Four years ago I was given the opportunity to move back to the place I love best in the world. Vancouver Island. I thought of living on the east coast, but found it too crowded, expensive and didn't offer the crashing waves and foggy vistas that I had loved as a teenager when my family moved from Britain to Canada.
After a year living in Nanaimo, I decided to look at the west coast. The price of housing was cheaper and nowhere near as overpopulated as the east coast, so I settled in a small city of Port Alberni. Port Alberni, despite actually being near the center of the island, is built at the head of a long, deep inlet. It's a fishing and forestry town (actually two towns built only two miles apart and eventually merged), so has a harbour stocked with fishing boats and a paper mill. There are log booms on the far side of town, waiting to be collected and used for lumber or paper. Logging trucks roll through town, and a wilderness of forests and mountains surrounds the town. It's a nice place to live.
Port Alberni inlet:
Port Alberni From Harbour Quay, looking towards Mt Arrowsmith:
Aerial view of Port Alberni:
It's a great place to live! The weather is mild and storms are few, hiking in the surrounding rainforests is a treat, and just an hour's drive down the road is Tofino and Ucluelet. Both towns are situated at each end of a weirdly shaped spit. They have become tourist towns full of spectacular inns, restaurants and small shops selling all kinds of artisan products, whale watching and wildlife tours, and paddle and surfboard shops, all owing to the beauty of the wild west coast.
This is our destination. To get there we'll board the Francis Barkley:
And travel down the Alberni inlet until we reach Barkley Sound, Sarita beach, the Broken Islands, then Ucluelet, Long Beach and finally Tofino.
Come with me on a spectacular trip to the wonderful wild west coast of Vancouver Island...just past the tangled fishing line awaits your adventure....
First...we'll need a more detailed map:
Then, after traveling down the inlet, we come to the more open waters of Barkley Sound:
With it's small inlets and natural harbours:
One might even notice a few float homes in those quiet, sheltered spots:
Eventually we near the Deer Group Islands near Bamfield, noticing the hole in one of them, and intently watch as a kayaker tried to thread the needle:
We come closer to the open water as we travel down the sound, watching as the last of the morning mist rises from the sea, providing us with lightly shrouded, mystical scenes:
We even catch a glimpse of an old twin masted sailing ship and fancy they're pirates, perhaps:
Eventually we reach the Broken Islands and see why they've been called such:
Soon we approach Ucluelet:
And notice we have some visitors:
As well as some Stellar ones:
As we travel towards Long Beach and Tofino, we look towards shore and see the various Inns perched on the rocks overlooking the sea, providing awesome vistas of the Pacific Ocean to weary guests:
We are lucky that today is calm and sunny...during storms, the sea is wild and wicked and exhilarating:
We leave Ucluelet behind as we begin our trip up the coastal Pacific Rim National Park on our way to Long Beach and Tofino. There are trails that run all the way down the near shoreline all the way from Tofino to Ucluelet. Beautiful, deeply green, mossy and mysterious:
At last we see Long Beach and the surfers are out trying to ride the waves:
But it's not too calm a day, and the photographers looking for the perfect shot of the perfect wave may get that today:
Here's two shots fifty years apart. The tide is out in this one:
and in in this one:
Now it's time to leave Long Beach and finish our journey to Tofino:
Good bye surfers!
We pass the Wickaninnish Inn on the way, perched precariously on the rocks to take advantage of the best view of the thundering waves or the calm seas:
Finally, we reach Tofino, a town sprawled on the headland of the northernmost part of the large spit. Here it is time to disembark, explore the town, have supper, maybe stay the night or then catch the late afternoon bus home.
It's been a wonderful journey, full of interesting sights and experiences. I hope you'll really come up and visit this incredible part of the world one day. If you do...message me. maybe we could meet for coffee. I'll leave you with one last look: