Tofino to Vancouver

I've been a bit lazy in updating, didn't get much of a chance in Vancouver. We left Tofino and hiked a trail through the Rainforest in the Pacific Rim as a last minute tour. All the rainforest out West is very dense and diverse. The trees are covered in moss and the ground is so uneven that the whole trail is on a boardwalk.

After that we headed off through known territory through the hills beside Lake Kennedy. These are the worst hills I've ever seen, steep and short. The worst one was an 18% grade, this may not seem very daunting but it is brutal, especially with 50 lbs of gear. Past the halfway point around Sutton summit we saw a black bear on the side of the road close to where I saw one on the way to Tofino. Yet again we passed by the gorgeous Sproat Lake where the road goes right by the lake with mountains on each side. We biked a total of 90 km and camped right of the highway by a little logging road.

Next day we biked into Port Alberni a little town between the mountains. We visited an old train station where a they still run a train from the start of the century. We had lunch at the harbour and devoured donuts from a local bakery. Delicious. The harbour area was pretty nice, all little wooden building from the train days. It was a nice long break, and after we began the climb to Alberni summit. It took us a good 40 min to climb to the summit which is at an elevation of 411 m. From the top its a smooth ride at 65 km/h down to Cathedral Grove. This is a little trail that contains some of hte oldest trees in Canada. We did half of the trail earlier, and now finished it off. We got some good pictures with the tallest tree in the park, a Douglas fir. It was tough because bus loads of tourists stop there to take pictures. Then we continued on to the East coast of the island where we stayed at Rathtrevor park with Mike's uncle. See the ocean again was awesome. We also witnessed our first of many West coast sunsets.

Next day we biked to Nanaimo and took a ferry over to Gabriola Island. It seems all the little island are gorgeous and undiscovered. There is a lot of sandstone on the island and it is a rock that erodes very easily. There's a spot called the Malasapina Galleries where the rock has been carved out so it there is a huge overhang overtop of a little cavern. This strethces for about 50 m so it looks like a wave from the profile. We sat there made dinner on my compace whisperlite stove, watched the sunset and rank local beer - Granville island cream ale.

Next day was a rest day also spent on the island. After that we took a ferry back to Nanaimo, did a bit of a tour around there, had an awesome nanaimo bar and then took a ferry to Vancouver.

More from there in a bit.