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.