Tofino Trees and Sand

Perfect Sand at Combers Beach, Tofino

Us four at the island at Schooner's Cove.

Salt crystals at Incinerator Point

Sand weary feet................................

From Combers Beach

If a tree falls in the forest, can anyone hear it? I guess so...trail at Combers Beach was closed partway..........................

Inlet at Incinerator Point.....usually filled with water.....low tide now.

Massive twisted tree roots on trail at Schooner's Cove. I thought that trail was the best.

Tree hugging...a must.....at Schooner's Cove

Moss warts (that's what I called them) in the trees at Schooner's Cove. The birds were using them as nests)

Kelp. Love this shot. Looks slimy and slippery....great on the garden, by the way.

The island at Schooner's cove. The sand makes a natural boardwalk between the main land and the island......low tide.

Fungii...............................not edible.

Post nasal drip on the trees.

Boardwalk at Schooner's Cove...really outstanding. Trees left in natural state.

Climbing into the forest to get to the beach. Schooner's Cove is unique.

Old WW 2 path, leading down from Radar Lookout.

The Sound, from Radar Lookout.

Another view of the sound from radar lookout. Wild.

Gotta love that Sand and Dirt

It was a work based trek. Easy. All we had to do was bask in the dirt and sand that belonged to Tofino. Promises of bear watching, whale watching and sand. Well, the sand part was a sure thing.No one said anything about the roller coaster ride .........
Whoosh! Whoosh! Zing! That was us, roaring down a road so twisty, I felt like a cruller at the end. Wasn't that fun? That was the question . Fun is such an odd little word. It was kind of cool counting the motor homes swooshing down the steep turns, wondering if any of them would make it. How far was Tofino, again?
When we arrived, nothing was ready. No parking spaces either at the end of a dead end street, resembling a black hole. Had to wait three hours till the room was ready. Do you kow how many motor homes we counted, coming down that street, only to do U turns. It got to be a game. The "resort" (and I use that term loosely) was in a time warp. Not sure what kind of time warp, but they weren't going to beam us up, at any time soon. Tofino seems to be in a constant state of "Hey, man....groovy, far out". This "resort" had been advertized as a memorable stay. Memorable is a good way to look at it.
I wasn't expecting the Empress, but I wasn't thinking there would be a smell.....such a smell....sniff, sniff...... musty mold. Mold along the windows, stuffed into the tile floors, cracks and gauges in the walls, pink slime in the tub and sinks. Moldy rust stuck in the crevasses of sliding doors, leading out to the rotting, mossy deck. Don't jump on the deck....it wobbles up and down. Dishes in kitchen cupboards still encrusted with someone else's food. And then there were the couches........ever been swallowed up by metal and thinning fabric? Hideabeds, they were labelled......unchanged; old , crunchy Nacho chips crackling their way to the floor. Ugh. Small bugs ( I didn't look that closely) marching their way to the outside world, until we smash them in a glorious combat.
And still that smell.....I knew I should have brought cleaning supplies...
Best way to get away from the stench, was to wander around and meet the locals. Interesting bunch.Seem to live on their own plane of existence. Went to the local art gallery, and talked to a local sales lady who was expecting a baby, any moment, it looked like. She said she was going to Comox to have the baby, as the local hospital in Tofino had lost babies in the past. Quite a few, in fact. Sometimes the air lift hadn't come in time. She did tell me there were a number of women who chose to have their babies at home, or in the bush. What a choice.
Walking down the main drag was not what I expected. Hardly heard English being spoken at all. Like a melding pot. I wondered, a little forlornly, if their rooms had black mold and smelly sock syndrome......................
Didn't need any cleaning at the Botanical Gardens. Just the real dirt at this place.Soooo low key, soooo relaxed. Honour system , any time of day, it never closed. Great place to sit and have coffee, read a book, debate the properties of manure on the artichokes growing by the entrance. Ahhhh.......great dirt.
Speaking of which......never saw anything quite as ahhhhhhh, as Long Beach. Definitely could live on that beach, with all the sand pipers. That means I'd have to become a surfer. Watched the surfers congregate in the ocean, waiting for that perfect wave. Just floating with the kelp, everything so right-eousss..... I wouldn't have to worry about mold....great sand.
But for now, it's time to be one with the bugs........have another day of mold to tolerate.....sniff, sniff.........

Tofino...Day two....Land, Sand and Bog

LAND............................This is where we were today. Not your usual Botanical Garden...much more earthy and creative. Sculptures line the walkways.......plants grow naturally, and wildly. Not a lot of manicured lawn.

Curved wood twists its way around benches and platforms.........

Dancing couple....just love this.....so much life, so much happiness......

Hobbit bridge....have to bend down to get through

I call this the "Yes Dear", sculpture......you can just imagine what they're talking about.

On golden pond

Lilies

Twisted trunks

Wire man greets you as you come out from the rain forest.

Great sitting area in the centre of the Gardens.

Artichokes grown in raised beds.

SAND.............................................

Wikinnish Lookout, Tofino. Love sand almost more than dirt!

Surfers sit in the cold waves, waiting like a pack of killer whales, for a single wave to catch and take them sailing into shore. Cold August day to be surfing.....

Wikinnish Rocks


BOG........................................................

Shorepine Bog is really fascinating. It looks like a broccoli forest. Ancient, gnarled trees, rise above a mossy surface. The bog hosts a strange forest.

Trees, deprived of adequate nutrition,suffer stunted growth and malformed limbs. The soil is acidic and waterlogged. A lack of the mineral phosophorous inhibits upward growth of the tree tip, causing it to branch sideways. That's why most of them look like big bunches of broccoli.

Slow to grow, slow to die, some of these trees are about 300 years old.

A full sized forest once grew here. 20,000 years ago the Long Beach area was covered with a sheet of ice, about 300 metres thick. About 12,000 years ago the glaciers melted, leaving huge quantities of clay, sand and gravel.

The boardwalk was created to "float" along the moss, and it tends to move and buckle as you walk along. Kind of like walking in a forest created by Dr. Seuss........

Not Dirt....Sand.....Tofino and Long Beach Day 1

4 as shadow puppets....I think we have a new calling

So, taking a break from dirt........going to focus on sand.......really like this sand. Long Beach. Tofino. On the farthest west coast of Vancouver Island, British Columbia.

Fog rolls in on a daily basis, at all times of day. This is about 6 pm.

Dale walks along the expanse. Hardly anyone around at this time of day. Perfect weather as well.

Stephen with Morgan and Dale

Yours truly and the girls, standing in wet and cold and frothy pacific ocean

Stick feet in sand.....amaze yourself at its squooshiness.....cleaner than dirt.

Beautiful Long Beach

Surfing......one glorious past time at Long beach...

Looking towards first rays of sunset, and lots of sand to squelch.

At Duffinn Cove outcropping...not so much sand as rock......

Fascinated by leaf study.....lots of dead stuff at Duffin Cove.....................

Old trees....they grow in the old dirt, and are very leggy.I imagine that if they could, they would pull their roots out of the dirt and walk away into the ocean....

Moss hangs off the old trees at Duffin Cove.................

From the dock at Tofino.....more fog, more and more and more of it......

Last of the Sweet Peas

"Beauty is an all-pervading presence. It unfolds to the numberless flowers of the spring; it waves in the branches of the trees and in teh green blades of grass; it haunts the depths of the earth and the sea, and gleams out in the hues of the shell and the precious stone............

"And not only these minute objects , but the ocean, the mountains, the clouds, the heavens, the stars, the rising and the setting sun all overflow with beauty. " ( William Ellery Channing)