Tofino
From today we going to explore the middle of Vancouver Island. We'll be based at Quaillicum Beach for a couple of nights so we can do a couple of day trips to explore our surroundings. Our exploration today took us to Tofino on the remote west coast. From Quallicum Beach there's a 170km narrow windy hacked up road to negotiate to cross the island. The drive took us 2-1/2 hours! Just before we reached Tofio township we passed through this dense forest. This is about the best photo we have of coastal rain forest typical of the western shore of VI. The trees here aren't as tall as the ones we saw near Victoria 2 days ago, but are still very impressive.
Canadians have a huge coastline but very few places where they can surf. The north is frozen most of the year & the Atlantic Ocean is bitterly cold.
Long Beach near Tofino is the best known surfing beach in Canada (pictured is Chesterman Beach next door). I don't see the attraction myself. The water, even in the middle of summer is still icy.
There wasn't much in the way of surf today & the fog was thick & cold. We may well have been there on a quiet day surf wise. I could see the potential for great waves on the right day but I think I'll stick to the surf back home. The crazies were still out in the water regardless of how inviting the weather was.
We saw lots of black bears along the road across the island but there was nowhere to pull over safely to take any photos.
Quallicum Falls
On the way back from Tofino we took a divert to a couple of the provincial parks close to Parksville. The first one was Quallicum falls. A short walk took us to Upper Quallicum Falls (above). There was also a smaller unnamed water fall at the foot of the Upper Falls (below).
There was also another waterfall close by called <wait for it> Lower Quallicum Falls (below).
Englishman Falls
A short drive from Quallicum Falls is Englishman falls. Once again there was an Upper Falls (above & below) & a Lower Falls.
The Upper falls is one of the most unusual waterfalls I have ever seen. It topples down into a seemingly endless crack in the earth and disappears.
The lower falls (above) are a bit more conventional despite being a twin fall. It is slightly ironic that we drove for 5 hours to Tofino today but the pick of the scenery was 15 mins from our base at Quallicum Beach.
