Tofino

 Three nights at Green Point Campground in Pacific Rim National Park.

Dark rainforest, long sandy beach, very popular with surfers.  A remarkably clean beach, free of styrofoam and other bits of grot.  I've camped here before, some years back, but don't remember the lack of flotsam.  

Campsite was rather damp--not because of rain, but just really foggy and misty overnight.

This was an old boardwalk among the ferns down to Combers Beach

And this (above) is Combers Beach Lagoon

A couple of views of Long Beach

 

 

And a view of beachfront real estate.  Back in the High and Far-Off Times (as Kipling would have had it), when I first arrived in BC,  Long Beach wasn't a National Park but rather a destination where hippy types camped on the beach and built shelters out of driftwood.  (Actually, I never did--I was too busy trying to become a great musician, but lots of my friends did.)  Camping on the beach is now strictly forbidden, and it doesn't happen, but building driftwood shelters remains a popular pastime, as it is on the North Coast of California.  This one was exceptionally fine, I thought.

 

 

On Thursday I moved south a bit to Ucluelet.  Less touristy and upmarket, it kind of reminds me of Bodega Bay of maybe 30 years back.  Some quite posh lodges etc. but still a fishing fleet and families of more or less normal folks (many Nuu-cha-nulth).  It was among the first places I visited as an education consultant.  The lighthouse is built low after the first one was clobbered by a tsunami at the beginning of the 20th century.  The area is infamous for shipwrecks, the most recent of which happened in 197- something.

There's a quite fascinating walk around the point.  Lots of strange cedars, and other foliage.  Some years back I sat on the point around Easter and watched whales migrating.  It was quite foggy on Thursday and there usually isn't much happening whale-wise this time of year.  Still, a good walk.

...an old cedar and assorted other growth attaching itself.

Someone with a sense of humour, although sure enough, there are bears, wolves and cougars.  I wouldn't argue with any of them

 I found this informative notice interesting.  I knew bears had problems after hibernation (just imagine what that must do for their dispositions!) but didn't know of the remedy.  

 

Friday morning cleared early with sunlight gleaming into our campsites.

 I hung about the townsite in Tofino for a few hours in hopes I'd miss the 4-hour highway closure back to the east side of the Island.  It was a glorious morning by the time I moved on.  I'm thinking of coming back and booking one of the easier kayak tours one of these days.  The guiding outfit I used to deal with is still going and it doesn't even look as though the prices have gone up.  I spoke with the woman doing bookings and sure enough we realised she'd guided a tour I'd taken some years back!  

And I guess that's the story of my trip.  I'm including a photo I took this morning of a red-breasted sapsucker which I think may be my masterpiece to date even though I cropped its tail.   You'll likely see it in the Christmas calendar.