Vancouver Island - Part 2

As Mark already said, we hiked part of the Wild Pacific trail at Ucluelet and the coast line was something to see

Later, we drove through the Pacific Rim national park and visited a number of lovely beaches along the way to Tofino.

Tofino was a quaint little town and after lunch at a local pub, we hiked another part of the trail and visited more beaches. At one of these, Mark decided to paddle in the freezing water!  

This worked up a bit of an appetite,  so we had dinner at The Schooner,  famous for 'The Admiral's plate' - including prawns,  scallops,  mussels,  clams, baked oysters, halibut,  salmon,  blackened snapper and home cured smoked salmon. I think we waddled out if there! Driving back to Ucluelet we stopped at Wickaninnish beach and watched a fabulous sunset.

This is the first sunset over the Pacific that we have seen since we left Los Angeles in December 2013. And it was worth the wait.

The following day, we headed back to the east coast and near Port Alberni is a large forest full of giant Douglas firs called Cathedral Grove.  Magnificent old trees with the largest one being over 800 years old

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We then decided to check out Qualicum Beach. To our delight, the annual Fire and Ice festival was on. The 'fire' referred to chilli, and for $4, we could try as many as we liked from the participating eateries,  and then vote on the best. The 'ice' referred to a number of people carving ice sculptures in the street. There were some fantastic works of art. Here are my favourites.

We stayed in Parksville overnight and this was the view from our motel room. We might be back this way on Thursday as a cruise ship went by in the early evening.

Tomorrow we head down to Victoria, the capital of British Columbia.