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.