Showing posts with label vancouver island. Show all posts
Showing posts with label vancouver island. Show all posts

Thursday, July 16, 2009

Vancouver Island

The city of Victoria is indeed the most popular destination on Vancouver Island, but we blew right past the tea and crumpets and a wonderful opportunity to pretend we were British. And Old. And Aristocrats.

Rather, we drove to the China Beach campground and enjoyed some Canadian microbrews. I had a fine nap while Lauren took Scout to the nearby beach, and in the mean time the camp host delivered a nice bundle of firewood right to our campsite. This campground boasts some very nice spacious sites and is a short hike from China Beach with views of the Olympic Peninsula. From this beach you can hike to the start of the 30-mile San Juan de Fuca Marine Trail, which follows along the coastline. It is very popular for backpacking, and with a hike of only a few miles you can camp directly on several beaches.

We did the stretch from China Beach to Mystic Beach on a trail that was adapted to the heavy deadfall. At any time we could have been on a North Shore mountain bike trail with all of the wooden bridges and ladders that carried us over old stumps and fallen trees. There is even a cable suspension bridge that crosses a deep ravine. Scout was not a fan of the metal grating on the bridge and instead decided to take the more difficult route down into the ravine and back up the steep side.