Beaver Creek and Tofino

For the past few days I have been in Beaver Creek at Lynnes home and also visiting Tofino on the west coast of Vancouver Island in the Camper Van.

A beautiful Indian Pipe fungus near Beaver Creek, Port Alberni

Moss in the forest on the banks of the Stamp River, Beaver Creek

Marina in Uclulet, West Coast of Vancouver Island

On the second day of our visit to the west coast we signed up for boat trip to the Hot Springs about 2 hours boat ride north of Tofino. This is the wharf on the morning of that trip. Notice the sea fog coming in.

A Sea Lion basking in the sun with a Kelp bed in the foreground.

A Sea Otter with baby hiding in a bed a kelp. In the first few hours after a baby otter is borne it is unable to swim so the mother must stay on the surface with it.

Hot Springs Point Lighthouse, two hours north of Tofino. There is a permanant Indian community just around the point.

The Indian community of Hotsprings Point. The original village was located closer to the water but was wiped out in the Tsunami of 1964.

This is an example of how a new tree will start out on a Host Log (one which has fallen and is rotting away) and develop into a mature tree while the host log rots to nothing. Note the timber walkway. The entire 1.8 km walk to the hot spring was like this.

A Garter Snake basking in the sun alonside the walkway.

The hot spring falls and bathing pool. The water issues from the spring at 50 deg C. The pools were quite small and communal bathing was an intimate affair.

Wild Ginger and moss in a rotting log alongside the walkway to the hot springs.

An Old Growth Cedar tree alongside the walkway.

A Black Bear hunting for limpets on a rocky beach. Her cub had just run back into the forest. We were about 10 metres away in the boat.

We passed a barge loaded with cedar timber cut ready to make roof shingles.

Long Beach near Tofino with the sea fog rolling in on a fine day.

two surfers coming out of the distant surf through the sea fog.

Well this is the last of my blog entries so I will sign off now until I return to Australia. I hope you have enjoyed sharing my adventures over the last two months.



Vancouver Island

Saturday 4 th August

We have just returned to Port Alberni after a four day camping trip to Strathcona Provincial Park in the north of Vancouver Island about 250km north of Nanaimo. Lynne and I took the Camper Van courtesy of Michael and Darlene and it served us very well.

Buttle Lake

The campsite was at the southern end of Buttle Lake on the banks of the Ralph River.

A Stella Blue Jay waiting for breakfast

The site was surrounded by giant Cedar , Alder and Douglas Fir trees with undergrowth of Huckleberry, Kinnanick, bunchberries and sword fearns to the extent that we could not see the neighboring sites. Facilities were limited to drop toilets, benches and tablest plus a fire place each.



The lake was surrounded by 6,000ft mountains with the odd patch of snow still holding out under the summer sun.

Lynne with one of the many trees felled to clear the walking track.

We passed the time with walks through pristine forest where fallen trees are left to rot and form new soil for the constantly changing undergrowth. At times we would come across a stream glistening green under the patches of sun that forced through the high growth.



A visit to the upper and lower Myra Falls was a real treat. Millenniums of slow wear by the constant flow of water had carved large and small pockets where still water provided a drinking pond or a whirl pool in which large logs circled aimlessly while waiting for the next high water to escape.



The upper fall was reached via one hour walk up through the forest and I was pleasantly surprised to find a couple at the fall who had spent some time teaching in Adelaide in the 1970's. 

Another day we drove out to Gold River to visit the Upana river caves but lost our way and gave up after having only visited the town and small port where logs were being formed into log booms to be towed to ports south.