Alright, after staying in Nanaimo for a few weeks I needed another adventure, it’s hard to get it out of your blood once it starts. Some friends were heading up to northern Vancouver Island for a camping/surfing trip after finishing up their latest ski movie in need of some serious R&R and I wanted to join them. I was so anxious to leave though that I headed off a few days early to go explore some areas that I hadn’t been to in a long time.

I left Nanaimo and headed up to Campbell River, then drove inland to Strathcona park, the largest park on Vancouver Island. The last time I was here was a Grade 6 field trip and I had grand memories of it. I found the campsite at the northern end of Buttle Lake and settled in for the night. I met a couple of Austrian guys down by the beach who were travelling around Canada and invited myself over to their campsite to give them a taste of Canadian Rye Whiskey. We stayed up late enjoying beers, whiskey and stories of travelling, lots of fun. The next morning I packed up and drove down along the lake, stopping to check things out and see if I remembered anything (I didn’t). I found a 4-stage waterfall called “Myra Falls” at the southern end of Buttle Lake and did some exploring there, as well as driving up to a hydro project lake (Jim Mitchell Lake).

My next stop was Gold River to pick up some supplies and then start on the backroads up to the northern island. When I got to the turnoff to the road I saw a sign that said “Road closed” for the week. Normally I would turn around, as I actually read signs, but it would have been a big detour to go back though Campbell River and then up the highway so I decided to press on anyways and see if I could make it. *Just* before I got back to the highway I encountered another “Road Closed” sign and slowed to figure out what to do when I noticed a truck behind me from one of the forestry companies. I asked him about the closure and he said it was only during business hours and that the road was open now (though it was only 4pm). The crazy thing was that the signs made NO mention of this fact. I headed past the Mt. Cain turnoff (I want to ski there someday) and was lucky to get a campsite at the Schoen Lake Provincial Park. I say lucky because there are only 9 campsites and one of them is taken up by the camp warden.

Ok! Woke up in Schoen lake and knew this was the day I would meet up with my friends in Port McNeill, so I started driving up there. I knew I had a bunch of time so I decided to drive over to Telegraph Cove and see what it looked like, plus I had heard that one of my friends was working there and I thought I’d see if I could find her. Telegraph Cove is very small, and in the last corner of the dock that I looked I found Renee! She was shocked and we had lunch and chatted. Next stop was Port McNeill to meet up with my buddy who I know from Whistler. I rolled into town only to find that he pretty much runs the town! Well not really but he and his family own a number of businesses and it was really cool to go around and see everything happening (including a sweet bar in the movie theater).

I found out that a bunch of the other people were coming up late, and wouldn’t arrive until 2am or so, and the next batch would arrive around the same time the following day. After drinking a number of beer and staying up late, they arrived! We all quickly said hi and slept for a few hours. The next day was spent collecting supplies (beer, liquor and food) for the weekend’s adventures. We also picked up a raft at the heliport that was delivered to us in style. We also checked out the 190ft yacht anchored at the dock, it was pretty amazing and apparently only 3 months old (and $71 million dollars). The decision was made to wait up for the others to arrive and to head off immediately (at 3am) for the coast! The plan was to find the river that led into Raft Cove and float down it as the sun came up. That would have worked (we also had a canoe) but we were tired, it was dark and we didn’t know the logging roads that well…. we couldn’t find the river! Apparently we were close, but instead opted to drive down to Grant Bay and hike in. I had a bit of a freakout when we got there as I was really tired, it was pouring with rain and I saw a sign that said “5km hike to beach” and knew I had waaay too much stuff to make that hike. Turns out the sign was messed up and it was only a 0.5km hike to the beach. After 4 trips in the pouring rain, all our stuff was on the beach! We quickly upgraded a shantytown structure of logs, tarps and tents into our living arrangements for the weekend.

The rest of the weekend was spent surfing, rafting around, improving our shantytown, drinking, eating and generally having a good time. It was really nice to sit and relax on the west coast of Vancouver Island with some friends (most of my travelling this summer has been solo).  I did manage to fall off the raft pulling up the homemade crab trap (beer may have been involved) and lost my sunglasses, but such is the cost of adventures!

We left Grant Bay and drove back to Port McNeill, everyone had different destinations to get to, so we all said goodbye and headed off. I drove down towards Parksville and drove into Horne Lake Caves Provincial park to meet up with my Brother and some of his friends. We had a fun night of drinking beer and hanging out by the lake. The next day we packed up and headed off on an adventure! My brother and I both grew up on Vancouver Island but had not explored that much of it, we had a backroads map and I noticed that there was a road that connected Port Alberni to Lake Cowichan and then to Port Renfrew. This was relatively new to me (only having driven the road from Lake Cowichan to Port Renfrew a few weeks earlier). We arrived in Port Alberni (not my most favourite city in the world), resupplied and headed onto the logging roads! I had gotten pretty used to having a GPS on my big road trip, so using a map book instead was a bit different, you definitely have to pay more attention!

Lucky for us it was relatively well marked and we made it to Lake Cowichan with no problems, finding the road that lead to Port Renfrew was a little tricker but we managed to find it. It looked different than when I previously drove it, and it turns out there is another way! We found a logging road that would get us down to Port Renfrew and went exploring. We stopped on a wood bridge just before getting into Port Renfrew to admire the view. I heard a hissing noise from my driver’s side rear tire and had a peek, I had a nail in the tire! We pulled off the bridge and over to the side of the road to change it. I had expected to get a flat driving up north but managed to make it though my long roadtrip with no incidents. It was amusing that on the last bridge before pavement I had a flat. We got the tire off and had a heck of a time getting the nail out, we even managed to break the pliers on my Gerber multitool! After much swearing and sweating we pulled a six inch nail out of the tire! Luckily it didn’t seem to have gone though the sidewall, just the tread. I later plugged the hole with a kit and it’s still holding!

We continued on and arrived at our destination, the Sooke Potholes Provincial park! I used to come here when I was attending University because there is some great cliff jumping and spots to relax by the river. The campsite was new to me, and even though it was over-regulated by The Land Conservatory, it was very well maintained! The next morning our friend Crispin arrived with coffee and we were ready to spend some time jumping into the water!

We spent the next little while jumping off cliffs ranging from 20-40ft, with my brother showing his impressive backflip skills. It was super fun and a great end to this adventure! I dropped my brother off at the ferry and it was time to get back to business (which I guess I don’t really have while I’m not working, haha)