New Book

I have just completed the second "draft" of my most recent photo book which you can check out by clicking on the book below. To turn the pages just click on the page or the arrow(s) at the bottom of the display. You can view it in full screen by clicking on the full screen icon in the bottom right hand corner of the display, but for some reason many of the photos are quite grainy, at least on my screen, so definitely no where near the quality of the printed photos.

Tofino and Ucluelet, British Columbia by Richard Pickering | Make Your Own Book

Thursday

A brief rain shower early this morning then sunny breaks until just afternoon when skies cleared giving us lots of sun and, no surprise to anyone who has visited this area, lots of wind.

We had a relaxed morning, walked the beach and then went into Tofino and spent some time savouring the art of Roy Vickers in the gallery before dropping Michael off at the surfing place.

Rod and I went back to the Wild Pacific Trail for a short walk on the northern part of the trail where Rod had not been before. Took a few photos but the wind was so strong it was difficult to hold the camera steady on the overlook areas so that part of the walk was aborted.

We came back to the house and Chesterman beach around 4pm hoping to find and get some photos of Michael and his surfing colleagues on our beach. We found the tide extremely low exposing a very wide beach but no surfers! They had gone somewhere else, so there are no photos of Michael skimming over the waves.  :-)

Then, good food and drinks and our second sunset; a great way to close our last day here.

Wednesday

This morning we got up to partial sun! That was good news as we were off to Tofino at 11 am to catch our boat to the Hot Springs Cove in Maquinna Marine Provincial Park in Clayoquot Sound, about an hour and a half north of Tofino. The sea was acceptably quiet (about 1.5 meter swells - which looked and felt like more than that to me!) for us to take the open ocean route, with the potential for seeing a whale or two.

Our first "sighting" was a cluster of Sea Lions, lolling about on several rocks

Remember to click on any photo to see a larger version.

Our sharp eyed driver and guide, Eugene, had been told by another guide that there were 3 grey whales not far from where we were and we were lucky to spot them, or at least their blowhole water spouts which we saw several times.

The boat was rocking relentlessly so it was difficult to get photos, but, though I didn't actually see the whale, my camera did see this whale's back, and duly recorded it! They were really surfacing only to breath so we didn't see much else, but it was exciting to be close to these whales.

 We arrived at the Hot Springs marina (some of us feeling a bit queasy) where we learned that we had a 2 Km hike before getting to the hot springs.

The sign that says it is 2 Km it fails to mention that it is really 4 Km - 2 Km horizontally and 2 Km vertically!

Though pretty vigorous for me, this walk through old growth forest was an unexpected treat, rivalling, though different from, Cathedral Grove. I don't know if there are any 800 year old trees here, but there are lots of very large trees, and some seemed close to the size of tree we saw in Cathedral Grove (see photo below with Michael standing beside one of the larger trees).

The walk was entirely on this boardwalk and there were many ups and downs like the one here.

This is a photo of the hot springs area with some folks enjoying the warmth.

Rod and Michael immersed themselves in the hot springs - I did not. It was rocky and a bit tricky getting into the pools so I decided I would rather postpone my "hot springs" experience until we got back to our hot tub. And because of the rocky area I did not get photos of Rod or Michael in the water.

The trip back was through the endless islands between the park and Tofino and Eugene was confident that we would see and get quite close to bears on the way. We didn't, unfortunately.

 But Eugene's sharp eye spotted a group of sea Otters and was able to get quite close to them, so we got some pretty good photos of them relaxing in the water and seeming to be as curious about us as we were about them.

Near the end of our trip back to Tofino Eugene stopped near an island to show us a large eagle nest. He said that it had been there for about 25 years and that a similar nest near by had been found to weigh around 1200 pounds! There was an eagle in the nest (which I didn't see) and another perched, as you see in the adjacent photo. Not a great photo but I think good enough to be quite sure it is a bald eagle.


A great day, again, and the weather was good to us again - partially sunny and pleasantly warm with no rain at all.

It was such a terrific day that we decided to stay Thursday and return to Abbotsford on Friday, which gave Michael the time to arrange his surfing lesson on Thursday afternoon. The lessons take place just behind our house so there should be some interesting photos in the next post.

Tuesday

We woke up to overcast and off and on rain this morning. Rod was out for an early walk and got caught in one of the brief downpours.

Remember to click on any photo to see larger views.

We had decided that today we would walk the Wickaninnich beach this morning, so that's where we started. It was raining when we arrived there so spent some time in the interpretive centre before heading out. We lucked out as the rain stopped and we had a bit of sun from time to time with occasional bits of misty rain.

As you can see from the above photos, the weather was constantly changing.

 Another image of the changing weather conditions and the vigorous surf action.

This was more of a photo op than a walk, so as there were frequent stops to watch the very active ocean and to try to capture that action, we didn't walk far.

For lunch we headed for Uclulet and a healthy lunch at Jigger's fish and chips wagon.

 After lunch two of us walked the northern portion of the Wild Pacific trail - about 8.4 Km in total but we started in the middle so walked only about 3 or 4 Km.

With photo stops along this incredible trail that relatively short distance took us a couple of hours. But what amazing views of the rocky pacific coast!

 These photos fall far short of capturing it.

 About 3:30 or so we headed home - it was sunny when we left the Uclulet area so we had visions of drinks on the deck, but once again the capricious weather produced more rain, so drinks had to be inside.

Later, more weather changes produced some sun and the sunset we had been hoping for. Another perfect end to the day.

Saturday, Sunday and Monday

The last post skipped to Butchart's Gardens, leaving out our ferry trip on Saturday, so a couple of photos from that then on to Sunday.

On Sunday we were off to Cathedral Grove en-route to our house on Chesterman Beach, with a couple of food shopping stops along the way.

Cathedral Grove is a small area of preserved old growth forest, donated to the province by MacMillan-Blodel. And it is an awe inspiring place appropriately named with huge 800 year old trees and dense undergrowth covered with thick moss.

I found it difficult to get any good photos here but include a few of the more interesting ones.

At around 5 pm we arrived at our "Tofino Beach house", which is actually on Chesterman beach a bit south of the town of Tofino.

What a great place to spend our next few days! All the amenities and space we anticipated including a hot tub and great view of the ocean.

After excellent food and wine, some hockey we sampled the hot tub before turning in.

Monday it was overcast and raining. We drove to Uclulet and, during off and on rain and increasing wind, walked the "Wild Pacific Coast Trail" with it's great views of the rocky coast.

Above, Michael in one of his off trail jaunts and, adjacent, the Uclulet light house and Rod.



Lunch at the Bluebeach restaurant then home around 3 pm.

 The weather improved substantially so we were able to get some interesting photos on the beach behind our house.

More excellent food and wine, hockey, photo processing and mutual admiration of our photos - the end of a superb day!