Friday 19 June 2009

Road Trip : Tofino & Ucluelet

The second half of our Vancouver Island trip took us up to the Pacific coast to Ucluelet and Tofino. As we drove from Victoria over the mountains, the sky began to darken and the misty grey skies that this section of the coast is so well known for, rolled in!

Despite the fact that nearly every photo of Tofino I had seen before the trip had shown these kind of conditions, we were relatively lucky with half of our four days on the coast managing a bit of sunshine.

Most of our activities took us out on the water. Our first trip was whale watching in a RIB in the rain! Despite immersion suits and wet weather gear, we came back drenched, but managed to see several killer and grey whales, a sea otter and a seal.

On Wednesday Jim had a surfing lesson off Chesterman Beach while I mooched round in the mist taking photos and yesterday we were back out on the boat for a wildlife viewing trip. As I think has been well documented on this blog, after two years in Canada I still have yet to see a bear (except if you count a very small blob on a hillside). Everyone I know out here has seen bears, even Jim. The people on the boat trip the day before us even saw 8 bears..... we went out and saw none at all!

I have less than 5 weeks left in Canada - so will some kind bear please humour me with an appearance or I'll begin to believe I have been the victim of some elaborate wind up!

So, three days on the water and we finished our visit to Tofino on the water too, by flying back to Vancouver on a Tofino Air float plane, more of a treat for Jim than me - 45 year-old single engine planes don't inspire me with confidence!

So we're back on the mainland and tomorrow it's on to Seattle by train.... In the meantime, lots of photos on my Flickr account here

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