Mas fino Tofino

We headed to the ferry terminal without a reservation.  The thought of sitting for hours with a 2.5 year old watching several ferries leave without us was not enticing.  Luckily, not only did we get on the next ferry after arriving, but Trish, Erik and Aspen did too.  So, we had a lot of fun riding on the ferry together, getting caught up and planning the next 4 days in Tofino.

After we got off the ferry, we headed in to do some grocery shopping.  While we were there, Erik asked if he could offload some weight onto our rig as he was right at his tow capacity for his borrowed Airstream.  So, we moved about 300lbs to ours and eventually shifted seats around for comfort.  Trish rode with Tim and they brought Georgia and Aspen (so much for naps along the way) and Karen and Erik drove slowly over the hills.    But not before we stopped to see the ‘Goats on the Roof’.  This is an attraction on Vancouver Island that apparently can’t be missed, because I think the entire island was there.  And when Trish told Karen to turn into the parking lot, she did.  Thank goodness someone was looking out for us because Tim said (at that time riding behind with Erik) that Karen missed hitting the trailer with the roof by a few inches.  But as Tim always says, an inch is as good as a mile.  Needless to say, after our break for lunch, Tim drove the rest of the way that day.  All the warnings about driving over to Tofino did pan out as it was not a relaxing journey.  However, as a result of our stops and slow pace (due to towing capacity), we took forever to get there.  Basically, Bre, Mark and Scarlett arrived an hour after us even though their ferry arrived 3 hours after ours!  The race was on to cook dinner.

As we had a large trailer, we’d booked a spot away from their camping site.  That meant that we had to coordinate evenings to accommodate sleeping children.  Luckily, Georgia was able to fall asleep in their trailer with Aspen and be transported and Scarlett was able to do the reverse.  During the day, all three children got on famously and had a blast together.

 

Erik reading bedtime stories after baths in our trailer

Tofino is known for its fog.  So, almost every morning was a slow start, lazing about and cooking breakfast together (including Erik’s famous paenekoken), then when the fog burns off, we head to the beach.  It truly is a stunning site to behold.

The first day we all went real estate shopping as Erik and Trish are considering buying up there.  The property was amazing and we all wished them the best of luck, thinking forward to our future visits!  We went for lunch at the ‘world-famous’ TacoFino.  

I have to say, they were the best fish tacos ever, especially the tuna ta-taco.  After that, we stayed on MacKenzie beach where our campsite was situated.  It was ideal, because there is a body of water that gets stranded after high tide.  It warms up, is still and is perfect for little people.

 On the second day, after a leisurely start, we headed out for a day trip to Florencia (Flo) Beach, one of Erik and Trish’s favourite surfing beaches.  With boards and wetsuits under arm, we all headed to the beach (Tim and Karen were not surfing that day!).  We plunked down in the sand and took turns watching the kids play in the surf and building sand castles.  The others tried surfing in full wetsuits, including booties and hood. 

 Our evening meals included filet steak, low country (shrimp) boil, bbq chicken, and the most amazing seafood boil, sourced from Trish and Erik’s local fisherman.  He actually rode his crab traps out on his surfboard and asked the commercial crabbers where to drop them.  Of course, after the kids went to bed and over the fire we roasted marshmallows.  Only this time there was a contest for the best roasting skills.  Tim won with his infamous ‘back-roasting’ technique.  It was fun to all sit together around the fire and shoot the conversation with friends while our kids snoozed.

We were sad to leave Tofino, however we passed on Erik and Trish’s invitation to stay for a couple more days because we were anxious to hit Salt Spring and finish our journey.  So Tim completed one last flush out of the trailer’s systems and we headed for the ferry.  Luckily, we pulled up just as it was loading and we were on the first ferry again without a reservation!