Vancouver Island Trip - Day 5

On Tuesday October 22nd there was a drastic improvement in the weather.  The guys and I were up early... at about 6:30AM.  We had a quick breakfast, loaded our gear, and hit the road by about 7:45AM.  It was a short drive down the old Island Highway to Buckley Bay.  Here we would catch the ferry.  The round trip cost up about a hundred bucks return.  This actually included two ferries... first a cable ferry across to Denman Island.  Then we had to drive across Denman Island and down to the south end to catch a second ferry at Gravelly Bay.  This one was not a cable ferry and traveled across to Shingle Spit on Hornby Island.  The whole process consumed nearly two hours and we would have to repeat the process at the end of the day to get back to Vancouver Island.  The Gulf Islands and the West Coast in general are beautiful, and a wonderful place to visit as a tourist.  But to leave here would be challenging.  Not only are the gloomy, overcast conditions of winter rather depressing, but to be married to the crazy ferry schedules, and saddled with the costs, would drive me insane.

After we left Shingle Spit we crossed Hornby Island and then headed over to Ford Cove.  Here there was a small marina, and a beach with some really interested weathered sandstone.  We photographed here for a while.  Later we stopped and wandered around a bit in an open meadow with some Garry Oaks and an old cedar split rail fence.

By early afternoon we made our way down to the south end of Hornby Island and went for a hike at Helliwell Provincial Park.  There are some open grassy meadows with a scattering of more Garry Oaks and a few Arbutus trees.  These are along some open bluffs exposed to the ocean.  Further inland the forest recedes into the more typical fir, hemlock, cedar and maples so common everywhere else.  We walked for about 4 or 5km on a loop trail around the park and stopped to make a couple of photographs.  By mid-afternoon the light was beginning to fade.  We had to constantly keep in mind the ferry schedule and make sure that we could be on time to make the connections to get back to Vancouver Island.  At this point in the off-season, and being the middle of the week, I think the last ferry of the day was around 6:00PM.

It was early evening by the time we got back to the house and followed what had become our usual routine.    ...Check e-mail messages from work, put something together for supper, relax and have a few beers, and then dig out the guitars.  It was certainly nice to not have any rain on this day as it made things a lot more pleasant and productive than the previous two.