Wandering Vancouver Island - A Visit To Some Unique Towns

Honeymoon Bay, Nanaimo and Chemainus (62 degrees, blue skies)

Barry and Jann wearing "Legart"

"As soon as I saw you,

I knew an Adventure

was going to happen"

Winnie the Pooh

The adventure continues with our friends Barry and Jann. We continued north from Victoria to a pretty a Provincial Park in Honeymoon Bay.  The campground has huge sites and we were able to find a double site which worked out perfectly. There are no hookups here with huge heavily forested sites and of coarse no satellite reception. None of the sites are on the Lake Cowichan but its just a short walk to the pretty shore. 

Gordon Bay Provincial Par

It rained pretty heavily the first day and we got rather wet on a hike exploring our campground. However, the next day was beautiful and we drove to a Chemainus with a interesting mural history.

The town has over 40 murals hand painted on the bullrings downtown. It was a creative solution to the towns struggling economy. It's worked well and it was fun to walk around the town and enjoy them. The visitor center has a map for $3 CAD which explained some of the history and detailed each one. We met an artist there and later saw her restoring one of the murals. Here are a few. The murals must depict the town's past, One Nations, mining, maritime, or forestry. 

World's Largest Hockey Stick

We also visited Duncan and with some degree of difficulty found the World's Largest Hockey Stick (62 meters). This probably sounds like a crazy adventure but this is how we roll.

A delicious stop was planned at Cherry Point Vineyard. Our Lonely Plant guidebook said they had "lip smacking good" Blackberry Port and they were right.

Cherry Point

We also found an unexpected tea farm where we picked up a nice selection to try. It was an enjoyable couple of days spent exploring in this area.

Tea Farm

The rigs returned to the road and our next location was Nanaimo. This is the second largest city on the island and we stayed at a really nice campground called Living Forest Oceanside Campground.  It's worth paying a little extra for a site with a water view. Ours was beautiful with full hook ups and a stunning view. This photo is at low tide. It's a large park with lots of well groomed trails. We stayed two nights but a longer stay would have been even better. 

View from our site 

There is some great hiking in this area. One afternoon was spent at Neck Point Park. There is a very pretty hike along the water overlooking some small islands and distant mountain range. At the end there was a fairy trail complete with little homes and toys inside for children to play or trade. What a cute idea. 

Fairy trail

T

Ferry to Newcastle

Mother's Day turned out to be perfect. We took a quick ten minute ferry over to Newcastle Island ($5 CAD round-trip). This island originally was used to quarry grindstones for making pulp for paper products. Now there are lots of trails, camping, and a beach for swimming or launching a kayak. We chose a trail which went all around the island. It was very scenic with ocean views, dense forests, and even a pretty lake. 

Remnants of grindsto

Overlooking Nanaimo

Check back again soon for more adventures on Vancouver Island. Our next stop is Tofino on the west side of the island. This is where surfers try to catch the next big wave. A visit to Pacific Rim National Park is also planned.