 15km long by 5km wide, reminded me of several Carribean islands we have seen with one road circling the island and many tiny roads winding up steep hills into the interior. The "main" road offers many wonderful views across either the open waters of the strait or beautiful protected bays with boats at anchor floating on a sea of glass.
Gabriola, like many of the islands in the strait, are very much into arts and crafts, with a slight sixties/hippies flavour. Our friends who live there are really "layed back", as all the islanders we spoke with seem to be. Many of them came in the 60s and 70s.
We made our way through the list of studios, all of which were tucked back in the trees, generally not visible from the road. We saw; glassware, beautifully designed leather handbags, pottery, silver jewelery, clothing etc. We had a nice visit with an author and illustrator of childrens books. Many of the books she wrote and illistrated, but she has also illustrated other author's books.
We stopped and had our picnic lunch beside the waters of a long narrow bay, with the table surrounded by fallen leaves.

We made it to Lisa and Andy's in time for a delicious turkey dinner with all the trimmings. After dinner we enjoyed a long walk in the late afternoon sunshine, then made our way to the ferry back to Nanaimo. As we drove off the ferry and back to our park we saw a perfect full moon. It was a wonderful way to end a great day on beautiful Gabriola Island.

Moved to Nanaimo

After a very good month in Parksville/Qualicum Beach area, we drove the 35km south to our park for the next eight months. While in Parksville we traveled to the West side of Vancouver Island, Long Beach and Tofino, about 200km each way. The drive over the mountains was as thrilling as any we have had todate. High mountains and deep canyons beside the road. Several places were down to one lane as the road had slipped into the canyon far below.
Tofino has certainly changed since we took Bev's mom and dad there about 23 years ago. The sleepy little fishing village of Tofino, where we stayed in little chalet cabins, is now a very upscale area with wall to wall "Resorts". We prefered the old way, but it is still very beautiful and rugged.
We walked the boardwalk at Parksville Beach at least once a day and often drove the 10km to Qualicum beach and took a lunch. We never tired of the mountains as they seem to change every day with the weather.
So we arrived in the Living Forest campground in Nanaimo and got set up for the winter. Our site is even better than it shows on the web site, the view across the Georgia Straight is wonderful and of course we can see clearly the mountains on the mainland in front of us.

                                             From Parksville Beach

                                          Cassie liked the view too

                                                Sunset at the beach

                                      The view from our site in Nanaimo

                                Downtown Nanaimo from our site, two miles

                                               Home for the winter

We have walked a little of the boardwalk along the waterfront in Nanaimo, seeing hundreds of boats at docks and moorings as we strolled by little shops and eateries, but there seems to be about 15km of trails along the waterfront and many km of trails throughout the many city parks.
We look forward to the coming winter. We have found a church close by and there are many winter activities for us "Snowbirds" to join in the park.
But we are already making our plans to return to Cambridge by June 15 next year.

Around and about Parksville

                                  On Qualicum Beach. Just hot dogs.

                           View of main land mountains from Parksville Beach

      Hiking in Cathederal Grove Provincial Park. The Douglas Fir trees are up to 800 years old.

                                          Harbourfront in Port Alberni, which is about 45km inland from Parksville on a very long inlet off the Pacific Ocean.

The view inland from Parksville beach.

                                 Country Market in Village of Coombs

    "Goats on the Roof" is a neat collection of shops, all of which grow grass on the roof where the goats live. When we went on the weekend, there were hundreds of people, so we went back on Thursday to a much smaller crowd.