Colorado Cruiser: Tofino British Columbia Day 5

Tofino

Today was mostly about travelling from Whistler to Tofino on the Island of Vancouver.

We had breakfast at the hotel, then started our drive down the mountain. Yesterday I noted how few motorcycles I saw on the road. Today's forecast is for clear skies and sunshine which seems to have prompted the motorcycles to come out. There still aren't all that many on the road and they are still mostly individual riders, but it's a whole lot more than yesterday.

We got stuck a behind slow trucks a couple times, but we arrived at the coast much quicker than we had expected.

Let me diverge for a second and talk about speed limits. Here in Canada, they use the metric system, so instead of miles per hour, it is Kilometers per hour. A kilometer is .62 miles, or just under 2 to 1. So when we see what looks like a cool speed limit - 80 - it really turns into 50 miles per hour. And that's what most of these roads are.

We were mostly on 70 and 80 kph roads which means 43 and 50 mph, or what feels very very slow for such nice roads. I'm just glad that Mike is doing the driving and putting up with people driving well under those speed limits.

So we reached the coast with clear skies and huge majestic mountains rising right up out of the ocean and capped with snow, ice, and in some cases, glaciers. It was awe inspiring so we stopped a few times for photos.

Once we got near the ferry terminals I turned on the GPS and instructed it to take us there. We both thought that maybe the GPS was waked out because we drove past the terminals and took an exit, then it had us cross over the freeway and get back on in the opposite direction. Really. Just get off, turn around and get back on. We thought it was screwed up except that all the signs directing us to the ferry said the same thing.

So we did it and took the next exit down to the ferry terminal and sure enough, there was no other road that merged or turned onto this one. The only way into the ferry if from North bound highway 99.

We were over an hour early so we took a lane that let us bypass the ferry and wander through town. There was almost nothing to see. So we asked the GPS to get us back to the ferry. We got on south bound 99, exited, turned around and got back on north bound 99. How strange.

Mike had purchased a reservation for the 10:30 ferry so the lady directed us to a very short line of cars. We pulled up behind the last car and turned it off to wait for the ferry. We watched allot of people coming and going from their cars. I couldn't see anything nearby so they must have been walking a couple hundred yards into town to look or buy or something. We just sat there getting backed by the sun, or I was anyway because I was on the East facing side of the car. I've had allot of sun on this trip but sofar no burns.

Eventually they announced the arrival and imminent departure of our ferry. People started running to their cars. The arriving cars began streaming past us up the hill and people continued to run back to their cars. The cars ahead of us began loading onto the ferry, but several cars weren't moving, their owners hadn't come back yet. So we began swerving around them. We saw a man with 2 kids come running up the sidewalk, then behind him a woman pushing a baby in a stroller. I didn't see how or if they got to their car, but it would have been scary crossing that traffic and trying to load kids.

We were loaded in a high section of the ferry, near the front. Once it was safe to move around, we headed to the top and very front of the boat to watch the launch. It wasn't very dramatic. We just started very slowly moving forward. We stayed at a walking pace for over 10 minutes until we were well into the channel and turned in the right direction, then very slowly the speed began to come up.

We still stayed at a stately pace for a long time as we passed some nearby islands. We even passed a huge floating pile of logs being towed by a little boat. Maybe they were trying not to flood it with a big wake, but once past that the speed really came up until it was way to uncomfortable to stay in the front.

We had started with about 40 people on the front but by the time Mike and I left, there were only 5 of us. We left the Norwegians to tough it out and went to find a snack.

The ride over to Vancouver island wasn't very eventful. We watched an inspector look over their emergency zodiac. He kept clipping and unclipping his safety harness as we walked around the little boat and tugged on this or that. I was hoping they'd launch the boat while underway but they didn't.

We saw kids on the top deck running against the wind, then turn and run with the wind, nearly tripping because they were going so fast. I did see a couple take spills but they popped right back up and did it again. It looked fun.

We tried a couple times to go back to the front, but it was a wind nightmare up there so we gave up and sat under a sheltered canopy until the boat slowed entering the harbor. We got a few more pictures as we pulled around to the lee of a small island and neared the dock. The boat already looked empty and I wondered if we'd waited too long, but we hadn't, everyone else was too early.

We got off the boat only a minute after docking which I assume is good. We headed North up he island. The road had a speed limit of 110 which is the fastest speed limit we've seen yet in Canada. It was great to really burn up the kilometers and pass much slower cars with ease. But it didn't last.

After only 40 kilometers we turned off that big nice highway onto a 2 lane road with a 70 kph speed limit and started to cross the island. The road was very pretty and had allot of turns on it. We passed lakes, mountains, small towns and even 1 big town. This would be a fun road on a bike.

A couple hours later we arrived at the Pacific Rim National Park. We aren't staying in the park, but we have to drive through it to get to the town of Tofino where we're staying. We turned off the highway at our first chance to go see the beach.

There was a beautiful little path leading down to a beach of very soft and fine grains of sand. The first 40 meters were loose and hard to walk in, but once we reached the high tide mark the sand became firm and was much easier to walk on. We browsed the beach for 20 minutes before returning to the car and driving to the hotel.

The hotel was very nice. Mike is .... shall we say .... a connoisseur of fine hotels. Which is nothing at all like a hotel snob.

He has over the years booked us into great rooms and hotels. He has also let me know when I have chosen hotels that aren't as nice as hotels he would have preferred to stay in. Including a hotel (timeshare) in Hawaii that had no air conditioner. The desk clerk assured that Hawaii's climate meant that we didn't need an air conditioner, but to Mike, the lack of an air conditioner was an inconvenience that he doesn't ever wish to repeat in the future.

So as we checked into this lovely hotel, the girl led us around and gave a brief tour and explanation of the accommodations. At the end, Mike asked, "Where's the thermostat?". "We don't have air conditioning" she explained, "the climate doesn't warrant one." a ra

I managed not to laugh in her face, but Mike instantly looked at me with a look that clearly said "just shut up".

To be fair, in hawaii I wound up sleeping with every window open and no covers, and I still sweat through the night. I don't think it will be an issue here.

After dropping off luggage, we went for dinner in the hotel's restaurant. It was a great meal, and for desert, we ordered a small selection of cheeses. That was epicly delicious.

Following dinner we headed back down the road to the National Park and another beach. We watched surfers, paddle boars, swimmers, sand castle builders, sunbathers, and all manner of surf frolicking. We even watched a family of 5 play in the waves. The smallest boy would run out till a wave approached then turn and run back to his parents with the wave behind him.

I remembered times when I'd played with my own children like that, and with my grand children. It was a very homesick moment.

Next we drove to a rain forest nature trail. It was 1 kilometer long and wound out and back in a big loop. The entire trail was a raised wood plank walkway with stairs and handrails as needed. It was pretty cool.

We wandered out into the vegetation and within minutes all sense of direction was gone, as well as any sounds from the highway. Without a compass I'm not sure how you'd navigate because you couldn't even see the tree.

It felt allot like the new hobbit movie where the dwarves are following a trail through dense trees. It was cool but very eerie. Moss hung from everything. They had to cutt over, under, and through allot of massive logs, and I have no idea how they hauled enough lumber into the forest to build all that trail. It was amazing.

When we were done with the trail, I was done, sweating, and out of breath. It was a long kilometer with a few hundred stairs up down and around everything. We ran into town to get some dramamine (but here it's called gravel) because tomorrow we're going whale watching.

These pictures are out of order because I'm having a hard time getting them to upload on the hotel wifi, I'll post what has worked so far and maybe add more to tomorrows blog.

Mountain Peaks along the highway from Whistler