Victoria and Tofino
(written July 5th)
We are now five days into our road trip. If our destination is the east coast, then we are going the wrong direction.
Currently we are on Vancouver Island to see our friend Corey and my youngest brother, Kai, and it’s been a jam packed few days.
Our first night in the van was quite eventful. We met with Corey in Victoria and decided in the evening to drive down to Port Renfrew area before heading to Tofino the next day.
The drive was beautiful, but it was getting dark quite fast by this time, and we were getting a bit tired. We tried and tried to find places to park and camp but nothing came up.
Finally, at around 11:00 pm, we found a spot just outside Port Renfrew, on the side of the road, that was just off enough to give us some privacy. We lit a fire, set up our vans, and though we were a bit frustrated about driving around so much, it ended up being quite perfect.
(first night in the van, on the side of the road)
It’s comforting when you have a friend sleeping beside you in his car. There’s a certain peace of knowing that if you woke up and your battery was dead or you forgot something, that you had someone there who would be there to jump your car or might have the item you forgot.
From there, we explored Botanical Beach, before heading to Tofino. Two nights in Tofino meant some foraging, hiking, cooking over the fire, and a lot of rain.
(tide pools at Botanical Beach, just outside Port Renfrew)
(fire cooking at Bella Pacifica campground in Tofino)
(seeing whales in these unsinkable suits)
Luckily for us, the rain held off on our final day, just in time for us to go whale watching. We went with Adventure Tofino Wildlife Tours, and had the opportunity to see sea otters, sea lions, harbour seals, and grey whales.
At one point, we were surrounded by eight grey whales. It’s amazing to see such magnificently large creatures. You feel powerless and there’s a bit of fear of knowing how helpless you would be if something was to go wrong.
We left shortly after the end of our tour, saying goodbye to Corey in Tofino and heading back to Victoria to see Kai.
He surprised us with a cooler with nine red rock crabs and one dungeness. It’s been so long since I’ve had fresh crab, and reminded me of a memory from childhood where our family went to Campbell River and my father cooked us a whole Dungeness crab for each of us. I distinctly remember being in awe of the fact that we each got a whole animal to ourselves.
(I don't know what we have more of, crabs or wrinkles on my face)
(smashing out the prep in the sun with Kai and Hayley)
We cooked the crabs, along with some tamagoyaki (Japanese style omelet), rice, and packed some nori (roasted seaweed), ponzu, cucumber, pickled ginger, and a few other things and headed to the water. Along with Kai’s partner, Hayley, and friend, David, we made temaki (hand rolled sushi) and sat and ate crab while looking out to a beautiful seaside view.
We went home, making a pit stop at Cold Comfort to have a macaron ice cream sandwich with ice cream made with Hoyne Brewing's Dark Matter beer. It was a perfect way to spend time in the city before heading off into the middle of nowhere again.
