We left London yesterday after frantic phone calls to Wildlife Trails as I had, while waiting for the car taking us to the airport, checked the BC ferry sailings from Tswasswen to Nanaimo - as you do! - and found the ones we wanted didn't run on Saturdays! So this morning we are waking up in Victoria, 160kms further south having caught the last sailing (9pm) to here instead. Our hotel booking was changed to the Accent Inn which we found with not too much trouble; quite tired after all our travelling we were in bed by 1130pm ish but woke at 4am, and made coffee, due to the 8 hour time difference. We decided that we might as well get up and leave as we had extra mileage to do, due to our ferry deviation, to get to our first stop at Tofino on the west coast of Vancouver island - we also didn't want to miss our bear watching tour at 2pm.
It was dark as we set off at 6am and there were autumn mists and some fog to navigate but the landscape was stunning - lots of conifers and coastal inlets. We got to Nanaimo at about 8am and stopped at a Tim Hortons coffee shop for breakfast. We were now back on track. As we left Nanaimo I spotted a deer family, our first wildlife, by the town sign and took this as a good omen. The roads were good but as we turned off towards Port Alberni and Tofino they became twister and narrower - still beautiful scenery.
We arrived in Tofino at 11 ish found Remote Passages who were organising our afternoon tour and checked in - we then found where are apartment was - it was still being cleaned but luckily we found we now entered with a code,not a key,so acquired that before heading off to explore the rustic chique of Tofino and have lunch at the organic coffee shop - we opted for delicious wraps and excellent coffee.
At 1330 we returned to Remote Passages had a briefing about our trip and watched a short film about the black bears. We also donned big red floatation suits and took the hats and gloves on offer(as they must have been on offer for a purpose and we had not brought ours!) We then boarded our zodiac and headed off to cruise the inland shores looking for wildlife - especially black bears who comb the shores at low tide looking for food especially crabs. Success we found two, our first was a young bear (today's picture) scouring the beach with an entourage of ravens hoping for titbits. We also saw a stellar sea-lion, a flying bald eagle and star fish ( purple and orange) and anemones exposed by the low tide. As we went back to port the sky was lit by rods of lightening - unusual because thunderstorms are not the norm here -needless to say it was the precursor to a wet night - but as long as the days are dry who minds!
A great first trip over we headed back to our apartment with its stunning views over the harbour and inlet.
An early night beckoned as we were finally wilting!