Who hasn’t dreamed of going to Vancouver Island?  I know we have and after driving onto a ferry in Port Angeles in the American state of Washington we arrived in the capital of the Canadian province of British Colombia, the handsome historic town of Victoria.  This turned out being a good news and bad news story.

The good news of course is that we were in Canada on our long trek to Alaska.  We have travelled through Canada before and it is one of our favourite places in the world – long stretches of beautiful wilderness, thinly populated with friendly and helpful people…and then there’s the weather but we’ll leave that for now.

The bad news was that our pre-paid SIM cards, which we were promised would work in Canada, did not.  Yes, a first world problem, agreed, but without data we don’t have maps and we can’t research our travel plans or investigate cool places.  Sooooo, long story short, after three hours and talking to multiple people at our provider we finally sorted it out.  If only they had got it right the first time!

We’ve been to Victoria before and it definitely matched our memories from 11 years ago.  Their stately historic buildings and beautiful parks are wrapped around a small harbour with tourist boats ready to take you whale watching and the nearby walking streets are ready to sell tourists everything they don’t need.  Victoria has a great vibe and gets a thumbs up.

Vancouver Island gets it’s name from the British explorer George Vancouver who explored this coastline in the early 1790’s, although it had been inhabited by numerous indigenous tribes for thousands of years beforehand.  He was followed by the first European settlers who exploited the rich waters for fishing and the tall ancient trees for logging.   It must have been a harsh life in this remote place back then. 

We headed out of town along the west coast through the wonderfully-named town of Sooke, aiming to discover some of the remote and beautiful land this island is famous for.  The road hugged the shoreline and at a couple regional parks we walked down to the beach to admire the smooth-rock beaches, huge logs of driftwood and shiny black sand.  At one beach a small waterfall poured out onto the rocky shore, adding a special touch.  We could feel the cooler air, the rugged beauty and the joy of being in such a beautiful place.

We camped our first night in Canada at a large clearing off a logger’s road, a familiar habit of ours, and enjoyed a big fire amongst the tall and stately western hemlocks and Douglas firs. 

But the wild west coast of this large island had much more to offer so we followed the coastline, stopping at various places to walk through the ancient mossy green forests and walk along the stunningly beautiful pebbly beaches.  This is nature at it’s best, untouched by humans, the forces of nature playing their part, the ultimate definition of wild.

At the small sleepy community of Port Renfrew, which seemed to survive in season on people wanting to get away from it all, we headed inland through the thick forests, the hemlocks and firs handsomely standing tall and straight, so thick to make the forest completely impenetrable, to the holiday town and lake of Cowichan Lake.  The cold waters of this deep lake were surrounded by holiday homes and the town itself had all the necessary amenities to survive comfortably. 

We headed back to the east coast and into the forest again for a camp amongst the trees.  Today’s raw beauty along that rugged coastline and the magnificence of these trees reaffirmed why we are making this trek northward again – it is too good to miss.

Vancouver Island is very large – about 400 kilometres long and over 100 kilometres wide which means we can’t do it all on this trip because our first priority is getting to Alaska.  So we had to pick and choose a bit and after some debate and talking to locals we decided to spend our limited time driving back across the island on scenic Highway 4 to the recently trendy, previously young people’s surfing town of Tofino.  And what a good decision that was.

Highway 4 winds its way through the thickly forested mountains, following the shores of numerous alpine lakes and curiously hitting the ocean on one of the long fjord-like fingers that stick into the island.  Along the way we stopped at Macmillan Provincial Park to walk amongst the giant Douglas firs, including the largest one which is over 800 years old.  For perspective on that fact, it was already 300 years old when Christopher Columbus ‘discovered’ America.

Driving along the lake shores was very special, some with snow-capped mountains in the background, all of them shimmering in yet another unseasonably beautiful blue sky day.  We stopped at the town of Port Alberni which is at the tip of a spectacularly long inlet of the sea that sticks into the belly of the island and provides magnificent views around the very untouristy town.

Eventually we made the west coast again and turned to check out the lay back town of Ucluelet with multiple signs of surfing lessons and the shortest lighthouse I’d ever seen.  We then made our way to larger town of Tofino, now a popular tourist destination if you don’t mind the stunning 160 kilometre drive from coast to coast. 

Tofino used to be a sleepy little town tucked in behind some islands where people hung out, surfed and generally forgot about the big bad world.  Today it is a little bit Byron Bay, a little bit Tahoe City and quite a bit not our style.  Still, the water planes landing on the water and snow-capped mountains nearby looked pretty cool.

We backtracked a way, passing through Pacific Rim National Park which featured long deep beaches and car parks filled with surfer vans, and camped just off the road on the secluded banks of Kennedy River.  And we both agreed – Vancouver Island absolutely rocks.

The next day we were catching a ferry from Nanaimo over to the mainland near the cosmopolitan city of Vancouver.  But as has been the story lately, Tramp had something to say.  His engine warning light had come on a day before so we went to a mechanic in Nanaimo to pull the code from the system.  It seems our number two cylinder was missing sometimes (as if everyone’s number two cylinder doesn’t sometimes miss a time or two!), so we went to a Ford dealer to buy some backup plugs, wires and a coil just in case.

Then it was off to the ferry terminal where we had to wait almost three hours before we could fit on a ferry.  But nothing could dampen a fabulous experience on this wonderful island!

Vancouver Island surprised us in a few ways – it was far more populated and civilised than we expected but it was also easy to jump off the main roads and dive into some of the most spectacular scenery we had seen for some time.  We didn’t have time to visit the more remote northern end of the island but, who knows, maybe next time.