FRIDAY, AUGUST 8

FRIDAY, AUGUST 8: 

     Had a leisurely, relaxed morning and early afternoon.  Didn’t get in the truck to leave the campground til about 2:30. 

     Our destination was east this time, through the town of Sooke, then down the West Coastal Highway along what they call The Sunshine Coast and ending up at Port Renfrew and Botanical Beach.   This beach is very well known for its wonderful tide pools and intertidal marine life.  But of course you need to time your visit at low tide, which we had found to be around 4:45.  It was only around 50-60 miles away, so we figured that we had lots of time, but would still drive straight there first, before making any other stops along the way, thinking that we’d probably arrive an hour or so before actual low tide.  It’s a good thing we did!  It took us over 2 hours to get to Port Renfrew.  The road was one of the most twisty, curvy we’ve ever been on.  Bill rarely went over 30 mph and lots of stretches more slowly than that.  We’ve noticed that about the roads all over this area . . . the Canadian road builders seem to have a bias towards roads with lots of sharp curves and steep grades!

     Anyway, once we arrived at the Botanical Beach State Park, we had to walk a 1-mile trail down to the beach itself.  Was through a lush temperate rain forest, very similar to what we saw last year in Southeast Alaska, and similar to some of what we’ll see in Olympic Nat’l Park. 
                                                          

The weather had morphed into a true rain forest late afternoon – chilly, foggy, and misty. Could barely see much of anything in the distance.  But we had fun picking our way through and over the exposed rocks to peer down into the tide pools.

                                                   

 

Didn’t see any unusual creatures as we’d hoped – but tons of mussels and clams, and a few little crabs.  After the better part of an hour, made our way back over the rocks, pretending like little kids that we were escaping the oncoming tide.

       Since it was now around 6:30, we didn’t stop to eat at one of the charming little places we saw in Port Renfrew, as Bill wanted to get as much of the road behind him before dark as possible.  We did stop at Sooke to walk a little out on the Whiffin Spit, but it was so cold and windy that we turned back quickly.  We saw what looked like a ferry cruising through.  Going up to Prince Rupert? 

                                                  

We would have liked spending more time around here – supposed to be several galleries, some funky shops & buildings, etc.  But most everything was closed by now, and, besides, we needed to get home to start getting ready to leave tomorrow morning.

     We’re glad we came to Vancouver Island and Victoria, but 4 days was enough.  The two days we spent in Victoria were plenty to see everything we wanted.  And, really, outside of the central square & harbor downtown, we thought that the town of Victoria was pretty nondescript – not much charm or drama to the rest of the town.  As for the rest of the Island, at least what we saw of it, it was very rural, and not particularly scenic, at least not in any unique way.  So we’re very glad we spent the time we did here, especially of course seeing the fabulous Butchart Gardens, but most likely won’t put this on our list of places we’d be likely to visit again.