Every time I visit Vancouver Island, I find another reason to love it.
It reminds me of Tassie, the people are relaxed, the areas run at a slower pace yet there is still so much beautiful natural places to explore.
A trail I'd thought of doing back in 2006 when I visited but chose to do the Cape Scott trail instead, this is one I wanted to get out on this year. With 4 other friends, Sandra, Paul, Raphael and Mike we were all set on completing the 47km over 4 days 3 nights. This was the first time I've ever had to carry everything for myself. A fully laden pack with my 2 man tent, cooking stove, food and all the usual stuff that is shared normally with someone else. Still it was a good opportunity for me to see if I could ever multi day hike on my own but it did mean I had to leave my big camera behind.
An early pick up from Sandra and Paul meant we caught the first ferry at 7am over to Vicoria and then drove out to China Beach trail head the starting point. As we only had one small car the 2 guys managed to hitch their way to the trailhead and met us at the campsite that evening. It was an easy first days hike, we hit mystic beach after 2km and were greeted by a lovely natural cascading waterfall. Paul was keen to have a photo walking under it, I made him go twice once for a photo the next for a video he ended up quite soaked and had a little slip, adding to the comedy. Being a long long weekend we were expecting a lot of people on the trail. Injury number one occured when Paul thought it would be a good idea to use his brand new very sharp knife to help pull through the string for his hat, needless to say he missed and made quite a gushing cut deep into his finger.
The first night saw us arrive to Bear beach, we found a camping spot area where a group of guys were, so good banter started as we'd see them most everyday on the hike. After collecting the dry logs (quite difficult due to all the past rain) we eventually had a roaring fire, due to girls and guys team work. A lovely relax to the start of a great hike, enjoying stories around the camp fire, strolling along the rocky beach, yoga on the logs after dinner and watching the sunset, our only cloudy day for the rest of the hike.
Day 2 we headed off as a group of 5 again to Chin beach through what was written as the most difficult part of the hike. It wasn't difficult though there was certainly mud and slippery rocks to contend with, lots of elevation gained and lost as we traversed the waters edge, getting mostly porthole views of the ocean through the trees, Paul was great at spotting wildlife including otters and seals. The path took us deep into the forrest and it was really nice to just stop and listen.... complete silence except for the rustling of the leaves and the birds calling.... ahh tranquility.... So now we weren't getting the beach walking but more forest it was nice to pop out towards the end to Chin Beach another great beach our 2nd nights stopping point. We had time to have a quick swim, well um paddle I guess you would say as the water was freezing actually hurting my legs to get in and the rocky beach was quite trecherous as the pounding waves slammed into the rocky shore. I climbed up to a little island off the waters edge with the guys and chilled out. Our usual sunset after dinner walk, with some delicious french wine supplied by Raph we found this great big log half out in the ocean, 3 of us walked out to the end and it was quite trippy as the waves splashed around you attempting to throw you off balance but a fall from this height would not have been pretty.
Day 3 We were hiking to meet one of Sandras friends Joanne, who was going to join us for the rest of the hike. We past a couple of suspension bridges until we got to sombrio beach. A sandy beach we were all keen to stop here for a lunch break. The beautiful sunshine made the water look inviting and before we knew it Raph the frenchy was in, then not to be outdone Paul went in straight after, Sandra and I looked at each other, it was now or never, in we went underwear and all ;-) Mike was the only one left on the beach when we got out, so of course we all had to go back in and he had his turn all in our underwear in the cold ocean, Joanne being our photographer for evidence. This was to be our last beach stop for the day as we had to push on to the next campsite at Little kuitshe. Our one big overlook was the tides, we knew this was a tidal hike we had them all written out but we had been so excited and enjoying our fun time on the beach that when we set off we couldn't do the costal part as it was now high tide. So with some exploring the guys found an access route that went up and over the headland. This campsite was by far the most dreary, the tree canopy was so thick it looked dark all the time even when the sun was shinning brightly, but Joanne had brought some wine and Mike had whisky so we found a rock by the ocean and without the campfire just had some good banter. A very unthoughtful group arrived late made as much noise as possible and stopped us all from getting a good nights sleep.
Day 4 our team now up to 6 and soon to become 7 for the last part as we picked up another Trek BC member, Karina, who wanted to just join the last part. Unfortunately we did have a time schedule to keep as we were booked on the only bus that afternoon to get back to the car and then ferry home. Id rather not have had that schedule but sometimes you have to. Today was lovely as we had used the tides correctly we could walk out and along the rocks to look at great tidal pools and wildlife, all while the sun was shinning off the ocean causing it to sparkle. We went looking for the Seal grotto though we found it, unluckily there were no seals out today. We ended the day at Botanical beach the final stopping point for the trek and said good bye to the others, we had a bus to catch so instead of doing the road walk into town Sandra and I were thumbing it for a ride, we got one but Paul had disappeared and the couple didn't realise there were 3 of us, still they were willing to give us a lift if we could make the big squeeze, 3 of us with massive packs on our laps in a small car and we must have looked like a clown show at the circus but we had made it :-) A lovely lunch at the pub and then the delayed bus our trip was complete.
I love multi day hikes as it gives your body the opportunity to gain endurance and hiking strength, lots of time for thoughts and reflections and plenty of stories to tell. I was pretty happy with how well my body held out carrying all that extra equipment weight too. What a great group of friends to share this experience with, I know I had a great time living in that moment and will always look forward to more adventures with friends.
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