Wot, no whales?

Woke up this morning determined to go whale spotting. Got to the harbour. Hmmm... weather not ideal!

Fog, mist, cloud - whatever, we weren't going to see whales through it

So we drove up the coast, through the Pacific Rim National Park, heading for the end of the road - a village called Tofino (which Roger various refers to as Torremolinos or Tartufo). Lovely drive through more rain forest, stopping off for a picnic on the way. We weren't really worried that we appeared to be in a 'Tsunami Hazard Area'! 

In case of tsunami turn right

Or to find out when we got there that one of the little shops hired out crutches??

Because we'd learned how to escape from a rip current:

We went for a walk. The track through the forest was interesting.

A local told us there has been no recorded case of a wolf attacking a human in North America for many, many years. We didn't see one, anyway.

And at the end of the track, the sun came out and we discovered what Roger thinks must be the most beautiful beach in the world. It was amazing: Blue Pacific ocean, soft sand, weird drift wood, freaky rain forest all around and misty mountains, some of them with snow on top, fading into the distance.

The view to the left

The view to the right

Roger on a rock

Jill with her latest treasures

After an hour or so on the beautiful beach we went back to the village, had a wander and found what looked like a good restaurant overlooking the harbour. It was early, but Canadian restaurants open for dinner around 5.30pm; everyone seems to eat well before 7.30pm here. We had a really good meal - probably the best piece of fried cod I've ever tasted; fresh out of the sea today. Roger had oysters as a starter.

The view from our table: a float plane takes off

During dinner we watched the boats of whale watchers returning from their trips and the seaplanes coming in from their outings to find bears.

We didn't see any whales, but think we'll come back here one day, maybe as the start of our trip down the west US coast, and we'll go whale watching then.

Our waitress was rather sweet but a bit vague - she got our order wrong twice and she gave us a free glass of wine as compensation. When we paid she thanked us for putting up with her!

On the drive back to Ucluelet we stopped one more time, on another lovely beach, to say goodbye to this part of the island.

Bye bye Tofino

We're off earlyish in the morning to drive the four hours to Victoria. Tonight is our penultimate night in Canada. We're still having a wonderful time. Enjoying it all to the very last.