Before this trip I'd never heard of Tofino but after spending three days there methinks that it is a very cool place. To get there its a bit of a shlep, you get a car ferry from Vancouver that takes around one and a half hours and then you've got a three to four hour drive north west across Vancouver island to get there. It would probably be advantageous (not to mention more fun) to catch one of the sea planes that service the town from Vancouver and also Victoria. Its a fairly small beach/inlet community which seems to specialise in tourism mainly in the form of surfing and whale watching in the nearby Clayoquot Sound (world UNESCO biosphere reserve). It is spectacularly beautiful and has a really cool vibe. A bit like Byron was when I was growing up but with even less people.

Rain finally caught up with us here with a torrential down pour at around 9pm the night we got into the campground, this wasn't much fun to set up our tents in!! However when you consider that this was about the only significant rain I've hit in the last 20 days in a part of the world where its supposed to rain a lot we've been pretty lucky.

Went out whale watching and visited some phenomenal hot springs. The hot springs were about an hour and a half boat trip throughout many of the islands that dot the Sound. The views all the way were spectacular and I'd have to say that the springs were the best I've visited, located on the edge of the sea with sea water rushing in to a narrow gorge which contained the stream exiting from a spring at about 50 degrees C. It was fairly crowded as a lot of tour boats dumped there but it was still cool (well hot actually). Didn't see any whales on the way back (humpback or orcas) but I was pretty happy with the sea eagle, sea otters and sealions. I also went on a sea kayaking in the sound the following day, it was very relaxing and pretty but nowhere near long enough, this would be a very cool place for getting a sea kayak and going out camping for a week or so.

Victoria was also a very cool city, we only spent and afternoon and evening there but it was very tourist friendly and had some fantastic bars.