Long Beach

Here are the last installments of Long Beach on Vancouver Island. It is amazing in the summer with all the surfers and in the winter with all the storms. There is no weather that takes away from Long Beach.

The Cabin

We have been staying in a cozy log cabin for the week on Vancouver Island near Long Beach. We loved it. It had an outdoor hottub, internet connection, a loft bed, and pot-bellied stove. We were surrounded by forest and were a short walk to the beach.

Wild Pacific Trail

Nigel and I decided despite rain, wind and our continuous low grade flu we would take on the Wild Pacific Trail together. We did it over two days. The Trail runs along the western part of Vancouver Island on the open Pacific Ocean. The ocean is extremely rough and there are signs occasionally of being swept out to sea by big waves if you are on some of the rock ledges. The first day we did the lighthouse loop. It turned out to be easier than we thought. The path is very well maintained and could even be done with a baby buggy. This part was longer, but not as long as the map makes it look. We parked at one end and then just walked back through the whole trail again without stopping for the views (which took less than an hour).

Closed Trail

Not far from the cabin we are in is a trail that forks and leads down to two beaches...Halfmoon Bay and Florencia Bay. We thought we would explore both, but upon arrival at the fork in the path we came across the closed sign. We assumed perhaps a few boardwalk planks were in need of a few extra nails and decided that it couldn't be anything too serious. This is what we found... Sneaking past... Fallen logs and a broken boardwalk... We climbed under trees. We scrambled around huge roots of fallen trees.

Nigel and the Swing

In response to your question of whether Nigel ever made it up on that swing...no, he didn't for more than a few seconds. It was at his armpit height, was a swing on a teetering tree, and the tide was continually washing in. I did catch some great pictures of the attempts (or contemplation of an upcoming jump).