This morning, I left the AirBNB and spent a few hours having breakfast, walking around Downtown Victoria, and shopping for groceries for the upcoming road trip to Tofino. At 1PM, I boarded bus #50 from Downtown Victoria to Six Mile Road, where I exited a walked a few blocks to Michel’s home.
At about 2PM, Michel, Julien, Rachel, and I began driving along the highway toward Nanaimo. After about an hour of driving, we stopped at a lookout point overlooking Cowichan Lake.
After a few minutes at the overlook, we continued driving another hour toward Nanaimo. We stopped at Old Country Market, a well-known tourist attraction in Coombs, BC. A newly-emigrated Norwegian couple started a roadside fruit stand at the location of Old Country Market. They incrementally expanded their offerings to include a market, restaurant, ice cream shop, and much more. Inspired by some of the architecture in Norway, they designed the market building to have a sod roof. As the grass grew increasingly longer on the roof, they placed goats on the roof to keep the grass presentable. Because of the high levels of attention the goats received from passersby, they decided to keep the goats on the roof permanently. Whether or not this was originally a genius marketing ploy or originally an innocent attempt at keeping the roof presentable, I really admire how they’ve created a tourist destination in the middle of nowhere. The inside of the market contained a wide variety of international packaged foods, groceries, and pastries. It was an adventure walking through the market and searching through all the different foods.
From there, we continued on to Little Qualicum Falls Park. The park contains several pathways which follow and overlook a river and quite a few waterfalls. We walked on many of the trails at a leisurely pace, enjoying and taking in the views and sounds of the magnificent falls. We even found a nice, quiet spot on the Little Qualicum River, where we swam and waded in the refreshingly cold water. On the road trip, it quickly became evident how much we all enjoyed swimming in the rivers and lakes. Considering that we would be camping for 6 days without access to showers, we pretty much had no choice but to embrace and enjoy swimming in nature.
Afterwards, we drove to Macmillan Provincial Park, where we would enjoy the last hour or so of daylight in an old growth forest. The Cathedral Trail is a loop that passes through an old growth forest with trees that are hundreds of years old. The highlight of the trail is an 800 year old Douglas Fir Tree that is over 200 feet tall. After completing the Cathedral Trail, Big Tree Trail, and old Growth Trail, we drove a few minutes a camped on a quiet dirt road across the street from Cameron Lake.
