In terms of island sizes in the world, Vancouver Island is huge. Wikipedia has it listed as the worlds 42nd largest island at a little over 12,000 square miles. To put that in perspective New York’s Long Island is the worlds 149th largest at about 1,200 square miles. Tiny in comparison. Today we would be starting our 5-day journey around the southern half of the island.
Vancouver, BC
We had started our drive in Whistler, BC heading south towards the city of Vancouver. (For those that have not been to the pacific northwest, the city of Vancouver is not located on Vancouver Island). We arrived in the city of Vancouver around lunchtime and stopped in their famous Stanley Park for lunch. Julie and I had been to Vancouver a few times and this was one of favorite spots in the city. We ate lunch in Bubbles looking out over the parks’ huge trees with the ocean and huge container ships in the background. It was a pretty awesome spot for a sandwich.
Riding the ferry over to Vancouver Island
After lunch it was time to head over to the main port for BC Ferries at Tsawwassen. Vancouver, while being absolutely gorgeous is a bit strange in the fact that it does not have a highway that connects directly into the city. There are highways to the south and west of the city but if you are coming from the north you are out of luck. We had planned for this when leaving Stanley Park but what we didn’t plan for were festivals in downtown Vancouver. Trying to follow Google Maps proved to be a bit challenging as street after street was closed forcing us to try small side streets – not the easiest thing in a large 22’ van. After quite a few detours we finally managed to get onto a main road and headed for the port, just a few miles north of the USA border.
I’m not sure how many people reading this have driven their car onto a ferry, but Julie and I love it. This was going to be our 4th ferry crossing on our travels (2017 Newfoundland, 2018 Texas, 2019 Yukon and now heading to Vancouver Island.). Today we were heading to Victoria, the capitol of British Columbia. As this is BC Ferries most popular route the ship was one of their largest. We went through the ticketing booth and lined up in our assigned row. Much like at the Newfoundland ferry terminal we could wait in our vehicle or head into the port building which had a waiting room. We decided to hang out around Bubbles and watch the other vehicles come in and get ready to go. After about half an hour the boat was ready, we followed the car in front of us and onto the boat.
The boat ride to Swartz Bay outside of Victoria was amazing. The ride takes you through the Canadian side of the San Juan Islands. The boat slips between green pine covered island through blue and turquoise waters. Some people on the boat said to watch out because sometimes you are able to see killer whales. While we didn’t see any of those, we did see some playful seals. It was an awesome ride to say the least. Once we were off the ferry we drove over to our campground on the outskirts of Victoria and called it a night. It was a long but fun day!
The next morning, we woke up ready to go. As we had been to Victoria a few times and would be leaving from Victoria as well we decided to see what the rest of the southern part of the island had to offer. Today we were heading to the town of Tofino. After breakfast and getting the van ready for the day we headed out. There is only one main road on the island to go north and south, so we headed over to Highway 1 and headed north. On Vancouver Island most of the western side is extremely mountainous while the eastern side is still hilly but much flatter. As we drove up the main road, we stopped at a few overlooks which we were able to see as far back as the mainland. After a few hours we turned off to the road which crosses the island and goes to Tofino.
On the road to Tofino
Tofino is a very unique town on Vancouver Island for a few reasons. The first being that it is one of only a handful of towns on the western side of the island. The other is that it is one of the few surf spots in all of Canada. The drive from the eastern side of the island to Tofino was about 2 hours. In that two hours the weather went from being partly cloudy and nice to torrential rain. This was something that Julie and I had not yet experienced. When I say torrential rain, it was as if someone was pouring dump truck loads of rain onto the van and the road. At one point as we got closer to town, we were driving over a section of road where they were performing road work. The road at this point was dug into the side of a cliff. It was down to one lane and just a dirt/gravel path. The water was pouring down the side of the cliff and across the road, we were a bit scared that the road was just going to wash out. Luckily it didn’t and we made it into town.
We found parking but were not sure if we could leave the car without getting fully soaked. Then we remembered….we had bought rain gear while in Alaska as we thought that our fishing trips would be cold and rainy (they turned out to be sunny & 80 degrees). So, we unpacked our rain gear, put it on and stepped out into the rain blizzard. Tofino isn’t that big and as it was crazy raining, we didn’t want to spend too much time wandering, so instead we headed for a Rhino Coffee Shop that we had seen on the way in. It was only about a 5 min walk in which we only moderately got soaked (mostly our face & feet). We hung out inside for a bit sipping our hot coffee before going into the store next to the coffee house. At this point we decided that it would be impossible for the rain to be this bad the next day, so we decided to come back into the town the next morning.
Tofino Brewing Co
As it was still a bit too early to check into our campground (especially in the rain), we headed over to the local brewery, Tofino Brewing Co. As expected, it was packed when we walked in. In most breweries it’s open seating and you order everything at the bar. At this brewery however the tables were set up like a normal restaurant with a waiter/waitress. There was a section of the bar where you could order to go beers or order a beer to have while you waited for a table to open up. So, Julie and I got a beer and stood around for a minute or so before 2 bar seats opened up and we were able to take them. While at the brewery in addition to the beer that we both ordered we also had an order of their smoked & candied (with brown sugar) salmon. We thought this was the perfect place for this. Sitting in a warm and inviting brewery, in a town in the Canadian rain forest while it was raining like crazy, having a nice beer and delicious smoked salmon. For about an hour and a half everything was right with the world.
We knew we couldn’t have more than 1 beer each and drive the van so after our beer we left the brewery and headed over to our campground. The campground it turned out was part of the local golf course and to our dismay it did not include RV hookups (power & sewer). Normally this would not be a problem. We’ve gone many nights “untethered” however it seemed on any night that we really needed power to run our heaters our chosen campground could not provide it. While the van on a normal non bad weather night is usually pretty cozy, when it’s raining and windy outside it can get a bit chilly inside. Not much we could do about it though. We made some rice in our rice maker then put on the Karate Kid and set in for a rainy evening.
Pacific Rim National Park Beaches
The next morning, we woke up and thought that the gods must have been looking down upon us as the rain had stopped! We were extremely happy and after a quick breakfast we were off to explore. There are beaches for miles going south from Tofino and we picked the Combers Beach trailhead which was part of the Pacific Rim National Park. It was about a quarter mile hike from the parking lot to the beach through some amazing rain forest. There were huge trees, huge ferns and even huge Banana Slugs. Once we noticed our first slug, we couldn’t help but see them everywhere. Finally, we stepped out of the woods and onto the beach. The wind whipped a bit and the waves crashed down, but we loved it. It was a bit of a grey and foggy day which made the woods in either direction a bit spooky and mysterious. This area though was the shooting location for one of the Twilight movies and we both thought that yes, after coming here this area had the perfect look for a vampire movie.
Tofino, BC
Once we had our fill of the beach, we headed back up the path towards the van and headed back into Tofino. Tofino has a population of around 2000 but it can swell to 10 times that during the summer. We were not sure where everyone stayed as it was a small town on a peninsula, but the town was very crowded today compared to the day before. We found parking and started to walk around. After walking around for a few minutes, we could see why people wanted to be here. The town was gorgeous. The town itself, was quaint yet trendy. From the streets you could see into its harbor with fishing and pleasure boats going about their business. It was a really cool scene. We stopped in a few shops grabbing a few souvenirs and taking a few pictures before hopping back into Bubbles.
Ucluelet, BC
From Tofino we headed south to the other town on the peninsula, Ucluelet. Ucluelet turned out to be much more of a blue-collar town compared to the trendy Tofino. Julie and I both liked it though. It had a few shops and nice-looking restaurants. Looking at maps of the town we noticed that it had a lighthouse (one of Julie’s favorite things) at the southern end of town; we knew we had to go. As we got closer, we noticed that we were not the only people to have the idea to check out the lighthouse today. Cars were lining the road going to the lighthouse. We kept on driving heading towards the small parking lot thinking that everyone must think that the parking lot is full and not checking at all. We turned out to be right and found parking in the 1st spot. Win for us!
We walked the short path from the parking lot and almost immediately came across the Amphitrite Point Lighthouse. It was a small white and red lighthouse shaped like a square. It was pretty short, only about 20 feet tall but it looked like a tank would have a tough time knocking it over. It was very sturdy. We took a few photos of the lighthouse before wandering down the trail in the area named the Wild Pacific Trail. We followed the trail for a bit looking out at the ocean and watching the waves crash up against the craggy rocks. Every now and then a big wave would crash so hard we would get a bit of sea spray in our faces. It was refreshing. We would have loved to stay in the area for longer but as we had booked late, we were only able to book one night at the campground, so we had to make our way out and back to the east side of the island. We will for sure come back to Tofino & Ucluelet again in the future!
Next up…We continue exploring Vancouver Island going to Parksville, Nanaimo & Victoria!
Tofino is an awesome little place. So glad you got to experience it!
We really enjoyed our time in Tofino and plan to go back someday soon! What is your favorite thing to do or see there?