gardenofwine.com

Ucluelet Campground, Ucluelet, Vancouver Island, British Columbia, Canada. Odometer – 7902

Click here for Pictures

We had a long drive this morning so we left the campground in Nanaimo as soon as we could. The drive starts along the eastern shore of the island and then cuts through the middle through forests, lakes, and mountains until reaching the west coast. It was very scenic. We were surprised to see snow capped mountains on the island.

About halfway through, the road became narrow and very winding, so we had to drive very slowly. Then we came upon an accident scene where a logging truck turned over on the road and blocked our lane. Luckily we passed without waiting too long. We saw a long line of cars waiting on the other side to cross.

A few minutes later, we spotted a black bear cub on the side of the road. We were still driving slowly so I pulled over as best as I could and Paola and I got to see the cub for about 30 seconds before it got bashful and ran back into the thicket.

We got to Pacific Rim National Park around 3pm and our first order of affairs was to find a place to sleep for the next few days. The park is bordered on the north by a tourist town called Tofino and in the south a more industrial town called Ucluelet. The campground in the park has been fully booked for ages, and the campgrounds in Tofino. So we settled on the only other town in a 100km radius, Ucluelet, the ugly sister to Tofino. Not that we saw any of the town, because the campground is just at the entrance.

After paying $35 for a non-serviced sight we drove to a nearby playground so the kids could run around a bit after being in the car for 5 hours. We then drove into the park for some nature walks, but all three kids fell asleep. So we continued up north to Tofino and found a campground that has room for us for tomorrow and the day after. It looks much more pleasant than tonight’s hole, and it has a good looking playground.

We drove into Tofino downtown and when the kids woke up took them to the … playground. Orr was incredible on the omega, she hung on the t-bar all by herself. While Paola played with the kids, I prepared supper in the RV and we ate rice with an Indian sauce we got at the supermarket. I am getting the children used to spicy food.

We drove to a sunset photo spot called Radar Hill but got there too early. So we washed the kids and got them ready for bed and then I went out to get some shots. This time I was too late, the sun had disappeared behind some clouds and sank under the horizon. We drove back to the campground in Ucluelet, 30 minutes, in the dark and the girls fell asleep. Ron didn’t take too much once we arrived. Boy do they have us packed like sardines here in the campground. Thank goodness we are here just to sleep.

Good Night,

-Hemi

This entry was posted on Friday, July 27th, 2007 at 11:25 am and is filed under Big Trip, British Columbia, Canada, North America RV 2007. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.