May 24, 2016

May 24 Tofino return to Victoria  

   

   It is a sunny day about 14 C with a bit of wind, we can see the herb garden of the Botanical Garden from our window.  Stepping out onto the wraparound porch after listening to the rooster crow from the chicken coup, I could hear a whirring sound and saw that three metres from the railing was a hummingbird hovering by a cedar tree.  In the background, several different songbirds were singing.

   Breakfast was served in the communal dining room.  The choice was oatmeal with topping choices of brown sugar, craisins, almonds, raisins, cinnamon powder and flaked coconut; fresh bakery multigrain bread which you could toast and add butter, peanut butter or jam; apples or oranges; fresh from the oven apple or cherry muffins; orange juice, some dry cereal, tea or organic coffee roasted on Vancouver Island.  After you finished your meal you cleared your spot and washed your dishes.  It reminded us of the summer at Family camp at Camp Wasaga in Riding Mountain National Park.

   After breakfast, we took the short cut path into the Botanical Gardens, any time multiple admissions were included in our accommodation fee.   We took the path that leads to the mud flats between the mainland and Racoon Island to see the mud flats at low tide.  Yesterday afternoon the tide was high and we did not realize that the water was only one metre deep. We found some secondary wood chip covered paths to explore our way back to the lodge.

    We split the return drive back along the same rolling, twisting and turning Highway 4 to Port Alberni.  At the highest point, there was a bit of mist, but the wipers only activated twice for less than 10 seconds.  The maximum speed was 80 km per hour, however, some sharp turns had maximum speed posted of 30 km per hour.   Just before Port Alberni, we detoured to the McLean Mill National Historic Site.  It was a steam-operated sawmill and lumber business established in 1925 and operated until 1965.  It still has most of the equipment and is operational in the summer months.  The workers lived on the 13 hectares site close to the sawmill.  There are three main stages to the production of lumber. First slabbing where the logs are winched from the pond and sliced, then pushed to the making boards mid section of the mill to create the dimension lumber and finally cutting to cut the boards to length for sale.  They are further planed and sanded if necessary to make a smooth board.  They were then shipped by train to the port.

   We then drove into Port Alberni, to the Swale Café again, for lunch, where we ate either battered cod, french fries and Caesar salad or Swale Spinach Salad. The temperature had warmed to 17 C and the sky was mostly cloudy.  We continued on Highway 4 toward Nanaimo and stopped at MacMillan Provincial Park’s Cathedral Grove. We hiked the Cathedral Trail on the south side named the Living Forest Trail first, and saw one of the over 800 year old Douglas Fir trees, although, the area mostly has trees about 350 years old due to a forest fire. We saw a number of “nursing trees” which were dead and fallen trees that new plants, such as trees and ferns, were rooted in and getting nutrients from the decaying wood. The largest tree was over 76 metres tall. Douglas Fir trees can live to 1,000 years old. We saw the Big Leaf Maple trees, which can grow to 36 metres high and Western Red Cedar that can grow to 60 metres.  Also on the forest floor were Devil’s Club bushes, with spikes on the stems and leaves, and ferns.  We crossed the highway and walked the Old Growth Trail on the north side.  Each trail was less than one kilometre in length.

    We were back in the car again stopping next in Coombs, at the Goat on the Roof market.  There were four goats on the grass meadow roof.  We noticed changes to the market from when we last visited in 2001.  After a short look around, we continued on past Parksville and stopped in to Gail and Gord’s Nanoose Bay home for a visit then resumed our drive and stopped in Chemainus.   Here we walked around the older section of the town and saw a good many of the over 40 outdoor wall murals on the buildings, following the yellow painted footprints on the sidewalks to lead us on the self guided tour.  As we looked for a restaurant for dinner we had accumulated 9.36 km of walking for the day.  We chose Bonnie Martin’s restaurant for dinner selecting either cod fish, french fries and salad or a vegetable stir-fry of at least eight vegetables and rice.  Then we were drove the final stretch to Bob and Margot’s house in Victoria.  The whole drive took a little over ten hours including all our stops.

   

   Total distance walked 10.66 km